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Heroes
Three elderly World War I veterans plot a new assault—a trip to a stand of trees in the distance
From left: John Cullum, Jonathan Hogan and Ron Holgate
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The French title of this 2002 play by Gerald Sibleyras translates to mean approximately “Wind in the Poplars,” but the English translation from acclaimed playwright Tom Stoppard got the title Heroes in order to differentiate it from The Wind in the Willows. The first production of the play took the 2006 Olivier Award for Best New Comedy.
Heroes, starring John Cullum and Tony Roberts, follows three old men living in a French military hospital in 1959. They dream of escaping the life they are confined to. Each man’s character is revealed through his choice in destination. Gustav, new to the hospital, fanaticizes about taking the men to Southeast Asia when in truth he is agoraphobic. Henri, perhaps too much of a realist due to a bad leg, only wishes to have a picnic somewhere nearby. Phillippe, subject to blackouts due to a piece of shrapnel in his skull, believes he must escape the hospital to avoid a plot against him. The destination: the poplar grove just over the hill, visible in the distance from the terrace on which the play takes place.
The old men pin their hopes on the distant grove, a lovely image to build a play on, and one that comes off beautifully by most accounts. Stoppard told the London Telegraph, “…There are no one-liners. It’s a much more a truthful comedy than a play of dazzling wit. It’s a kind of exquisite pain. You feel rather mean for laughing at these characters because, for them, there is nothing amusing about their plight.”
The characters are veterans of World War I, and Sibleyras conveys how war changes young men’s perception of mortality, and how the mental and physical damage of war confines them. Much has been made of the play’s similarity to Waiting for Godot. But in contrast to Godot’s famously indefinite themes, Heroes covers specific aspects of the human condition. The similarity is mostly situational in that the main characters, males, actually go nowhere. In Heroes, these men are not waiting; they plan fanciful undertakings that are impossible due to their limitations.
The Obie-winning Keen Company endeavors to produce “sincere” plays. Founder and director of Heroes, Carl Forsman, told Curtain Up, “With the Keen Company, I set out to prove that plays which are emotionally generous can also be sophisticated, and complicated, and present a real, multidimensional picture of humanity.” Heroes, a play about how experience imposes limits on our lives, is a goal accomplished.