Interview: Shane O'Regan on a young soldier's experience of WWI in PRIVATE PEACEFUL

The Irish Times Best Actor nominee Shane O'Regan stars in PRIVATE PEACEFUL, Simon Reade's stage adaptation of the novel by Michael Morpurgo, the celebrated author of War Horse. This story of World War One charts the life of a young soldier, Thomas 'Tommo' Peaceful, who faces the firing squad for cowardice.

After critically acclaimed tours across Ireland in 2017 and 2018, the production recently embarked on a tour of the U.S. and is now playing at Chicago's Greenhouse Theater. I had the opportunity to interview Shane O'Regan and discuss the tragedy of WWI, the beauty of Michael Morpurgo's writing, and the challenge of playing 24 characters in a one-man show.

PRIVATE PEACEFUL is a story about World War One, told through the life of a young English soldier. Could you tell me about the main character, Tommo Peaceful, and his experience of the war?

He's a young kid, quite naïve in certain ways. He gets swept up in this mentality of "go over and fight for glory," so that's where his naivety really shines through. He witnessed his dad dying when he was very young, so he looked up to his brother. He's very family-oriented. One of his lines is, "I love my family, and Molly, and the countryside I grew up in, and I will do anything to protect them." So that's why he goes off and fights.

He's a real straight shooter as well. If he sees something wrong, he says it, which gets him into trouble in this play. But he's also a really open and loving kind of person. He's just a good human.

It's heartbreaking looking back at that era and the mindset toward war.

They hadn't a clue. There was no conflict on this scale up until then. They didn't know anything about the tactics of war either. There's a journal about fighting a war, and they considered a machine gun a defensive thing. So if the Germans were firing a machine gun at you, they'd go, "They're being defensive; charge them." So you'd run into machine gun fire, which is ridiculous.

I went to Belgium, because the grave that [author Michael Morpurgo] based this name on is right outside of Ypres, where a lot of the story is based. Some of these kids don't even have names; it's just "a fallen soldier," because they didn't know who it was. But for a lot of these kids, the main ages are between 17 and 21.

And Michael Morpurgo wrote the book with this history in mind: these young men went off to fight, never having experienced anything like it-and then so many were executed by their own army.

It's pretty insane; about 3,000 were scheduled, but only about 300 were shot. They finally figured out what shell shock was, so that was sometimes used as a cause. But in rehearsal, we had an actual sheet from a court martial. He'd been court-martialed because he ran away from a battle, and they found him not guilty due to shell shock. Then General Haig-who did not know how to command an army, who was just sending people off to die-drew a line over "not guilty" and wrote, "If we let him away with it, everyone will claim this. Shoot him."

Two guys were shot because they fell asleep; they were up for two days on watch, and they fell asleep for a couple of minutes and were shot. The worst thing is that when you're shot for cowardice, you have to be shot by your own unit. So your friends shoot you.

And there was a disproportionate amount of Irish people shot because we staged a rebellion during WWI-the Easter Rising. So any time an Irish person was convicted, there was no chance of them getting off, because they were seen as rebels. They were shot right away.

As an Irish actor playing an English soldier, and previously touring Ireland with this production, how has the experience been for you?

I'm the first Irish person, and the first non-British person, to do it. I didn't know anything about WWI because it's not really taught in our curriculum. It's seen as "not our war." But then, people just loved it.

I think this is all down to Michael Morpurgo, because he's such a brilliant writer. He writes very universally, so this kid could be from anywhere. You fall in love with him throughout the story because it's so well written. There's this brilliant music to the writing, where he literally ages through the show. In the way he speaks and reacts to things, he is a different person at the end of the play, which is amazing.

This is a one-man show, and you play 24 characters. How did you prepare for that?

We didn't want any characters to be caricatures. There was a discussion: do you have Tommo telling the story the whole time, and he's doing his version of these people? We decided no, let's give these people their day in court, and be them, become them.

I was cast in January of 2017, and we didn't start until May. I had jobs up until then and was running a company that was also going full-time, so in my spare time, I'd write out notes on little sheets and then stick them to my wall. My wall was full of the backstory of the characters, so I had it in my head and was ready to just play with them.

Could you speak about working with director Simon Reade, who also adapted the play?

He's an incredible man, an incredible director. He's a really great person. When I first came in, I knew of all the actors who had done it before me. But immediately, Simon said, "I want to create this show with you, so you show me what you want to do."

While we were rehearsing in Dublin, he was seeing all the monuments to the Easter Rising, and I mentioned that my great-grandfather fought for the British army. I really wanted to get something in about the Irish, because it's such a non-talked-about thing. It was seen as shameful to fight for the British army at that time. Simon allowed us to change the name of a character, Captain Wilkinson, to Captain Carney, and we now play him Irish.

But funnily enough, I was fighting for that when I was still getting into Tommo's accent. Then when I switched back to an Irish accent, it was so hard to get back into Tommo's accent. I thought, "I've literally shot myself in the foot here!"

After touring Ireland with this production in 2017 and 2018, you recently brought it to New York and Pennsylvania. Was it a very different experience performing for American audiences?

Yeah, I've never been so scared in my life! But my off-Broadway debut was an incredible experience; that city is incredible. Being in America is amazing. I've loved everywhere we've gone so far. I'd been to New York once before, but ever since we left New York, everywhere is new. I've never been to Easton (Pennsylvania), never been to Philly, never been to Chicago, and I've never been to Austin, Texas, which is next.

American audiences may not be as familiar with WWI since it's not taught as much over here either. In your experience, what do audiences take away from PRIVATE PEACEFUL?

It's so ranging; people tune into different things. One woman came up to me in tears, because there's a gas attack in the show, and her great-grandfather died from a gas attack. So she clung on to that bit specifically. But in broad strokes: the pointlessness of war, who's doing the fighting and who's causing it, the waste of life that WWI was-and war in general. I think war is a bit more of a topic over here; Ireland is neutral, but over here it's hitting closer to the bone. I think the pointlessness of war is what people really take home.

See Shane O'Regan in PRIVATE PEACEFUL through November 11 at the Greenhouse Theater, 2257 N. Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60614. Tickets are available at 773-404-7336 or greenhousetheater.org.

Interview by Emily McClanathan

Photo credit: Ahron R. Foster