10 million soldiers and 7 million civilians died in World War 1. Many historians feel that the Treaty of Versailles, which was signed on 28th June 1919, far from ensuring an enduring peace actually precipitated World War 2. Peter Gill takes his inspiration from John Maynard Keynes’ The Economic Consequences of Peace, which argued in 1919 for less brutal retribution. The French wanted to keep Germany as weak as possible. The British maintained that it would be fatal economically not only for Germany but for Europe as well. The decisions and misjudgements made in Versailles have ramifications for us all today.
Gill explores the impact of the war, the Treaty and the peace on a group of upper middle class people. The result is a trenchant debate. The dialogue is of the most literate kind and, acted as it is in a handsome Edwardian drawing-room setting, Versailles feels like a well-upholstered drama by Harley Granville Barker, all talk, full of long erudite speeches, and so concentrated that it makes huge demands on actors and audience alike.
The main personage is a minor civil servant (Gwilym Lee) serving in the British legation. A socialist, his idealism is quickly dashed and he resigns. His sister (Tamla Kari) does not want to marry a shell-shocked young man (Josh O’Connor) traumatised by the horrors he had witnessed in the front line. The civil servant, a Keynesian-like figure, is haunted throughout the play by the ghost of his best friend and lover (Tom Hughes), who died in the War, and is there to prick his conscience and remind him that nothing will change unless the middle classes do something about it.
Peter Gill directs and there are also first-rate, reliable performances by Francesca Annis and Barbara Flynn as grieving mothers and by Adrian Lukas and Simon Williams, who represent the old order of self-interest and the status quo. Versailles is the sort of play you come out of the theatre wanting to read the text.