It was not until 1929, eleven years after the end of World War I, that England had its first memorable “anti-war” play (Sean O’Casey’s THE SILVER TASSIE being Irish) and that one was largely accidental. Robert C. Sherriff, a junior insurance was called upon by his boat club to write an all-male play and he complied with JOURNEY’S END. But, as soon as Sherriff tasted play-writing, he became enthused, abandoned insurance for artistic creativity, and persisted in marketing JOURNEY’S END until it was commercially produced. Once on the boards, it was a tremendous success, both popularly and critically, and Sherriff seemed destined to become one of England’s most important post-war dramatists. Unfortunately, however, he was never able to match his first theatrical achievement.

By contemporary standards the “anti-war” message of JOURNEY’S END is quite muted. Sherriff certainly creates a believable milieu, demonstrates that combat is an unpleasant experience, and points out the insensitivity of those who plan and carry out the war from a distance, using combat troops as mere pawns in a grand design. But the absolute necessity of the war and the correctness of the long-range vision of those who oversee it are never questioned. However meaningless the men’s activities may seem to the contemporary reader, Sherriff leaves no doubt that there is purpose in their sacrifice. War, he suggests, is a necessary evil, and the important thing is to face up to it with intelligence and courage. Thus, the lasting importance of JOURNEY’S END lies not in its rhetoric, but in its dramatic potency and psychological insights.

In spite of its context of combat violence, JOURNEY’S END is, for the most part, a leisurely play. Most of the action occurs offstage, and except for the final moments, the pacing is deliberately slow. The atmosphere in the trenches is one of anxious boredom as the men wait for the big German assault. To escape the tedium and forget the sudden destruction and death hovering about, they indulge in aimless banter, stale jokes, and a kind of grotesque parody of domesticity. But the more casual the men try to be, the more tense the atmosphere becomes.

The play focuses on the contrasting reactions of the five officers. Each of them has his own special “defense” against the pressures of combat. Lieutenant Osborne, the second in command, is the most stable of the five. A middle-aged schoolteacher in peacetime, he has managed to keep himself under control by scrupulously separating his civilian and military roles and by viewing the entire process with an ironical distance and detachment. Throughout most of the action, Second Lieutenant Trotter seems to be an unimaginative clod, until he reveals, in a heated exchange with Stanhope, that he has suppressed his imagination as a way of keeping his emotions in hand. Second Lieutenant Hibbert has no effective defense at all and so, when denied the chance to malinger out of combat, he cracks. Only Stanhope’s threat to kill him on the spot forces Hibbert to a precarious self-control. Second Lieutenant Raleigh, fresh from training, is still buoyed up by the cliches of military honor and personal glory; given the almost suicidal mission to kidnap a German soldier in the face of the enemy’s fire, he says “it’s most frightfully exciting.” But, once exposed to active fighting and the death of Osborne, he quickly sheds these cliches, comes to understand the anguish and fears of his companions, and dies with stoic courage at the final curtain.

But the most interesting and important study of a man under pressure is that of the Commanding Officer, Captain Dennis...