Saskatoon play tells the stories of the Canadian artists sent to document wars

An upcoming performance at Persephone Theatre highlights the impact of art and artists during wartime.

Opening Thursday night, The Art Of War is a performance that combines real events and people with fictitious characters to highlight the role of war artists during the Second World War.

The idea came to local playwright Yvette Nolan when she visited the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau in 2000. The museum featured an exhibit of 70 paintings depicting the First and Second World Wars.

“They had all of this war art that had been in storage spaces,” said Nolan. “I was shocked. I was shocked that we had sent artists to war to document war. And that started me thinking.”

The play focuses on the Second World War, and it highlights the evolution of documenting wars through different mediums, representing different periods.

“The difference between photography and film and art in this period in time, more people had seen a photograph than had seen a painting,” said actor Joshua Beaudry. “And the artists were able to able to filter the image through their own perspective and their own lens. So different artists would glorify war, others may show the horrors of war.”

Nolan had hoped to open this performance in 2021, but the pandemic forced her to shelve the project.

Since the cast and crew have returned to rehearsals, escalating conflicts around the world make the subject matter resonate even more.

“Just in the past month because of what’s been happening in the escalations in the Middle East, our conversations about war are taking on another level at the present moment,” said Skye Brandon, who plays multiple roles.

Nolan says before the war, there wasn’t much of a Canadian visual arts identity or existence.

When many of the Canadian art icons returned home, their experience on the battlefield transformed them, and Canadians.

“It was seen as elitist,” she said. “And when the artists went to war and came back, suddenly it was like a Canadian connection to what happened in those places. So really, I feel the war artists contributed to Canada’s idea of itself.”

The Art Of War opens Thursday night followed by nightly performances Friday and Saturday. The final show will be Sunday afternoon at Persephone Theatre.