Birdsong (play) Birdsong (play) Birdsong was a 2010 adaptation of the novel of the same title by Sebastian Faulks. The text was written by Rachel Wagstaff and the premiere production was directed by Trevor Nunn. That production began previews at the Comedy Theatre in London on September 18, 2010, and opened on September 28, 2010. The West End stage production's cast included Ben Barnes as Stephen Wraysford, Genevieve O'Reilly as Isabelle, Nicholas Farrell as René Azaire, Iain Mitchell as Bérard, Lee Ross as Jack Firebrace and Zoe Waites as Jeanne. Other cast members included Owain Arthur, Billy Carter, Florence Hall, Paul Hawkyard,
Birdsong (novel) human endurance" and explore the effect of carnage on the psyche. A reviewer for "Kirkus Reviews" also highlighted this theme, writing that "the war, here, is Faulks's real subject, his stories of destroyed lives, however wrenching, only throwing its horror into greater relief and making it the more unbearable". The contemporary historian Simon Wessley describes the novel, alongside Barker's "Regeneration", as an exemplar of contemporary fiction which uses the experience of the World War I trenches to examine more contemporary understandings of PTSD. De Groot argues that this reinvestigation of a traumatic history mirrors a growing interest among both literary