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April 21, 2006

'Boots on the Ground': Theater by us, for us, about us

I saw this play by accident. Yesterday was my brother's birthday, and he emailed that he'd been invited to Trinity to see Boots on the Ground. There were two more tickets, and would Joe and I like to come?

Joe was an early technical director at Trinity, so he was game. I'm on vacation, and out of the loop. I spent the day puttering with pansies and weeds, not investigating the play. I had only a vague idea what was to come, and no notion that I'd be up late blogging it.

T. Charles Erickson photo Richard Donelly, foreground, Joe Wilson, Jr., left rear, and Stephen Thorne personify dozens of Rhode Islanders in Boots on the Ground at Trinity Rep.

Boots on the Ground at Trinity Rep is a 90-minute documentary enacted by actors speaking the actual words of Rhode Islanders interviewed about their involvement with the Iraq war. Some of the actual characters were in the theater seats last night.

Thirty-something Gretchen Deitch of North Kingstown, whose very young son Nathaniel -- 19 when he was deployed -- was present and portrayed by Stephen Thorne, said coming to Trinity was unusual for her. Theater is perceived as being elite, it's not something she does.

Tonight changed that.

Boots is about us, about the lives of Rhode Islanders with whom you cross paths in hospital lobbies, in the supermarket and at wakes. The play gives voice and physical presence to their experience -- the Guard members deployed, their wives at home, wives also deployed, parents.

One of Rachael Warren's compelling characters speaks in a gentle but unmistakable Rhode Island accent; Richard Donelly portrays my boss, Journal executive editor Joel Rawson, with startling accuracy.

The set is a sloping wooden platform in a sandbox, relieved only by occasional back projections in silhouette of John Friedah's Iraq photos. Characters shift by announcing their names, by changes of jacket, or by the donning and doffing of a bulletproof vest. Dozens of characters come and go in 30-second clips; some reappear several times. Death is left to Joe Wilson, Jr., and and it visits three times.

Trinity has gone out there and done journalism in the round. Boots aims to be less a morality play than a quickened Spoon River Anthology of the living members of a small group deeply and personally affected by the Iraq war. Ordinary people become archetypes as their stories spill out, from goodbyes at Green airport through camel spiders, heat, sand and adrenaline to post-traumatic stress disorder, and strained marriages. One drives in the middle of the road, so he cannot drive. Wanting to be back with buddies they've bonded with, who understand, is common, too. A wife becomes a roommate. A priest, a specialist in prosthetics for amputees and a psychiatrist weigh in.

T. Charles Erickson Anne Scurria, left, and Rachael Warren.

This is a recounting of this time in the lives of people you may only see on the six o'clock news, meeting military planes with babies and bands and balloons. These military families aren't reading political blogs and debating WMD, they're just getting through deployment as best they can. They're serving. But at the end, the play goes dark on a question -- whether war is worth it.

A soldier (Anne Scurria) does wonder, "Why are we here?" and a wife says you can't support the troops if you don't support what they're doing. But, except for noting that the Iraq war doesn't touch the lives of most of us, there's not a lot of politics in this.

That comes later, at the half-hour discussion that follows every performance.

A range of opinions come out there, shyly at first. The first speaker is a stepfather who took his boy to the recruiting office, after long discussions with him, and then spent two years fearing that if something happened to the young man, both father and mother would blame him.

A college student against the war takes issue with the claim that you can't support the troops if you don't support the war. She wishes them well, and wishes they weren't there in the first place.

A man asks how we can get our government back. A WW2 veteran sees all wars downhill from that one. A woman hopes the script will be made available to college theater groups to perform. A Guardsman says he's not into politics -- in this war, staffed by state militias rather than random groups of Americans, you serve with the guys you grew up with. A wife who is a central character in Boots said she felt that she had served, too, that all the families did. She was an army brat, one of four kids left with her mother during the Vietnam war, before support groups, and cell phone and Internet connections to war zones.

The state's new adjutant general, Major Gen. Robert T. Bray, sought out the reticent and embarassed writers, Laura Kepley, who also directed, and "Deb" (D. Salem Smith), for an impromptu award ceremony.

Host Pam Steager, a former Providence Phoenix columnist, encourages all of it, and ends it hoping this is just the beginning of the Iraq conversation.

This "second act" was the theatrical equivalent of blog comments, but far more immediate: People who had shared a powerful experience reacted publicly in a physical space in realtime. Rhode Islanders spoke their thoughts, as the characters in Boots had. This is beyond breaking down the "fourth wall" -- the actors were sitting in the audience listening to a new set of 30-second clips. It's tempting to imagine these reactions recorded and published as part of a larger post-script.

Journal theater critic Channing Gray, who saw Boots Wednesday night, reviews the play today and recounts that performance's quite different discussion: Iraq war hits close to home. (Free reg. req.)

Bob Kerr: The theater is too small for the play

Boots on the Ground: "True stories. Rhode Island voices. Perspectives on how the war in Iraq has changed life in the Ocean State" is at Trinity Rep through May 21.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 3:37 AM | Permalink

Comments

Posted by: Patrick on April 21, 2006 7:17 AM

Posted by: amanda on March 10, 2008 8:59 PM