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Friday, August 26, 2005
‘Piece of My Heart’ at Theatre in the Square
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW: “A Piece of My Heart”
8 p.m. Tuesdays-Satur- days; 2:30 and 7 p.m. Sundays. (No 7 p.m. show Sept. 25.) Through Sept. 25. $18-$33. Theatre in the Square, 11 Whitlock Ave., Marietta. 770-422-8369, www.theatreinthesquare.com.
The verdict: Deserves a 21-hankie salute.
I’d have to concentrate really hard to remember what my family talked about over dinner in the ’60s. But after Walter Cronkite gave his nightly report on the number of Vietnam War casualties, what was there to say?
In “A Piece of My Heart,” playwright Shirley Lauro fills in some of the blanks about the bitter Southeast Asian conflict by weaving together the stories of a group of women who witnessed it firsthand. Though rarely recognized or celebrated in the history books, women went to Vietnam out of the same sense of duty, patriotism and adventure as their masculine counterparts, many serving as nurses who ministered to the sick and dying.
Theatre in the Square opens its 24th season with a moving, illuminating and fluidly staged production of the play by director Susan G. Reid and a company of actors who obviously feel compassion for their characters.
First produced in 1991, 10 years before Sept. 11, 2001, “A Piece of My Heart” manages, for the most part, to rise above political polemic by keeping a bead on the women’s emotional journeys and the mood and atmosphere of its time.
Does the programming choice have anything to do with the fact that America is entangled in another divisive conflict that’s frequently likened to Vietnam? Of course. But the staging lets you draw your own comparisons and makes no attempt to underline the parallels with current events.
Instead, what you see is what you get.
The play opens with the young women on the cusp of the future.
Martha (Jennifer Akin) “was born at Fort Benning and grew up at Fort Bragg,” so it never occurs to her to do anything but serve in the military. The career choices for Sissy (Cheri Christian) are like those of most women of her day —- she can be a nurse, a teacher or a secretary. Even though she can’t stand to see people in pain, she chooses the medical profession.
Mary Jo (Bethany Irby), a member of the Sugar Candies All-Girl Band, is delighted by the opportunity to wear miniskirts and go-go boots in front of “half a million boys” —- and she eventually falls in love with each and every one of them. Half Italian, half Chinese, LeeAnn (Widdi Turner) thinks the service will land her an assignment in Hawaii, where she’ll blend in with people who look like her. (Well, at least she’s half right.)
Joining the group are Whitney (Lee Nowell), a Red Cross “doughnut dolly,” and Steele (Shontelle Thrash), a seasoned Army officer whose talents ultimately go wasted. Cary Donaldson plays all the men in their lives.
The play unfolds like a scrapbook of memories —- chipper and hopeful in the pre-Vietnam scenes; bloody and dark in the wartime sequences; sad and disenchanted in the aftermath. Unfolding on set designer Rochelle Barker’s stacked wooden crates and intersecting piers, the drama is at its most authentic and alive when describing the women’s immersion into the rituals and routines of death, their late-night bonding sessions and their romantic disappointments. (Not a single one of them ends up in a lasting relationship.) Marijuana and booze become as much a part of their Saigon existence as John Prine, Led Zeppelin and Janis Joplin (hence the title).
Among the cast, Akin and Christian, in particular, give finely detailed performances. It’s nice to see Akin doing something other than Shakespeare and good to see Christian (“Be Aggressive”) in something besides a cheerleader outfit. Christian is especially good at using the timbre of her voice to express her character’s triumphs and defeats. If Irby sang better, you’d understand why she plays the part of girl-singer Mary Jo, but somehow the actress never finds the fun and flash of this country coquette.
Donaldson reinvents himself continually, playing fresh-faced enlistees, mortally wounded soldiers, an unsinkable paraplegic. He’s a young actor to watch.
“A Piece of My Heart” sags a bit in Act 2, when the effects of Agent Orange suggest “Erin Brockovich” and disease-of-the-week flicks. But in the show’s final images —- a reunion at the dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial —- it comes together as a bittersweet, life-affirming tribute to wartime camaraderie and the ladies who served.
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