Fallout on the home front fuels 'Old Glory'
Brett Neveu has clearly saved the best for last.
"Old Glory," the final play in Neveu's trilogy examining the impact of the war on terror and the war in Iraq on ordinary Americans, follows "Harmless and "Weapons of Mass Impact," both of which premiered in 2007 at TimeLine Theatre and A Red Orchid respectively.
Each reflects Neveu's trademark obliqueness and flair for subtle insinuation, his keen ear for dialogue, and his tendency to forego exposition in favor of dropping audiences into the middle of the action.
Of the three, "Old Glory," in an astutely acted world premiere at Writers' Theatre, is the most fully realized and emotionally engaging. I suspect William Brown, the production's savvy director who has spent the last year collaborating with Neveu on the script, had something to do with that.
Essentially a meditation of grief and vengeance, fear and anger, "Old Glory" centers on the death of a U.S. soldier in Iraq, the circumstances of which the army has declined to fully reveal to his family. Not a lot happens in the play, which unfolds in the form of conversations between six people touched by the soldier's death. The scenes evolve in a film style (think of a split screen morphing into a full screen) with each exchange shifting seamlessly into the next.
In an off-the-beaten-path Berlin bar, frustrated father Torlief (Tom McElroy) confronts retired officer Peter (Mundelein's Philip Earl Johnson, whose wonderfully muted performance suggests the guilt underscoring his polite sympathy), commander of the dead son's unit.
In a modest New Mexico house, the soldier's best friend Scott (a compassionate LaShawn Banks) reveals the truth of the young man's death to his distraught mother Margaret (Penny Slusher) whose grief inspires acts of calculated cruelty.
And in Fallujah, Iraq, in a once-grand presidential palace transformed into barracks for coalition troops, a couple of tense, young recruits - good old boy with a hair-trigger temper Goss (a dangerously twitchy Steve Haggard) and the more thoughtful, introverted Rat (Marcus Truschinski) - deal with the horror, chaos and tragic miscalculations that accompany war.
Brown's fluid, sure-handed direction deserves kudos, but what grounds this play is the understated performances and utter vulnerability of its fine cast who express with absolute credibility "Old Glory's" bitter humor and pathos.
"Old Glory"
Rating: 3 stars
Location: Writers Theatre, 325 Tudor Court, Glencoe
Times: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesdays; 8 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays; 4 and 8 p.m. Saturdays; 2 and 6 p.m. Sundays through March 29
Running time: About 90 minutes, no intermission
Tickets: $40-$65
Parking: Street parking available
Box office: (847) 242-6000 or writerstheatre.org
Rating: For adults, contains strong language, violent situations
<div class="infoBox"> <h1>More Coverage</h1> <div class="infoBoxContent"> <div class="infoArea"> <h2>Video</h2> <ul class="video"> <li><a href="/multimedia/?category=1&type=video&item=230">Clip from 'Old Glory' </a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div>