By Eva Trieger
LA JOLLA, California – Some dances are celebrations of joy, others are moods given life by gestures and arabesques, still others offer a history of untold pain and unwelcome suffering. Healing Wars kicked off the La Jolla Playhouse WoW Festival with its West Coast Premiere last week. Jewish author, choreographer and performer, Liz Lerman, conceptualized this dance/theater piece after a visit to the National Civil War Medicine Museum in Frederick, Maryland.
While the museum depicted veterans of the Civil War and medical practitioners of the era, Lerman made a connection to soldiers, doctors, and families at home in every war, historic and contemporary. This synthesis of dance, movement, storytelling and multimedia engages the audience in a very personal way. This is accomplished through a novel prologue. Audience members enter the theater through the back door and each twist and turn brings them within a few feet of an actor, portraying a Civil War character. One man is restrained in a family attic, not in a hospital, muttering to himself. This vacant, agitated man reminds us that the scarring is not just external, but the PTSD label was as yet, unknown.
Lerman collaborated with Keith Thompson on the choreography, and the text with Bill Pullman and performers, including Jeffry Denman, Miko Doi-Smith, Meghan Frederick, George Hirsch, Paul Hurley, Ted Johnson, Tamara Hurwitz Pullman. Each performer assumed multiple roles from different wars.
Upon entering the theater, a screen above the stage displayed quotes from soldiers from the Gulf War. They referenced various responses that soldiers related, including Operation to Restore Peace, and the resentment of free advice. Another slide expressed a soldier’s experiencing flashbacks when he heard about the Sandy Hook shootings.
Lerman was fascinated by the role of women in war, not only as nurses, but those who disguised themselves as men in order to do battle. One woman joined the Brotherhood of the Coast Guard Dive Team to serve her country meaningfully.
Military jargon was tossed about like hand grenades, landing with explosive gravity upon audience ears and souls. “Kevlar, Flak, M16 and Humvee” peppered the dialogue, each one conjuring up an image of the brutality and finality of wars on American soil, Iraq and our own Sinai.
The invisible scars, paranoia, mistrust and fear of anything unknown persists. One soldier stated that the Susan G Komen 60 mile walk was rife with enemies along the roadside. Everyone is perceived as an enemy or threat.
Another soldier spoke about the inanity and inability to fit back into society without any sort of counseling or support, he described the incomprehensible plight, “What it means to come home from a war zone and stand in a line at Starbucks.”
During the Civil War the losses were staggering. For the first regiment, made up of ten companies, all were killed within the first fifteen minutes of battle. A narrator spoke as Spirit, and promised these young boys, “Whatever you want, it’s on the other side.” And if a solider was lucky enough to live past the battlefield, he could only expect ether or morphine to control his pain or attend his amputation.
The soldiers spoke of a fear of failing themselves, their teams, their families and their country. The piece was a tribute to all of those whose lives have been touched by war, and that includes every one of us whether we want to take part in the dance or merely admire those on the dance floor for their courage and selflessness.
Healing Wars will be at the La Jolla Playhouse through October 25th Tickets available via www.lajollaplayhouse.org
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Trieger is a freelance writer who specializes in coverage of the arts.
A provocative and alluring fringe presentation of anguish, pain and war.
–Larry Burstein, San Diego.California