'If I Die in a Combat Zone' is ambitious, stirring Vietnam story
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Vietnam is in the headlines again, at least on the arts-and-entertainment pages.
Mel Gibson's popular battle epic, "We Were Soldiers," takes an unquestioning look at American involvement in the war. John Laurence's new 850-page book, "The Cat From Hué," opts for a more critical approach to the author's experiences as a television journalist who covered Vietnam in the 1960s.
Tim O'Brien's autobiographical 1973 book, "If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home," is the basis of Book-It Repertory Theatre's ambitious, often-stirring new theater piece, which deals with O'Brien's mixed feelings as a soldier in the late 1960s.
A Minnesota-raised college graduate opposed to the war, he was drafted and, unwilling to disappoint friends and family who might have ostracized him, accepted his fate.
David S. Hogan plays him as a fresh, somewhat rebellious infantryman who claims not to be "soldier material." He doesn't suffer foolish officers gladly.
While stationed at Fort Lewis, he argues with a thickheaded, gung-ho chaplain (Ross Johnson) and an abusive drill sergeant (Mike Christensen) who regards all doubters as "pansies" or, worse, women. (Military sexism is shown to be very harsh in this piece, never more so than when a helicopter pilot balks at rescuing an injured Vietnamese woman, apparently because she's female.)
O'Brien sees Mount Rainier as a symbol of freedom, and considers deserting to Canada while hanging out in a Seattle hotel. Equipped with his passport and enough money, he nevertheless bows to peer pressure, abandons his escape plans and heads for Vietnam, where he faces a series of morale-testing dilemmas.
He witnesses the death of buddies, questions the nature of bravery and finds himself understanding the amoral, pragmatic code that keeps his platoon from going over the edge.
Some of this comes off as a familiar coming-of-age war tale (the déjà-vu feeling is reinforced by the too-easily-nostalgic selection of Bob Dylan and Paul Simon tunes) and the script doesn't allow many of the capable actors to play more than types.
Keiko Ichinose, the only female, does what she can with several bit parts, including a flamboyant Korean stripper, but there's a reason she's listed in the program as playing one character: "Woman."
Still, adapter-director David Quicksall, a military veteran himself, has an instinct for dramatizing revelatory moments — the individual soldier's fear of getting lost in the jungle, the impact of the My Lai massacre — and he keeps the story flowing forward.
Hogan, who gives the one performance that must achieve some depth, confidently carries the show on his shoulders. For much of the play's 2-½ hours, he's surrounded by curtains that look like giant nets woven from jungle rot. The tangled mess, created by scenic designer Craig Wollam, suggests not just the quagmire of Vietnam but a mind at the end of its tether.
In a 1990 collection of short stories, "The Things They Carried," O'Brien wrote that "you can tell a true war story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil."
In his opinion, "You can tell a true war story by the way it never seems to end."
In the best sense, that's true of this show. It lingers after you've left the theater.
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