The American Dream

Does anyone remember David Rabe’s Sticks and Bones? It won the Tony Award for Best Play in 1972, in between Sleuth and That Championship Season. But while Sleuth wound up running 1,222 performances and made a fortune, and Season amassed 700 showings and saw a tidy profit, Sticks and Bones tallied a mere 246 performances and didn’t recoup.

The play was a hard-hitting commentary on the then-raging Vietnam War. Its characters were Ozzie, Harriet, David, and Rick — though not the wholesome Nelson Family who starred in the white-bread Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, which ran 14 unadventurous seasons during the ’50s and ’60s and racked up 435 episodes, not one of which the average TV watcher can recall. Instead, Rabe put the Typical American Family through the wringer by having David come back blind after fighting in Vietnam. Ozzie, Harriet, and Rick are at first sympathetic but their compassion only lasts so long because they want to be true Americans who support the President and the war. Sticks and Bones was too much for many theatergoers to take; that’s a reason why it didn’t run and why it has more or less disappeared from the repertory.

Before anybody mounts a revival that would comment on our own times of war and the serious injuries that present-day soldiers sustain, they should take a look at Lydia Stryk’s powerful new drama American Tet. This was the best of the three wonderful plays that I saw at the Contemporary American Theatre Festival in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. (Contemporary, indeed; here’s the first play about the war in Iraq that I’ve encountered.)

As American Tet begins, middle-aged marrieds Jim and Elaine Krombacher are sunning themselves in their backyard, though their conversation isn’t too sunny. Elaine tells Jim that Angela, the sweet girl next door who’s been fighting in Iraq, has had her face blown off; she has lost one eye and one leg and is deaf, at least temporarily. The doctors have managed to provide her with a new pair of lips, taking flesh from other parts of her body. “But who are you without your face?” Elaine asks. Jim has no answers. He’s a Vietnam vet who admits that, after he came home, he wasn’t the same person. The Jim he once was is still “missing in action.” Elaine and Jim are haunted for another reason: Their son Danny is in Iraq, too. He’s scheduled to return home soon for a three-week leave, but will that day ever come?

Elaine has a job with the Army, giving lectures to the wives of new recruits. “I can’t stop giving back after all the Army has given me,” she tells the women. When she’s at work, Elaine buries her feelings about Angela and is as charming as Kitty Carlisle, Loretta Young, Faye Emerson, and Arlene Francis combined. She’s even perky when telling the wives how she and Jim moved 17 times in 31 years, pointing out that she might have regretted leaving her friends but could always look forward to making new ones.

However, Elaine’s happy-go-lucky attitude isn’t shared by her daughter, Amy. She passes on to her parents the horror stories that Danny reports to her in his letters, much to Jim’s disgust. Jim is still suffering from the effects of Agent Orange, but both he and his wife must maintain their gung-ho feelings about the Army that has given them food, shelter, and their identity. Amy says to Elaine, “Bombs are going off all over, and I feel like one is inside me,” but her mother just puts on that smiley-face.

Things change for Elaine, though, when she goes to her local Asian restaurant and meets a waitress named Nhu, who emigrated from Vietnam. She’s the first woman from that nation whom Elaine has met. They become friends, and Elaine invites her to Danny’s homecoming. Nhu mentions that “tet” is a Vietnamese word that means “the new year,” so she suggests that Danny’s homecoming can be called “an American tet.” She’s obviously unaware that the word “tet” to many Americans is still associated with the word “offensive” — in more ways than one.

Danny comes marching home for his party in the backyard. (The setting is reminiscent of All My Sons, a play that deals with the ramifications of another war.) He confides in Amy that “I’ve understood the meaning of everything I’ve seen and done.” He even gives a matter-of-fact lecture on how to torture an enemy. Later, he acknowledges: “When I return [to Iraq], I’ll stand in front of a gun and help them pull the trigger.” That’s when he breaks into tears.

Also expected to attend the party is Angela. “She can hear and she can see,” Elaine tells her family. Yes — but, as the playwright points out, this means that she’ll be able to hear people’s gasps and see the shock on their faces. The audience steels itself for her arrival as Danny steers her wheelchair to another part of the backyard. She is wearing a baseball cap, under which is a long black veil that covers her entire face and the back of her head. “Can I get you something?” Danny asks, to which Angela immediately responds: “A new face, a new body, a new life.” And we thought the Phantom’s face was horrid. But Danny is far more brave than Christine Daae; in an astonishing scene, he lifts the veil and kisses Angela on her new lips.

Nhu calmly tells Elaine what she experienced in Vietnam at the hands of the Americans, and this helps Elaine to see the light. Her lectures to the soldiers’ wives become increasingly more realistic; she tells those whose mates are on their way home to “expect the unexpected.” When Amy notes that Jim spends most of his time gardening and remarks that “Dad’s got nothing but time on his hands,” Elaine adds, “and blood.”

Stryk then returns us to Danny and Angela, who slowly begins to remove her veil. The audience members fear what they’re going to see, but Stryk spares them this — though she does have some other pain in store. From out of the wheelchair bounces a happy and beautiful Angela, reveling in a flashback. It’s the day that President Bush declared “mission accomplished.” Angela thinks the war is over and that she’ll soon be going home — but the flashback ends and she slowly returns to the wheelchair, replacing the veil on her face. Now, when Danny asks if he can get her anything, she says she wants a gun so that she can commit suicide. He gets her one, and she does.

Amy tells Jim that Danny won’t return to Iraq, and Jim blames her for influencing him. Elaine resumes her rationalizing: “It’s only for six months more,” she says. Yes, if he’s lucky; 182 days is a long time to survive in Iraq. Jim makes it clear what he wants his son to do, saying “I’ll teach you to garden when you get back.” But will Danny get back?

Is American Tet occasionally didactic? Sure. Often agit-prop? No question. But in these times, we need a hard-hitting play like this one. “There will be another spring,” says Elaine, trying again to look on the bright side. Yes — and another anniversary of the war in Iraq.

********************

[To contact Peter Filichia directly, e-mail him at pfilichia@theatermania.com]