Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Review of "The Sandstorm" by Mark Gruenberg of Footlights
Footlights' president reviews "The Sandstorm." His review is posted here with his kind permission. It was originally posted on the Footlights e-mail discussion list, where it VIOLATED the strict rules of that list, as it is longer than four paragraphs. Mark lived to tell this tale:
"The Sandstorm"
By Mark Gruenberg
"War is hell," General Sherman once said, and nobody can describe that hell better than the "grunts," the front-line troops that go through it. That's what the Marines portrayed in The Sandstorm do.
I attended the press preview Saturday night of the play, which opened at MetroStage, 1201 N Royal St, at the far northern end of Alexandria's Old Town (actually, it's a residential neighborhood that far up). The play is a series of stories, woven through by a narrating sergeant, of Marines who participated in Operation Iraqi Freedom--the quick strike that took Baghdad--and what they saw and felt.
With one exception, according to playwright Sean Huze, whom I talked with after the performance, the stories are those he actually gathered from the men of his Marine unit. The exception is where he had to try to figure out what one PFC was thinking as he held up a separated foot of a victim. The play is powerful, if uneven, because the stories themselves are uneven. BTW, Huze says 16 of the 60 men in his unit have not come back from Iraq.
The stories range from everything from hazing to killing civilians, by accident and with the remorse afterwards, or sometimes without compunction. The Marines go without water, their mail gets left behind and they have appropriate comments for the armchair soldiers who sent them to war. Particularly moving was the Marine who looked down at one victim and realized he was a 5-year-old child.
I would recommend seeing the play, regardless of your views on the war. That's because it is an attempt to show you what it's like for the people fighting it. It has a point of view, implied, and that's good. It should prompt you to ask questions. It's not for kids--especially with all the language, which is appropriate for Marines (unlike for David Mamet)--but it is for people who, unfortunately, will never see it, like W and Cheney.
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"The Sandstorm"
By Mark Gruenberg
"War is hell," General Sherman once said, and nobody can describe that hell better than the "grunts," the front-line troops that go through it. That's what the Marines portrayed in The Sandstorm do.
I attended the press preview Saturday night of the play, which opened at MetroStage, 1201 N Royal St, at the far northern end of Alexandria's Old Town (actually, it's a residential neighborhood that far up). The play is a series of stories, woven through by a narrating sergeant, of Marines who participated in Operation Iraqi Freedom--the quick strike that took Baghdad--and what they saw and felt.
With one exception, according to playwright Sean Huze, whom I talked with after the performance, the stories are those he actually gathered from the men of his Marine unit. The exception is where he had to try to figure out what one PFC was thinking as he held up a separated foot of a victim. The play is powerful, if uneven, because the stories themselves are uneven. BTW, Huze says 16 of the 60 men in his unit have not come back from Iraq.
The stories range from everything from hazing to killing civilians, by accident and with the remorse afterwards, or sometimes without compunction. The Marines go without water, their mail gets left behind and they have appropriate comments for the armchair soldiers who sent them to war. Particularly moving was the Marine who looked down at one victim and realized he was a 5-year-old child.
I would recommend seeing the play, regardless of your views on the war. That's because it is an attempt to show you what it's like for the people fighting it. It has a point of view, implied, and that's good. It should prompt you to ask questions. It's not for kids--especially with all the language, which is appropriate for Marines (unlike for David Mamet)--but it is for people who, unfortunately, will never see it, like W and Cheney.
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