Occupied Territories -Stunning, Important Theater
Occupied Territories was staged in 2015 at a veteran’s facility in Washington, D.C. Audience response was solicited, arriving, one gathers, at industrial strength. During today’s talk-back, attendees expressed gratitude, cried, and/or cited the piece’s success in illuminating mental and emotional changes caused by soldiering, their effect on families, and bonding, incomprehensible to those who have never been in life-threatening service. The play is powerful and engrossing, also an entertainment. You’ll be moved and shaken, but it’s not preachy. Go.
Helena (Kelley Rae O’Donnell) and her 12 year-old niece Alex (Ciela Elliott) are poking around a basement. Their relationship is close. Helena’s older sister/Alex’s mother, Jude (Nancy Bannon), joins them. We’re in their just deceased father’s home. Jude has been allowed to leave rehab for his funeral. “Do I have to check you?” Helena asks. Angry at and wary of her mother’s repeated relapses, the child is staying with Helena while Jude is at a halfway house. She wants to remain there. Jude has other plans.
Kelley Rae O’Donnell and Ciela Elliott
While the adjusted, comfortably married younger sister chooses to remember their father and his after-service struggle sympathetically – “Did you ever wonder what he’d be like if he hadn’t gone over?” – the older writes him off: “He duct-taped mom’s mouth and hands! Tons of people were soldiers. Do they get a pass?!”
When Helena and Alex exit, Jude’s petulant exploration of the room in no way mirrors deference and affection exhibited by her sister. She finds mementos, a tray of slides (dad had a camera), and a photo of the young soldier in Vietnam.
From here we spend more time in a jungle than the basement, going back and forth with actors in both scenarios onstage.
Diego Aguirre and Cody Robinson
C130, rolling down the strip./Airborne troopers on a one way trip./Mission top secret, destination unknown./They don’t even know if they’re ever going home…The robust sound of a singing/chanting military march precedes soldiers entering behind our chairs, shaking the platform on which we sit. Lights fade on the cellar. We hear rain and see vines. It’s Vietnam. The squad has held their location 12 days. They’re filthy, hungry, exhausted, frustrated, volatile, near crazy. Supplies are meager. Variety of men is exemplified by respective dreams of cornbread, Spanish cake, pierogis, and apple pie. Level-headed Sergeant Ace (Donte Bonner) calls for food and medicine, reinforcement, or extraction. Something!
Collins, aka Cornbread (Cody Robinson), is a young, church-going Midwest boy determined to fight Communism. His inexperience is grist for perpetual torture by veteran, Ski (Scott Thomas), whose cruelty seems to teeter on madness and by Alvarez (Tony Mena) along for the ride. Collins is the girls’ young dad. When he brags about having his first child, Jude, Lucky (Diego Aguirre), a tempering presence, shows him photos of his three kids. Also in the squad are Hawk (Nile Harris) and Hardcore (Nate Yaffe).
Nancy Bannon
Waiting in the jungle for a promised helicopter which could easily be shot down, where every sound could mean death, is completely convincing. In the basement, Jude discovers a bottle of medication that belonged to the deceased and places it on a trunk. Awareness heightens, danger looms.
A Vietnamese woman is killed provoking a deeply frightening scene. Men harangue each other with bigoted specificity, fight, crack up, and are temporarily reined in. The squad is a powder keg, one among thousands. Hardcore and Hawk manifest impenetrable brotherhood in an eloquent, totally unexpected fashion. The squad is attacked 0n all sides.
Jude downs a pill. In fatalistic fury, Helena offers her their father’s supply.
Scott Thomas
There isn’t a weak link in the acting. All the women are credible. Jude’s habitual bitterness and battle with addiction are nuanced, rather than overtly expressed, compounding tension. (Nancy Bannon)
The men exude brotherhood, fear, and determination. Cody Robinson, involved since the show’s original workshop, manages to make Collins at the same time boyish and manly, naive and self-possessed, vulnerable and courageous. As Ski, Scott Thomas inhabits meanness, vehemence and implicit violence to a chilling degree. We hate the character but have begun to understand how circumstances create him. Naye Yaffe (Hardcore) and Nile Harris (Hawk) execute something akin to a gorgeous, wrenching ballet. (Choreography – Kelly Maxner)
Writing by Nancy Bannon and Mollye Maxner is muscular, feeling, ugly and evocative. I have two caveats: 1. It would help to better understand how her father’s behavior contributed to Jude’s addiction. 2. Helena and Alex’s unlikely return at a decisive moment for Jude seems like a device without an explanation.
Andrew Cohen has done a superior job with a Set that realizes the chockablock basement as a kind of island, leaving the rest of the theater to immersively serve as Vietnam. We’re first made aware of the jungle above us after a scene at the house. As the semi-circle of chairs are on a slight riser, soldiers’ stomping palpably jars.
Lighting Design by Rob Siler is potent.
Kelsey Hunt’s Costumes are highly detailed and spot-on.
Mathew M. Nelson’s Sound Design & Original Music makes one feel as if physically there.
NOTES: The father’s of both Playwright/Director Mollye Bannon and her husband, Choreographer Kelly Maxner served in Vietnam. Mollye’s sister is in rehab.
A national tour should be funded. Kelly Maxner expressed willingness to take the show to war torn areas. Families of soldiers and veterans, military authorities, students, and we, the public, would benefit.
Photos by Colin Hovde
Opening: Donte Bonner and Scott Thomas
Occupied Territories by Nancy Bannon and Mollye Maxner
Directed by Mollye Maxner
59E59 Theaters
59 East 59th Street
Through November 5, 2017
