'Bury The Dead': The Cost Of War

CTC Theater Live's riveting production of Irwin Shaw's powerful antiwar play, "Bury the Dead," opened on Friday night at Guild Hall. It was an evening to remember for many reasons, not the least of them the glorious language in the work itself.

Written when the author was 22, with only a few "Dick Tracy" radio scripts to his name, it predates by several years the military service in World War II that would lead to his magnificent war novel "The Young Lions."

Yet it burns with the outrage of a seasoned veteran, not only at the recurring tragedy of men sacrificed to no avail throughout the ages, but also of the women left behind to mourn them.

Angry Playwright

The playwright had originally called his play "Bury Them, They Stink" when he entered it in a New Theater League contest in New York in 1935. By the time it opened at the Ethyl Barrymore a year later, he'd been talked into the less cynical title, but the underlying anger remained.

The director Sandy Rosen, who also staged "Broadway Bound" for CTC last year, brings Mr. Shaw's passion to compelling life.

Against John Zaleski's bleak set of an anonymous battlefield, dramatically lighted by Steven Espach, he presents slides of historic battles, from Egyptian warriors in their crowded friezes, through World War I trenches and Hitler on parade, to the atomic bomb, the stunned Viet- nam wounded, and finally, the swaggering leader of a contemporary girls' street gang.

Unwilling Corpses

This penetrating look at the posturing and pathos of combat leads into the play's opening scene: a death detail at some unnamed front is digging a grave for six stinking corpses.

After blessings from a rabbi (David Parker) and a priest (Robert Anthony), however, the dead stand up in the uniforms of their various armies and refuse to be buried. The drama unfolds as they protest the brutal interruption of their lives.

The military brass (the commanding Mr. Anthony as General One and Mr. Parker as General Two) first try to put down the uprising, then to hush it up.

Finally the Defense Department summons the Gold Star mothers, wives, and sweethearts of the slain, hoping these "conservative" women can persuade them of their patriotic duty to lie down and be buried.

Ordinary Lives

This ploy doesn't work either, but in the brief encounters between the dead men and their loved ones some of Mr. Shaw's most moving writing illuminates the human cost of war.

And here's where the actors' talents shine most impressively, bringing us the sweetness of ordinary lives that should not be sacrificed so arbitrarily.

Private Schelling (Paul Marino) reminisces lyrically to his wife, Bess (Janice Bishop), about their simple life together on a German farm. British Private Levy (Ray Gobes Jr.) confides to his girlfriend, Joan (Helen Mendes), his love of the sound of her high heels, his need to be more than a colored pin on some general's map.

Widows' Memories

There's Julia ((Moira McMahon), roaring drunk in her widow's weeds, horrified as her dead husband, Private Morgan (T.J. Parlette), a poet, exults that at least his hands weren't shot off; he can keep writing.

Katherine Driscoll (Melissa Halfide) searches out poor Tom, her Cockney spouse (Joseph DeSane), to impart her belief in "heaven on earth," not in some afterlife. Private Dean (Patrick Christiano), only 20, is grieved over by his heartbroken mother (Stephanie Brussell).

A riveting production of Irwin Shaw's powerful antiwar play - a rousing antidote to the January blahs.

But it's Martha Webster (Mary Vienneau) who tells it like it is, cheering on her wimp of a husband (Glen Bazazian), whose best memory is of having a beer with the guys in a bar.

"Why wait until you're dead," she says. "It's about time you all stood up. Tell 'em! Tell 'em!"

What Matters Most

The fact that women have been integrated into the army in this production lends it a special poignancy, and there are several impressive female soldiers in the huge cast.

Among them, Andrea Gross, filling in for her mother, Judy Militare, temporarily sidelined by illness, should certainly be cited for a fine performance.

So should Julie Burroughs, Ginger Buquicchio, Katie Meckert, Steve Ford, and Larry Summa, as well as the oddly generic costumes by Chas W. Roeder.

What with the splendid acting of the unforgettable script, and Mr. Rosen's incisive direction, this is a memorable night at the theater. Its subtle blend of solemnity and humor, satire and heartbreak, is a rousing antidote to the January blahs, and a timely reminder of what really matters in life as we head into the millennium.

There's no curtain call; you're left with that desolate battlefield.