Actors’ Gang tells Shaw’s tale with authority
AFTER EVERY WAR — OR SHOULD I SAY between every war, since there always seems to be a next one — there is a plethora of literature denouncing war as senseless, futile, unbearably cruel, and tragic.
This seemed to be most in evidence after the Great War — World War I, The War to End All Wars. And one of the most moving denunciations of that horrendous slaughter came from a 23-year-old playwright named Irwin Shaw.
Shaw wrote his play in 1936, when the world was still struggling to overcome the aftermath and consequences of that first world war, and before it got sucked into the inevitability of World War II. The play was called “Bury the Dead,” and it became a classic, along with films such as “All Quiet on the Western Front,” “Johnny Got His Gun,” “What Price Glory?” and “Grand lllusion.”
It’s a simple story, really, about six dead soldiers who refuse to allow themselves to be buried. Tossed into a trench dug by two of their buddies, they stand up, one by one, and claim the right to not be covered up and forgotten. “I didn’t chose to give my life for four yards of bloody mud,” says one. “Maybe there’s too many of us under the ground now. Maybe the earth can’t stand it no more,” says another. “You got to change crops sometime.” And another offers his own protest: “We are reclaiming our home; we didn’t ask for permission to leave.”
In response, the generals (George Ketsios and Adam Jefferis) are nearly apoplectic. “Lie down and allow yourselves to be buried!” they command. “The burden of war is on your shoulders; men must be buried and forgotten.”
The men, in turn, offer poignant reasons for not wanting to obey those orders.
Johnny, a farmer (played by Andrew Wheeler), offers a soliloquy about the smells of the earth and the crops on a summer’s day.
Henry (John Pick) rhapsodizes about women, those he’s known and the ones he’ll never get a chance to meet, and charges that “the earth still owes me.” And a third, played by Brandon Hanson, bemoans the fact that there are “too many books I haven’t read; too many places I haven’t seen.”
In desperation, the generals bring in the women who are significant to the dead men — women who, they hope, will be able to persuade the men to lie down and be interred.
The women are wives, girlfriends, a sister, a mother, and though each of them is horrified at the sight of their dead loved ones, they each do their part in trying to cajole them into taking their places in the earth. Especially moving is Annemette Andersen, the mother of a 20-year-old (Jesse Luken) who has had most of his head blown away. She pleads with him to remove his bandages so she can see him for one last time, and when he finally does remove them, her reaction brings a chill to everyone in the theater.
“Bury the Dead” is a grim play, but so well acted by the Actors’ Gang and so well directed by Matthew Huffman that it grips you even as it chills you. Its battlefield setting by Francois-Pierre Couture is austere and effective, and the camouflage and battle fatigues of the soldiers, designed by Shannon Kennedy, are fine. The uniforms of the officers, however, belong somewhere between “The Chocolate Soldier” and Nelson Eddy’s Mountie costume in “Rose Marie.”
Irwin Shaw used his novels and short stories as vehicles for his concerns about war, about civil liberties, and about McCarthyism. Falsely accused of being a Communist and placed on Hollywood’s black list, he left the United States for Europe, where he lived for the next 25 years.
Although he died in 1984, he would probably not be surprised to learn that his anti-war play “Bury the Dead” is as timely and relevant now as it was when he wrote it. He would probably also be delighted to know that it was being presented by The Actors’ Gang, a company known for its rambunctious staging of plays with political messages of which he would thoroughly approve.
“Bury the Dead” will be presented Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 3 p.m. through Sept. 27. The Actors’ Gang at the Ivy Substation is located at 9070 Venice Blvd. in Culver City. Call (310) 838-4264 for reservations.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 13, 2008. Read the original PDF.