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Last of The Boys
By Steven Dietz
Directed by Rick Snyder
At Steppenwolf Theatre
1650 N. Halsted Street
Chicago, IL
Call 312-335-1650, tickets $20 - $55
Tuesdays thru Fridays at 7:30 PM
Saturdays at 3 & 7:30 PM
Sundays at 3 & 7:30 PM
Running time 2 hrs, 20 min with intermission
Through November 13, 2005
Ghosts of Viet Nam haunts Last of the Boys
Steppenwolf Theatre celebrates its 30th year in Chicago with Steven Dietz’s attempt to put the Viet Nam War to rest with Last of The Boys. This imaginative script and deft staging by Rick Synder leaves audiences wondering what is going to happen next. Filled with bitter sarcasm and stinging wit, Dietz dwells into the psyche of Nam survivors. This is a deep and powerful play.
The momentum builds slowing with two aging Nam vets, Jeeter (John Judd in a manic burnout role) and the stoic loner, Ben (Tracy Letts at the top of his game) sit around drinking beer talking of the 60’s pop culture in Ben’s Northern California desert trailer park that is surrounded with sandbagged bunkers ala a Viet Nam base camp (set design by Todd Rosenthal). We learn that Ben is a carpenter living in squalor and Jeeter is a college professor teaching 60’s pop culture and living as a throw-back Hippy traveling and following his favorite 60’s rockers (The Rolling Stones?). Both are haunted and damaged by the war and neither can move on. Jeeter seeks travel, lots of young co-eds and spirituality through channeling via a vortex. His yearly visit to Ben happens after Ben’s father, a Robert McNamara devotee, death. Jeeter attended the funeral, Ben didn’t.
Ben has nightmares/halucinations about Viet Nam as he sees McNamara being briefed by a young soldier (Christopher McLinden). These chilling flashes are marvelously staged and lighted (Lighting design by Ann G. Wrightson). Add Jeeters girlfriend, Salyer (Mariann Mayberry) and her mother, Lorraine (Amy Morton)—both of whom have losses from Viet Nam. Salyer her father and Larraine her 18 year old husband.
Last of The Boys is about how traumatic experiences can and often does ruin lives by haunting and to some degree controlling the thoughts of those damaged by horror, fright and or guilt from actions taken during war. Add the sense of loss Salyer feels never having known her father who was MIA and her bitter mother who felt cheated when her husband died in combat.
I can relate to the struggles of these Nam vets since I know several who still suffer trauma and have flashbacks 35 years after serving in Nam. The difficulty letting go of that war and the meaning and effects of it is vividly and imaginatively dramatized in Last of the Boys. Veterans might find some solace in Dietz’s work. John Judd and Tracy Letts are terrific here.
(Note to the wardrobe folks: the soldier’s dress greens have an error that will aggravate every Army veteran---- the rank insignias are in the wrong places on the uniform. The SP4 rank insignia must be half way down between the top of the arm and the elbow—NOT at the top of the arm—AND---the divisional patch from the First Infantry Division (with the large red “1”) must be at the top of the left arm. This is reversed on the soldier’s uniform. Every soldier who attends this show will notice that mistake.)
Last of The Boys left me thinking about some friends who didn’t return from that awful war and it made me appreciate the struggles of the survivors. This play speaks to our generation.
Recommended
Tom Williams
Tom99@chicagocritic.com for comments
Chicago Stage Talk Radio Show
This show eligible for a C.S.T. Equity Theatre Award
September 27, 2005
Jeff Recommended
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