Congress has cut federal funding for public media — a $3.4 million loss for LAist. We count on readers like you to protect our nonprofit newsroom. Become a monthly member and sustain local journalism.
This is an archival story that predates current editorial management.
This archival content was written, edited, and published prior to LAist's acquisition by its current owner, Southern California Public Radio ("SCPR"). Content, such as language choice and subject matter, in archival articles therefore may not align with SCPR's current editorial standards. To learn more about those standards and why we make this distinction, please click here.
American Warriors in Iraq in Two New Plays
Brian Norris and Andrew Price in 'The Woodpecker'
()
Brian Norris and Andrew Price in 'The Woodpecker'
The high price of heroism for U.S. enlisted men in Iraq is explored in two very different plays that opened in small LA theaters last weekend.
In Samuel Brett Williams's The Woodpecker, Jimmy (Brian Norris), a facially disfigured glue-sniffing college dropout who lives in a trailer park with his grossly dysfunctional parents, prays that heading off to war will give him the chance to become a hero. But once he hits the ground and gets assigned to help soften up prisoners for interrogation and torture, he quickly recognizes that the army is offering him nothing but more personal abasement.
The three U.S. marines in Aaron Kozak's The Birthday Boys, captured by an Iraqi militia group and tossed into a desert warehouse blindfolded, their hands and feet bound together with duct tape, are burdened with no such moral conflicts. But they do face almost certain execution within 24 hours. (And to add to the foreboding, the ostensibly unrelated production playing right after The Birthday Boys in the same theater each evening just happens to be titled Everybody Dies in the End.)
Support for LAist comes from
Most of The Woodpecker's sharpest dialogue is delivered by Jimmy's two brutal antagonists. In the first act his wheelchair-bound army vet father (Mark Withers) is an unregenerate bully, tyrannizing the household and even threatening God with violence in heaven if Jimmy doesn't get back from Iraq alive before bitterly concluding his prayer, "All right, that's it, Lord. You can go back to ruinin' people's lives now." After intermission, Jimmy's charismatically sadistic military superior (Andrew Price) has fun toying and messing with a captured terrorist sympathizer, explaining to Jimmy, "It's not about oil and it's not about 9/11. [We do this] because we're human and because we can."
All three of the marine hostages in The Birthday Boys (Gregory Crafts, Sean Fitzgerald, and Jim Martyka) spend most of the play writhing, or "scootching," around the stage with their eyes covered, their limbs immobilized and useless. Which is not only scary and suspenseful--although it is both of these--but often very funny, as is much of the locker room-type banter they engage in as they try to determine what's going to happen to them and make sense of how they ended up in the position they're in. Once the coolly menacing lead Iraqi captor (Gabriel Reed) arrives, however, and the electrodes and scimitars the hostages had just been grimly joking about become a present physical reality, their honor and mettle are soon put to a real test.
As The Birthday Boys is an apolitical paean to the valor of U.S. troops at war, The Woodpecker presents a searing indictment of an American aggressiveness that begins at home and then gets wreaked upon our military victims abroad. From each of their opposed perspectives, however, both plays thankfully avoid preaching or propagandizing. The Birthday Boys is a high-tension, clock-ticking-away dramatic thriller with an ending that (like it or not) you'll never guess. The Woodpecker is more a classic character-is-fate social tragedy, driven by compellingly watchable performances from Withers and Price and solidly centered by Norris. You won't go wrong with either one.
The Woodpecker, directed by Jon Cohn, plays Fridays and Saturdays at 8 and Sundays at 7 through April 3rd at the Studio/Stage Theatre, 520 N. Western Blvd. Tickets $12.00 through the LA Stage Alliance, $13.50 on goldstar, $20.00 at the door, and $22.00 on the Mutineer Theatre Company web site.
The Birthday Boys, directed by Jacob Smith, plays Fridays and Saturdays at 8 through March 26th at NoHo Stages, 4934 Lankershim Blvd. Tickets $9.50 through the LA Stage Alliance, $10.50 on goldstar, $15.00 at the door, and $17.00 on the Theatre Unleashed company web site.
As Editor-in-Chief of our newsroom, I’m extremely proud of the work our top-notch journalists are doing here at LAist. We’re doing more hard-hitting watchdog journalism than ever before — powerful reporting on the economy, elections, climate and the homelessness crisis that is making a difference in your lives. At the same time, it’s never been more difficult to maintain a paywall-free, independent news source that informs, inspires, and engages everyone.
Simply put, we cannot do this essential work without your help. Federal funding for public media has been clawed back by Congress and that means LAist has lost $3.4 million in federal funding over the next two years. So we’re asking for your help. LAist has been there for you and we’re asking you to be here for us.
We rely on donations from readers like you to stay independent, which keeps our nonprofit newsroom strong and accountable to you.
No matter where you stand on the political spectrum, press freedom is at the core of keeping our nation free and fair. And as the landscape of free press changes, LAist will remain a voice you know and trust, but the amount of reader support we receive will help determine how strong of a newsroom we are going forward to cover the important news from our community.
Please take action today to support your trusted source for local news with a donation that makes sense for your budget.
Thank you for your generous support and believing in independent news.
Chip in now to fund your local journalism
(
LAist
)
Trending on LAist
-
The U.S. Supreme Court lifted limits on immigration sweeps in Southern California, overturning a lower court ruling that prohibited agents from stopping people based on their appearance. -
Censorship has long been controversial. But lately, the issue of who does and doesn’t have the right to restrict kids’ access to books has been heating up across the country in the so-called culture wars.
-
With less to prove than LA, the city is becoming a center of impressive culinary creativity.
-
Nearly 470 sections of guardrailing were stolen in the last fiscal year in L.A. and Ventura counties.
-
Monarch butterflies are on a path to extinction, but there is a way to support them — and maybe see them in your own yard — by planting milkweed.
-
With California voters facing a decision on redistricting this November, Surf City is poised to join the brewing battle over Congressional voting districts.
Best of LAist