First Casuality is part of the 2012 Hormel New Works Festival at Phoenix Theatre
It seems friendly fire happens both on the battleground and in the bedroom. Playwright Monte Merrick’s “First Casualty,” given its first staged reading Thursday night during Phoenix Theatre’s “Hormel New Works Festival,” is the playwright’s own “what if” tale.
Dramaturgy display for First Casualty
What if a woman whose soldier husband was killed by friendly fire went in search of the man who killed him? What if it wasn’t entirely clear which of two men were to blame? What if her encounter with the man she’s labeled a murderer doesn’t go as expected?
“First Casualty” is directed by William Partlan, and has a cast of three — Paul Duran (as Jon Barrett, the soldier turned firefighter after an incident of friendly fire killed fellow soldier Matt), Angelica Howland (as Caitlin Post, Matt’s widow who’s consumed with finding answers about how and why he died) and Marshall Glass (as Mark Sessions, an active duty soldier who served with Matt and Jon).
Vision for First Casualty set design
Before Thursday night’s performance, patrons gathered around a lovely display of dramaturgical fare featuring themes and events related to the subject matter of the play — facts about various wars, information on depression and post traumatic stress disorder, details about various stages of grief. And themes that recur throughout the the play, including love and grace.
Drawings in the theater lobby that Robert Kolby Harper describes as “pie-in-the-sky” set designs imagine the work with an elaborate backdrop, but it was perfectly lovely performed with a simple set anchored by four main elements — a quilt-covered bed with pillows for two, a bistro table with two chairs, a sofa with coffee table and a high counter marking off space for a kitchen area.
Detail of Dramaturgy display
The play opens with a short acoustic guitar riff with a decidedly “Once” vibe, then slowly builds to the first confrontation between characters Jon and Caitlin. She’s tightly wound. He’s simmering far below the surface. By the end of act one they’ve cooked together, tended to a stab wound, waxed philosophical and endured “a tornado of unbearable grief lust.”
The dialogue is smart and real, familiar to anyone who’s ever been seeped in self-doubt, placed a lover atop a precarious pedestal, or felt unable to “move on” because that next person or thing simply wasn’t on the horizon. Despite its serious subject matter, “First Casualty” is authentically funny. And it’s perfectly paced thanks to Partlan’s exquisite use of silence and pause.
Pearls about the playwright
The imagery is profound, as Caitlin liken her “phantom husband pain” to the familiar “phantom limb pain” experience — and speaks of feeling like she and Matt were the two puzzle pieces around which everything else was built. Issues raised feel organic rather than contrived. “I throw a lot of stuff out,” says Jon. “It’s a ritual for me.” Later he tells Caitlin that “you can’t do anything to me that I haven’t done to myself.”
It would have been far easier to write a work accessible only to those who’ve experienced wartime trauma and loss. But “First Casualty” bridges with ease to the wider human experience of losing ourselves or another. Caitlin struggles, like most people, with finding that sweet spot between effortless and effortful. But she’s not without insight. “We save the world,” reflects Caitlin, “it’s just ourselves we let slide.”
The puzzle of love and loss, perhaps
“First Casualty” raises questions worth answering. How do we reconcile who we were with who we are? Is there a place for God outside the foxhole? What’s to be done after death reaches its shelf life? Does being a “bad forgetter” hold particular peril? How do rational creatures deal with reflex actions? Why do we merely bandage serious wounds?
Greek dramatist Aeschylus is credited with saying that “truth is the first casuality of war.” War with self. War against another. War between countries. For all their apparent differences, the similarities are striking.
— Lynn
Note: “First Casualty” performances take place tonight, July 13 at 7:30pm — plus Sat., July 14 at 5pm. Click here for details about all Hormel New Works Festival offerings at Phoenix Theatre. “First Casualty” dramaturgy by Kevin Rollins and set design rendering by Eric Beeck.
Coming up: Eye on new works, Art meets shape shifter
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