These days with news headlines focused on "The War in Iraq," "Terrorism" and "Al-Qaeda" it is difficult for our generation to feel connected to the Cold War, much less World War II. While our parents spent their childhoods hiding under their desks in case of nuclear war and thinking about the effects of World War II on their daily lives, our adolescence has been framed by the economic boom of the 1990s and the tragedy of 9/11.
Today it is hard for us to imagine a world where wars were fought by mass alliances of countries and where there was a real fear that the United States would cease to exist. History textbooks tell us that World War II and the Holocaust were tragic turning points in history, and we try our best to appreciate that, but to us they seem to have happened ages ago.
Hearts, the current play at Centerstage, achieves cohesion between the worlds of World War II and post-Y2K, wherein we realize that 60 to 70 years ago is not quite as far back as we might think.
Written by Willy Holtzman and based on the experiences of the playwright's father, the story of Hearts revolves around the life of Donald Waldman, a Jewish kid from St. Louis, and his three card-playing buddies who graduate from high school in June of 1944 as the U.S. begins invading the coast of France and jumps back and forth in time through a span of fifty years. Don and his close pals soon find themselves enlisted in the army and fighting in battle, but Don suffers the effects of what he saw and did in Europe throughout the rest of his life.
Don, played by Jordan Charney and his three best friends Ruby, Babe and Herbie, played by Vasili Bogazianos, Bill Cwikowski and Merwin Goldsmith respectively, recreate scenes that show their undying friendship and their group dynamic with each other, as well as the individual nature of their characters. At their weekly card games, the men sit comfortably - maybe too comfortably, since Herbie refuses to wear his pants when they play - at a table in the basement and exchange humorous banter. At first Don's biting retorts expose his quick wit, but eventually the audience grasps the insecurity behind his complaining. In fact, the men almost always avoid any mention of the violence and destruction they witnessed during the War, despite the fact that it played the most significant role in shaping their present lives.
Besides depicting Don's friends, the three men also take turns playing all the other major characters in Don's life, including his parents, his wife, his children and his grandchildren, in addition to the non-familial roles of his redneck army drill sergeant, his companion in a foxhole in France, a German spy and Holocaust victims.
As Don narrates and all four men reenact the defining moments in his life, it becomes apparent that Don's attempts to live out the American Dream after the War are plagued with nightmares of his experiences from fighting in the Battle of the Bulge
and liberating Buchenwald, one of the Nazi concentration camps. One wartime secret of Don's in particular is tip-toed around and then revealed in a moment of catharsis when, through use of the Internet, he connects with a survivor, or as he says, a "warrior." He avoids sharing his remorse with anyone for decades, until his computer-savvy granddaughter forces him into the age of technology and inadvertently makes him acknowledge the root of his crotchety existence.
The minimalistic set in Hearts allow the three friends to transform realistically into Don's other close relations and back again into his best buddies, while they facilitate the alternation among scenes of battle, of the four pals playing hearts and of Don's work and home life.
The shifts in time and the movement of other characters around Don give the performance a very constructed and stage-conscious quality, but this is not a hindrance.
Lasting a duration of an hour and 35 minutes with no intermission, Hearts feels very much like a storytelling rather than a play with a sense of urgency. Though its format might not be universally approved by critics, Holtzman's creative approach is deliberate and it attains the desired effect of creating a bridge between the past and the present.
Hearts reworks the elements of World War II and the Holocaust with which we already are familiar but with an original style and in such a way that Don's individual perspective shines through. We perceive that there still are living veterans of World War II, their stories are just as important as ever and these men who served are still afflicted by the atrocities of war.
At the end of the play, absolution of guilt is not complete. Only through the person he speaks with in a chat room is Don able to learn that it is never too late to rediscover the humanity that binds us all.
Hearts will run through Dec. 2. Call the Centerstage box office at (410)332-0033 or visit www.centerstage.org for more information.
