How to explain the experience of war to your eager grandson who has just enlisted? That’s the task for grouchy veteran Davey Winters in an original, new play by Coast author A.S. (Anthea) Penne. The Driftwood Players production is titled Coming Back and is based on a scene from Penne’s 2002 book Old Stones: The Biography of a Family, in which her father’s plane was shot down during WWII and he was forced to parachute into France.
“The scene stuck in my head,” said Penne. “I took it as the basis for the play.” The inspiration was fueled when she met two mothers whose soldier sons were on their way to Afghanistan. “Both were panicked,” she said, “and sure their children were going to an early death.”
The original draft of the play was published in Ryga, a literary journal, but this will be its first live performance. It’s no coincidence that the play opens on Nov. 11, Remembrance Day, at the Heritage Playhouse in Gibsons and runs for five performances.
Coming Back relies on smart dialogue traded among all members of the family: veteran Davey is played by Mac Dodge, his wife is played by Erika Bennett, his daughter Ruth by Laura Sigler and her son Tony by Jordan Boyd.
Dodge has a brilliant command of the stage with his grumpy old man persona barking out expletives and orders to his passive wife. He is damaged by his experience in the war and takes it out on his family; on stage he relives the moment in June 1944 when the starboard engine caught fire and he had to bail. He needs to let his grandson know how it was.
Grandfather is, in turn, castigated by his daughter who met her husband at a peace protest and thinks that “it’s a dumb male idea that a war can improve things.” Would her father have been so angry if he hadn’t gone to war? she asks. She doesn’t want to see her son come home with the same damage to his soul.
The message is clear: war does not belong to the soldier – it belongs to the whole family. Everyone feels the burden.
Sandi McGinnis is the director; she has employed an interesting method of rehearsal in which actors read through their lines and record them before walking through the play.
“It allows an actor to free up their body and emotions,” McGinnis said.
Performances are Nov. 11 to 14 at 8 p.m. and Nov. 15 at 2 p.m. Tickets for $20 are available at www.driftwoodplayers.ca or the Blackberry Shop and Laedeli in Gibsons, and Sechelt Visitor Info Centre.
