01:00 AM EDT on Friday, April 21, 2006

BY CHANNING GRAY
Journal Arts Writer

A young soldier is haunted by the face of the man he killed in a split-second shootout. A priest says Mass on the hood of a Humvee. A soldier on leave awakes, clutching for the rifle that isn't there.

These are some of the images from Boots on the Ground, the made-from-scratch docudrama now playing at Trinity Rep. The stories, about Rhode Islanders who in some way have been touched by the Iraq war, were distilled from more than 200 hours of taped interviews by local writers Laura Kepley and D. Salem Smith.

What they came up with is a revealing, sometimes fragmented collage that looks at the toll the war has taken on our neighbors, untold stories that deserve a hearing no matter what your feelings about the war.

The play begins where televised accounts of returning troops leave off. We have all seen pictures of jubilant soldiers returning to the arms of their loved ones at Green Airport, and we just assume they return to quiet lives selling shoes or gardening supplies.

What we don't hear much about is the psychic scars, the bouts with anxiety, the feelings of isolation. More than one interviewee said he wanted to return to the front to be with his buddies.

"I mean, you're just like, you feel empty when you get home," said actor Stephen Thorne as Private Deitch. "Like you just feel bummed out -- 'cause you're doing such an honorable thing, and you feel really proud of yourself . . .' "

Nor have we heard much in the news about the toll the war has taken on those left behind, on wives who sit glued to CNN in hopes of learning their husband's fate.

In a war that is disapproved of by a majority of Americans, but still seems to have little direct impact on our lives, Kepley and Smith have made us care.

ON THE OTHER HAND, Boots on the Ground gives us only a thin slice of a very complex situation. There is little mention of the politics behind this war of lies and deceit.

One character hints about the fact that Iraq always seems to be tied to 9/11, when in fact we know Iraq had nothing to do with terrorist attacks on our land. But nothing is said about the faulty intelligence that led us into this debacle, about the questionable management of the war effort, and the fact that it may be spawning terrorism, rather than thwarting it -- that it is pitting Arab against Arab.

But this does not seem so much a fault of the play as a choice. Kepley, who directs the play, and Smith have gone, understandably, with the most dramatic material. They opted not to include the dry observations of, say, a political-science professor or Middle East scholar. What was important to them was the unvarnished experience of individuals, not the political ramifications of their acts.

The authors tried not to take sides. Although that was not an opinion shared by some members of the audience during the second-act discussion session at Wednesday's opening.

The way the play is structured, the telling of interviewees' stories runs 90 minutes straight. Then there is a break, and the audience returns to offer their observations.

Randall Rosenbaum, director of the state Arts Council, said he was "confused," because those interviewed seemed to be of one mind, one different from much of the country. The National Guard members depicted in the play seemed to accept the "right-directedness of the conflict, whereas the country feels different," he said.

Aaron Jungels, co-founder of the Everret Dance Theatre, wondered about the lack of an anti-war voice.

But Tom Buckland, Trinity's technical director, disagreed, saying he felt the play was balanced and that there were several characters -- the mother of one of the soldiers, played by Anne Scurria, and an Israeli psychiatrist -- who voiced at least some opposition to the war.

Perhaps the most telling moment of the second-act discussion came when a 17-year veteran of the National Guard, Lt. Gretchen Hood, responded to several audience members' comments that soldiers in Iraq often are there because lack of economic opportunity amounts to "a subtle draft."

Hood replied that she serves out of patriotism. About half the downstairs theater erupted in applause.

The second act was moderated by Pam Steager, a local newspaper columnist and social worker, who rather than oversee a true discussion, allowed a couple of dozen patrons a chance to offer brief observations. This kept things civil, but prevented the audience from entering into a lively debate. I suspect that feelings in that theater ran a lot deeper than came across.

That made the second act less compelling than the first.

IN THE FIRST ACT, a cast of five portrayed 24 characters as diverse as doctors, psychiatrists, ministers, journalists, and a 19-year-old private who joined the Army because his luck had run out. Providence Journal executive editor Joel Rawson, portrayed by a stern Richard Donelly, reminisced about his year flying planes in Vietnam, then talked about the 18 days he spent embedded with U.S. troops in Iraq, only to return to a comfortable life in Rhode Island.

For Rawson, Iraq left no scars, he said -- but for those who will spend a year or more there, lives will be changed.

One of the most touching vignettes came from Joe Wilson Jr., in his portrayal of Mike Vallier, a sweet, shy 21-year-old who spoke with a stammer. Vallier had been working at McDonald's until his car broke down and he couldn't get to work. Fed up, he joined the Army and went to Iraq.

There he came face to face with an Iraqi kid about his own age. They seemed to stare at one another forever, until Vallier fired a split second earlier than his foe, killing him instantly.

The man fell to the ground, his eyes open, looking at the sky, an image that haunts Vallier to this day.

"I guess the training did help me a little," said Vallier. "But how do you prepare for, for the feeling afterwards?"

SMITH AND KEPLEY zero in on about 10 characters who continue to return and add more and more details to their stories. Often they speak in 30-second snippets. While there is not much of an arc to the piece, it does gravitate toward the death of Chris Potts, who pushed a comrade out of harm's way, only to be shot and killed, along with a medic from Arkansas who tried to save him.

(Two of Potts' buddies just marched in the Boston Marathon to keep fresh his memory.)

Stephen Thorne is excellent as Father Marciano, who presides at the funeral for a fallen parishioner.

"We have every regard for human life," says Thorne in a typical Rhode Island twang, "and they (terrorists) have no regard for human life."

Rounding out a solid cast was Rachael Warren as, among others, Amy Neary, who hurries to get married only to find herself devastated when her husband is deployed.

The play ends, interestingly enough, with Donelly asking whether war is worth it, a question that might have been posed far earlier in the script and dealt with in more depth. As it stands in Boots on the Ground, we are left hanging, although these heartfelt interviews do say a lot about the follies of war.

Even though there are few anti-war voices to be heard, even though the soldiers who took part tend to romanticize their experiences, the brutishness of the war, the emotional destruction and carnage cited in this often-disturbing play are hardly endorsements for war. Any war.

Boots on the Ground runs through May 21 at Trinity Rep, 201 Washington St., Providence. Tickets are $40 on weekdays, $50 on weekends. Call (401) 351-4242 or visit www.trinityrep.com.

cgray@projo.com / 401-277-7492