Wasteland
premiered at TimeLine Theatre Chicago in 2012.
with Nate Burger and Steve Haggard, directed by Bill Brown.
(see the very cool trailer at the bottom of the page!)
About:
The play requires a two man cast and a single set.
WASTELAND follows two men trapped on opposite sides of a wall - underground. Joe, an American soldier, is captured in Vietnam and isolated in an underground cell. From the other side of the wall he encounters another prisoner – also American. But that’s where the similarities end. Thrust into each other's lives, the two men are separated by divergent backgrounds, opposite worldviews and solid ground They must connect, to survive, through humor, popular music, games from childhood and Star Trek episodes. They battle dire conditions, loss of faith, and each other.
The piece has a unique style in that while it follows the struggles of two men, only one is seen onstage. The theatrical convention mixes live theatre with radio play, gritty realism with a Beckett-like landscape where brutal reality floats over deeper psychological and social themes. The language is both raw and heightened – while at times it leaps into metaphor when nothing else will suffice, this soaring language is mixed with a heavy dose of the base vernacular of the American soldier in Vietnam. Profanity and poetry live side by side.
premiered at TimeLine Theatre Chicago in 2012.
with Nate Burger and Steve Haggard, directed by Bill Brown.
(see the very cool trailer at the bottom of the page!)
About:
The play requires a two man cast and a single set.
WASTELAND follows two men trapped on opposite sides of a wall - underground. Joe, an American soldier, is captured in Vietnam and isolated in an underground cell. From the other side of the wall he encounters another prisoner – also American. But that’s where the similarities end. Thrust into each other's lives, the two men are separated by divergent backgrounds, opposite worldviews and solid ground They must connect, to survive, through humor, popular music, games from childhood and Star Trek episodes. They battle dire conditions, loss of faith, and each other.
The piece has a unique style in that while it follows the struggles of two men, only one is seen onstage. The theatrical convention mixes live theatre with radio play, gritty realism with a Beckett-like landscape where brutal reality floats over deeper psychological and social themes. The language is both raw and heightened – while at times it leaps into metaphor when nothing else will suffice, this soaring language is mixed with a heavy dose of the base vernacular of the American soldier in Vietnam. Profanity and poetry live side by side.
