InterAct Theatre's "Last of the Boys'

War? What war?

JIM RUTTER

When I picture the damage inflicted by war, I immediately think of Marine Cpl. James Wright, who lost both hands when a rocket-propelled grenade struck his APV in Iraq’s Anbar province. The two physically, though not psychically intact veterans in InterAct Theater Company’s ambitious production of Steven Dietz’s Last of the Boys stand in stark contrast to this understanding of the suffering caused by war.

Ben (Dan Kern) and Jeeter (Jack Hoffman) meet each summer at Ben’s trailer, where Ben hides from the world in the desolate landscape of an abandoned superfund cleanup site. This year’s reunion follows the funeral of Ben’s father, which Jeeter attended but Ben skipped because of the longstanding feud between father and son over the war when Ben returned from service in Vietnam.

Salyer (Karen Peakes) adds intrigue to the pair’s reunion as the much younger, though “gravitas-infused” drifter whom Jeeter picks up (she has a thing for “geezer grunts”), and whose mother, Lorraine (Susan Moses), follows her across the country to Ben’s campsite.

Victims of the past

Ghosts of the past haunt all of these characters, preventing each of them from moving forward with their lives. Jeeter follows the Rolling Stones on tour while teaching a “nationally recognized” college course about the ’60s; Ben still defends his role—and America’s—in Vietnam by channeling the “tragic figure” of Lyndon Johnson’s Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, and Lorraine daily mourns her lost husband by making his cup of coffee at breakfast, “just to enjoy the smell.” A mysterious young soldier (David White) also figures in the plot, although he’s visible only to some of the characters.

If I believed in the concept of sin, the purposeful wallowing in the past at the expense of the present and future would rank prominently in my definition. So I felt little sympathy after spending two hours watching Dietz’s characters wallow in their disillusionment and sense of psychological loss.

A good actress, miscast

I don’t fault the actors in Interact’s production for my lack of a compassionate response, and can blame only director Paul Meshejian for his poor choice in casting Karen Peakes. Though her performance equals or exceeds that of anyone on the stage (especially in her monologues of loss), her sveltely dressed, prim appearance betrays the bizarre, tattoo-covered character she’s asked to portray. I can’t fault the production values either, especially not Matt Saunders’s brutally visceral set, one that provides the evening’s most physical presence of desolation and even gives off a musty smell that wafts into the rows of seats.

The blame lies entirely in Dietz’s script. While it contains clever and intriguing dialogue and the right touches of humor effected at just the right time, Last of the Boys doesn’t put anything at stake, offers no moral dilemma, and consequently presents no characters worth caring about. Dietz’s too tidy ending— redeeming one character with a baptism, no less— even managed to ruin the anticipation I felt at wondering how he’d wrap up this largely conversation-oriented drama.

The playwright’s “easy out”

But the play’s greatest failure results from Dietz’s refusal to plumb the depths of, or even incorporate the one element of Ben and Jeeter’s psyche worth exploring. What truly separates the lives of combat veterans from anyone who never served— the experience of the battlefield— goes wholly underutilized and underexplored in this play.

Instead, Dietz chooses to focus on the “family forces” that produced a character’s disconnect from society— the motivational “easy out” for American playwrights from O’Neill to Williams to Arthur Miller on up. Jeeter and Ben aren’t “battle-scarred” soldiers, but respectively a slick college professor who exploits the past to steal the affection of his friend’s father, and a whiner who merely had a falling-out with his dad. The result of their strife: One lives in a trailer; the other follows the Stones on tour. And who cares?

Contrast their fictional lives with Corporal Wright’s real experience and understanding of the war in Iraq. Something in his character still drives him to salute the flag, proudly wear his bronze star, and stand as an icon of the war itself (exploited by hawks and doves alike). Thirty years from now, there’ll be a compelling play in James Wright’s story, one that captivates an audience by focusing on an element of his military experience barely touched upon in Interact’s production or Dietz’s play.