'Piece of My Heart' touches many scars of Vietnam War

To design the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Maya Lin went to the grassy park where it was to be built to think about death and loss. To her they were "a sharp pain that lessens with time but can never quite heal over. A scar." She hoped in time the grass would heal this polished black gouge in the earth.

That scar is inspected and re-injured and caressed again and again in "A Piece of My Heart," a University Theatre production opening at 8 tonight at Rose Theatre.

Nothing in "A Piece of My Heart" is as emotionally provocative as walking the nearly 500-foot length of the memorial, but that's a testament to Lin's artistry. Six actresses and one actor spend nearly 2 1/2 hours on stage earnestly reliving the physical and emotional traumas American nurses survived and overcame during the war and adjusting to life afterward.

Truths spoken

Many truths are spoken in "A Piece of My Heart" -- the under-reporting of American casualties, the nastiness of some anti-war protesters, the drug-taking by soldiers and nurses alike, the way the U.S. government tried to ignore the effects of Agent Orange.

The play's weakness is that these women are types playwright Shirley Lauro has extracted from the more than 100 oral histories. Its strength is that almost all the senses are employed -- save smelling napalm in the morning -- to tell their stories. The result is a kind of quickening that never allows the play to lose focus.

The Doors play "Light My Fire" as "A Piece of My Heart" opens and the six nursing begin explaining how their ticket for the Vietnam War came. Insights into each one are conveyed through vignettes in which others of the six main characters play supporting roles.

"A Piece of My Heart" is a presentational play, like "Our Town," meaning the actresses and actor at times speak directly to the audience. The language, audiences should be warned, is appropriately salty.

Innocence to terror

The nurses progress from innocence to terror to calm bravery in the face of more terror to 20 years later missing the life-or-death immediacy of life in Vietnam.

Natasha Toro as the Amerasian Leeann, who hoped to be stationed in Hawaii where everybody looks like her, and Donna Harmon as the black head nurse Steele are particularly compelling, as is Jackson High School student Lydia Blades as the naif Sissy. Toro, Harmon and Blades have some of the play's most pungent dialogue.

"We are defiling something. Something holy is being transgressed here," Sissy cries. "Jesus, can't you hear?"

The talented Janel Mason sings "Me and Bobbie McGee" and "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" as Maryjo, the skimpily dressed USO entertainer who hopes looking at her and listening to her make the boys feel better.

Tonya Lynn as Martha and Holly Raines as Whitney are solid as two nurses who form a liaison in Vietnam that lasts far beyond.

Steve Ruppel plays 28 different male roles during the course of the play, a task he carries off without causing confusion.

Director Sharon Bebout-Carr keeps the six stories moving around student Marcus Stephens' evocative set, a multi-leveled abstraction that includes splayed vertical shapes that could be palm trees or bamboo, could be the aftermath of bombing.

Student costume designer Sarah Moore has captured the look of the late 1960s with bellbottoms and hot pants.

Student Sue Johnson ably handles the lighting, and Kareem Boctor is in charge of the sound.

Todd Masterson is the assistant director.

sblackwell@semissourian.com

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