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review
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| In 1968, Bay Area housewife
Marilyn Baker lived deep in Richard Nixon’s “silent majority.”
As protests raged in Berkeley and San Francisco, she spent afternoons
watching televised golf and roller derby inside her antiseptic Fremont
home. Then a young Marine chaplain wrote to the local paper from the
front lines of Vietnam, asking if anyone truly realized the agony and
bravery of war. Marilyn, of all people, wrote back. And
suddenly, she knew what to do with her days and nights: over the next
six years, she would become pen pal, psychologist and confidante to
more than 50 soldiers enduring the hell of Vietnam.
Flash forward, 1998. Marilyn's daughter, one Nancy Anne Baker, enjoys a stage career with Los Angeles' Eclectic Theatre Company. She writes a play based on her mother's correspondence — and what a play it is. "Dear Mrs. Baker," using little more than minimally edited letters written by soldiers and the title character, is powerhouse theatre. Call it a personal history of many good people versus an especially evil war. In two satisfying hours, we meet six of the men Marilyn came to know: John Taylor (Christopher Delisle), the Marine chaplain who wrote home; Joe Washington (Seth Walther), Rafael Otero (Charles Mitri) and Manuel Fagundes (Joe Camareno), three USMC short-timers trying to stay alive; Larry "The Skunk" O'Brien (Martin George), a special forces paratrooper; and Thomas Kaminski, minister to a medical unit (the wonderfully natural Brian Pope, who spellbinds the audience during a six-minute monologue about a Marine medic’s Christmas Eve). This is a powerful ensemble, with Camareno and Pope especially capturing the growing cynicism, rare humor and stubborn hope of the soldiers' daily lives. Meanwhile, ECCO regular Darcy Shean nicely shades Marilyn Baker’s change from a thoughtless hawk into a peacenik, changed by the truth mailed home. Plays like this aren't "supposed" to work. The action could become static. A poor director might emphasize the distance between Mrs. Baker and the grunts — or even worse, make their emotional connection seem “magical.” But director Christine Devereux gets everything right, with the aid of Alex Hajdu's set: Mrs. Baker's living room is literally in the jungle, and the soldiers interact with her much as sons home from school. This familial pull only heightens the drama. As we learn more and more about these inwardly gentle young men, we can't help but think: "I wonder if he'll make it." Complications ensue, but the play is not one of relentless depression — it's well worth the ride. "Dear Mrs. Baker" stays with you in the best kind of way. This is an amazingly assured first play, featuring six remarkable soldiers' stories. The other remarkable story is that of Marilyn Baker, who stopped being a Republican and became an American. Not a flag-waving drone, but a patriot Jefferson and DeToqueville would have admired — a bold individual, inspired by the heart, who took action so some of her countrymen could feel more alive. |