By Richard Lord

It’s become almost trite to bemoan the fact that in recent years America has become deeply and dangerously divided. Some see this as a recent phenomenon and attribute the rupture to certain political figures. But there was another major breach in American society that began in the mid-1960s. Before then, there was a general knot of agreement about the nation’s direction. For instance, there weren’t many substantial policy differences between the leading candidates in the two Eisenhower-Stevenson presidential elections or the Kennedy-Nixon election. In those days, a Cold War consensus prevailed regarding the nation’s values, its enemies, its goals and its responsibilities.

By the middle of the Sixties, two major developments swung the pendulum in the other direction: the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War, with the latter  playing the larger role in crashing that Cold War consensus. The war split families, communities, organizations and at least one of the two major political parties.

The breach lasted in some ways well past the end of the war itself, and this is the situation that dramatist Joshua Crone takes up in his engaging play Waiting For Westy. The ‘Westy’ of the title is General William Westmoreland, commander of US forces in Vietnam from 1964 – 68, the years when large numbers of Americans lost faith in the country’s mission in Indochina parallel to the large numbers of young Americans who lost their lives in a far-off land. Many people – including those who supported America’s war aims – felt that Westmoreland’s flawed decisions and overall misguided policies were one reason the Communist forces eventually won the war. After that painful loss, those who were most deeply involved in the war split into warring camps as to what the war meant and whether it was worth the sacrifices they and the nation made. This play is an illustration of that split.

Joshua’s Crone’s play is set in a South Philadelphia VFW post in October 1987 on the eve of the dedication of Philadelphia’s Vietnam War Memorial. This is a significant event for all four of the play’s characters, as three of them are veterans of the conflict while the fourth is the son of a Vietnam War vet.

At least one of the four bears the lasting effects of a physical wound, but all three bear even deeper wounds of the soul. The character who suffers the deepest spiritual wounds in the play is Froggie, played convincingly by the playwright.

Doc, a former army medic, now runs this VFW post, and he proves a most congenial barkeep in the post canteen. He’s also a fierce anti-Communist, whose indictments of Communist regimes extends not only to his own Vietnam experiences but also to the Katyn Forest massacre of Polish officers, police, border guards and POWs by Soviet secret police in the early days of World War II. (Doc is Polish-American and says he lost some distant relatives in the massacre.)

As to the other three: Skipper is a former navy man who has stepped up to play a needed support role in the dedication of the memorial. His feelings about the war are the most complex, almost clashing, and all those feelings are deeply rooted. The aforementioned Froggie is a former marine who was involved in the brutal 77-day Battle of Khe Sanh. Aki’s late father was with Froggie in his marine battalion and shared many of his wartime miseries.

Froggie has lost his moorings – or maybe they’ve been yanked away from him, a question that Waiting For Westy is unable to answer. But just exploring the question makes for good drama. He’s now an alcoholic and an occasional drug abuser, while it seems that Skipper has a drinking problem of his own. (Doc has promised Skipper’s wife that he won’t serve him any alcoholic drinks when he drops by the post.)

The story proceeds in waves, most of which contribute to the overall power of the play. The plot is driven by the characters and the interaction of those characters. Early on, there’s the light banter between the three who served in different branches of the military, but underneath this seeming competition, there’s mutual respect and profound appreciation for each one’s service.

Before long, the frictions begin. Doc still maintains his respect and admiration for General Westmoreland, while Skipper has only contempt for Westmoreland and what he feels were his disastrous military strategies. Nevertheless, both Skipper and Doc are incensed when Aki mentions some of the war crimes committed by American troops, such as the My Lai massacre.

But Aki presses the point, asserting that My Lai was not a one-off event or in any way justified, as Skipper and Doc try to argue. Like his father, Aki is a full-blooded Lakota who sees the Vietnam misadventure as a continuation of how White America engaged with non-White peoples in ways that began in misunderstandings and all too often ended in tragedies. Aki then tells the others that after the war, his father became active in the militant American Indian Movement.

All three of the vets embody contradictions, which only make them more human and more interesting as characters. Crone uses these aspects well to craft a strong narrative. The frictions and contradictions culminate in the highly charged climax when Skipper confronts Doc over a decision he’s forced to make: whether to allow the former general – the very same Westmoreland – to visit the post after hours and share a drink with those present.

Thoeger Hansen played Doc, and he served as our host from the moment we walked in. Hansen handles his host duties nicely, and he also performs well as the vet who saw some horrible things as a medic. He’s especially good in Doc’s silent moments, such as the those that are key points in the play’s final moments. He last lines also show his acting skills at their best.

Richard Roddy was solid as Skipper, especially when he was in high dudgeon about some matter. (The matters that lifted him to the highest dudgeon were Westmoreland’s mistakes and the airing of American war crimes in Vietnam.)

Roddy’s portrayal lets us see Skipper approaching full boil at a number of points throughout the show, but then always pulling back just before the nasty overflow. When, during the climactic scene, he does allow his  character to reach full boil, the effect is that much more impactful because we had seen him coming close to that point earlier.

I do have one quibble with Roddy’s performance: his wartime knee injury was inconsistent. It seemed to ebb and tide. In fact, it was never really that convincing, as his limp was modest all the way through. Heck, I have an old knee injury from high school football, and when the knee goes out, I have a more pronounced limp than Roddy showed us. And high school football is nothing like getting seriously wounded in war.

As already noted, playwright Joshua Crone took on the role of Froggie. As the vet most wounded internally, Crone offers a powerful performance that sparks every scene he appears in. Froggie has dark secrets and holding back those secrets is part of his suffering. We sensed residues of this suffering even when Froggie was making jokes or enjoying the camaraderie with his buddies.

But Crone’s performance also had a conspicuous flaw. When we first saw him, he was supposedly sleeping off a heavy bout of drinking. But he didn’t appear to be at all drunk, not even quite tipsy, opting for swagger rather than stagger. In speech and movement, Crone gave no sense that this fellow had hit the bottle a trifle too hard.Also quite strong was Lenny Ramos as Aki, the son of a veteran who had been a wartime buddy of Froggy’s. Not having been in Vietnam, Aki is not haunted by personal war experiences, but his views are at least as sharply honed as any of the other three. Ramos brings an intense dignity and integrity to the role that allows his Aki to maintain his moral stance in his exchanges with the three vets.

The writing is generally strong, with humor (mostly dark humor, of course) sprinkled into the intense give-and-take that gives the play its gravity. As you’d expect from a play dealing with the aftermaths of a tragic war, there are many poignant bits. One of the more poignant moments is Doc’s speech about a medic’s life in that war. Thoeger Hansen’s sensitive delivery of that speech made it even more effective.

However … the script could have benefited with another round of editing, as it would be an even more powerful play with a tighter focus. Just one example: that segment where the four play a game of “identify the political group just from the group initials” is mildly interesting for us history buffs, but it adds nothing to the play and diverts us from the more important matters Waiting For Westy takes up.

Joshua Crone also directed the production, though he was assisted by Giacomo Badalementi II. I imagine Badalementi did a good deal of assisting as the scenes with Crone as Froggie are staged well, calculated to bring the power of the moment to the fore.

One point that still needs to be made: just talking about the text, the acting, and the staging leaves out an important part of the appeal of this production, and that was its interactive nature. I mentioned that Doc (in the person of Thoeger Hansen) greeted us as we came in and played the ready host. In fact, it was possible to actually order and be served drinks from the bar. Doc also twice played escort and guided us from the bar area to a back area where some key scenes played out.

As the play was winding down, there was an intense moment when important prompts – the dog tags of American “grunts” killed in the war – got spilled across the floor. An emotionally deflated Doc asked the audience to help picking them up. A number of us came forward to help, receiving raspy thanks from Doc with each we retrieved.

More, at the end of the performance, the cast readily mingled with the audience in the bar area discussing the show and the themes dealt with in the show. Unfortunately, I had to rush back to teach a creative writing session, so I was unable to participate in what seemed to be a very friendly confab.

What these aspects of the production show is that a creative team is able turn limited space, seemingly a disadvantage, into a virtue. The value-added element here is what made the Yellow Bicycle Collective’s Waiting For Westy a special theatre experience. We should see more of these.

Unfortunately, this run of Waiting For Westy came to an end this past Sunday. However, I wanted to cover this play as it has an important message and is well done. There are possibilities of taking the play to other cities, and it’s worth noting that such a play, such a show deserves to be seen more than just in one short run.

While Waiting For Westy has ended its recent run at the Yellow Bicycle’s home base, it is slated to be performed at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival. The three scheduled performances are Wednesday, September 9 at 8:30 p.m.; Thursday, September 10 at 8:30 p.m.; and Sunday, September 13 at 3:00 p.m. You’ll be able to get more details as we approach the Finge Festival.