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Canceled school play about Iraq brings out real drama
Connecticut students find themselves in the national spotlight when their principal shuts down their play.
from the June 12, 2007 edition
Page 2 of 3
Early in the semester, Bonnie Dickinson, who teaches the advanced drama class, suggested her students do something different. She'd been reading "In Conflict: Iraq Veterans Speak Out on Duty, Loss and the Fight to Stay Alive," a book of interviews with veterans. She thought the material might be perfect for the stage. She also showed her students documentaries about Iraq war veterans to give them a sense of how real soldiers looked and spoke. The students quickly agreed to the project, and set out to research more sources to put together a play. They found soldiers' blogs, letters published in newspapers, as well as the story of Maj. Ladda "Tammy" Duckworth, the Army National Guard pilot who lost her legs in combat, and later ran an unsuccessful bid for Congress.
"We all got really involved," says Taylor Telyan, a junior who researched her part from the blog of an Iraqi civilian. "I can't think of a single day we don't learn something new. Even now, people are coming into class with information, or we'll e-mail Bonnie, even if it's just a sentence from the news – and that's one of the reasons we got so upset when it was canceled. We got so involved, we did all the research, and this was something we did ourselves."
But, as many of the students point out, it was not simply a research project on a current "issue." Last September, Nicholas Madaras, who had joined the Army after graduating from Wilton High in 2005, was killed by a roadside bomb.
"A lot of the soldiers in the play are 18, and a lot of us are, and so it really made it real to us that that could be us over there fighting in Iraq," says Erin Clancy, who plays Army Reserve Sgt. Lisa Haynes, a soldier wrestling with the emotional toll her tour in Iraq took. "It's different than hearing about 'soldiers.' I've always looked at soldiers as 'old people.' But they're our age. And that's what I found moving about the whole experience – I feel they're my friends, that they could be any one of us."
During the breaks of this recent evening's rehearsal for their run at professional theaters, the teens mill about in baggy cargo shorts, tattered baseball caps, and printed T-shirts. Some talk about the impending SATs, others about the controversy their play has stirred up. But as they perform their monologues – at this stage, still holding a script and cheating now and then, as Ms. Dickinson shouts instructions from seats above the stage – they express the pathos of war-ravaged soldiers.
Tara Ross, playing Major Duckworth, sits on stage, and projects with sober confidence: "I am not going to dishonor the effort in saving my life by saying 'Woe is me, I got no legs.' Well, I got one knee. There are guys who have none, guys who are blind. I have my arms, my face, my brain. This is a pretty good life I have compared to what it could be." Tara pauses, then smiles. "Plus they make prosthetic high heels."
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