Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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Wesner ( BY PATRICK TYLER "Dancing Days," a play by David Wesner which finished its run here at Wesner's Alma Mater Saturday night, is more a play about an immature, egocentric POW's wife than about a POW. All the same the tight dialogue of the script, flawless technical direction, lighting, sound and set design bring an overwhelming package of emotion and trauma home to the audience. Since the Vietnam POW's came home last spring the American public has craned its neck in a side show venture to open the minds of these men to see if all the old war movies were right about the in dignities and tortures perpetuated by orientals in war time. Stories of tiger cages and snake pits have torn newspaper readers away from their T.V. sets like no other phenomenon ever has. When a POW took his life last summer it made the front page of nearly every news publication in the country and television crews were drawn like vermin to the homes of the bereaved to record firsthand the emotion of the families and perhaps any graphic descriptions of the mental state during the last hours of depression. Wesner, a Vietnam veteran, has turned his curiousity over the psychological ramifications of our most recent war into the creative energy that spawned "Dancing Days." However, Wesner would admit that he is no psychologist, and this is perhaps the reason the attention of the play is focused more on the POW wife than on the tortured, tnaladjusted POW played nonetheless superbly by Donnie Dyer. Thus, Jean, played by Elizabeth Schuette, takes center stage for most of the performance, as she tries to deal with her emotional instability after the geographical separation of herself and her new I MOE Britch T The P1 i BLUE I DENIM I CORDU ROY * MOE U I * BRITCI g HEADQUARTERS * CORNER LAnt )n His W husband. Her character as drawn by Wesner is highly dependent and self-seeking. She tells on herself by admitting to her husband that she hopes to "know all there is to know and see all there is to see" through her marriage to a career military man. Hers is not a give and take marriage, she is more interested in the take. When the Army takes her husband, she takes emotional revenge in an affair with a somewhat stereotyped college instructor. When that fizzles she seeks comfort from a "tuned in and turned on" co-ed in what we are led to believe is a lesbian attraction at least on the part of the co-ed, played by Jill Dalton. When Daddy POW finally comes home neither husband nor wife is able to reach out and make the relationship work. The POW is trying to adjust to stateside life after having been transported overnight from somewhere like the Hanoi Hilton where a Cong officer named Chang had been trying to persuade his signature onto a confession of war crimes by means of strategically timed electric shocks. Meanwhile Jean can't remember why she married this guy, but nonetheless tries to reattach her securtiy-sucking tenacles only to be rebuffed. Constant fighting and name calling prevail in termittantly broken by attempted negotiations by the lesbian and Ned, Jean's brother, played by David Siskin. Jean taunts the POW with ac cusations that it is his fault the marriage is not working until the POW snaps under the pressure. The tension created by Jean is but half the cause of the breakdown. There was also the humiliation over having signed the confession for Chang, played by Duan Wei. The POW came from a long line of military men. When the POW snaps he relives moments in front of Chang and the LEVY'S I ,s Brew a for U I U I U I I Big Bells - -we no.t)* Flares Straight Legi Baggies Jackets Shirts 1 LEVY'S and I IES BREW I FOR MOST ANYTHING I AND ASSEMILY ST.= ay With P horror of his own betrayal, but for the first time Jean becomes compassionate and- unselfish . A REVIEW1 before tns pitiful an emo iunal demonstration Too late though, the POW comes out of the fit, still obsessed, walks out the door and blows his brains out. Though Wesner's dialogue throughout these emotion laden scenes is fluid and natural, the play lacks the searching polemics needed for the psychological in sight for which the audience t*U@UeU@U*U@U*4 I Lme lay '.Danc yearns. Again Wesner is not a psychologist, but to merely record the emotions of his players is to fall somewhat short of audience relief into the mire of the soap opera. Not only POWs, but all veterans of Vietnam, have shown tendencies toward maladjustment in greater proportion than soldiers -of other wars. In Vietnam we found men transported from prisons' and flying bullets, gut terror and hysteria to homes and families in a matter of hours. There were no heros, the war was unpopular. Wesner says through Jean, "I could never follow you into the sewer, waste disgusts me." Columbi< and most uni CTI CHOI BL( Now Intervi hostesses a Contact: ] Rod Tab< 1021 Briar S " Yor T B ing Days' The sewer of Vietnam diyided a nation, but more importantly and regretfully it divided men within themselves. Wesner has recorded the division in "Dancing Days." The university theatre depart ment has entered the play in national collegiate theatre com petition, the winner of which will see production in the John F. Kennedy Center for the Per-. forming Arts in Washington. Wesner has already distinguished himself as one of the best actors ever to pass this way and we hope this will not be his last play on his way to achieving similar distinction as a writer. 10 ewete iue restaurant 'PING )CK ewing for waiters, nd bartenders arry Pitts or )r 772-2011 te Circle 0il