That the response to the reading and the workshop of my new play, NOW I GET IT, would have such an impact on people - vets, their families, and non-vets and their families.
No, I’m not crediting myself with being a literary, cathartic guru – absolutely not!
It's probably more a case of even a broken clock is right two times a day – lol!
Rewind…Sometime back in 2014, two guys I went to high school, back in the early mid-60’s, reunite over fb
Fast Forward... 10 November 2018, a dive bar/pool hall in Las Vegas.
Over 50 years since high school later, those guys and myself (along with our wives) - one of the wives had gone to high school with us as well; sat face-to-face and talked.
It was like picking up where we’d last left off. The same held true with our wives (BTW... this was the first time they had met.).
We three men were Marine Corps, Vietnam vets. Something we learned about each another after connecting on fb. Two of us (serving with different units) were in country between 1966 and 1968, the other guy was in country, summer-1969 to late summer 1970.
Put three Jarheads together in the same room – what do you think they’re going to talk about?
Yeah, The Corps, AND… something none of us had ever talked about before. Especially with our wives around. The war.
Three very smart women. From time-to-time looking at each with a I-Can’t-believe-he’s actually-talking-about-it look on their faces. Just sat, listened – from time-to-time asked questions -- in such an nonintrusive way, we felt free…safe…to talk.
Even more interesting… one of the wives talked about what it was like for her while her husband was gone…the war at home. Something she had never shared with her husband.
Driving back to our home in Mesa, Arizona, the next morning, Kristina, my wife, said, “I think you found your next play.”
Fast Forward… a table read and workshop later – present day.
I’m getting emails from vets – past, present, and their wives… AND… their kids; AND people who have never served in the military.
Some vets thank me for “talking about things I still can’t talk about”.
Some wives… just say, “Thank you”.
Even more humbling, other wives thank me for, “Telling my story”.
Some kids – adult kids… and those who have never served, sum it up in four words. “Now I get it”… hence the title of the play.
It was a title change actually. The original title was… never mind. It doesn’t matter.
All I did was write a show… a show my wife, Kristina, has been bugging me about writing for twenty years. I fought writing it because, and I quote, “I don’t have anything different to say about a war that nobody cares about anyway.”
I’m writing this blog because I’m still so surprised by the reaction, I don’t know what to say.
And those that know me will tell you, “Loren ALWAYS has something to say!”
One thing is for sure… After all the films and plays that have been written about the Vietnam war, and the men and women who served and fought in it… my POV was, it was time for a story about surviving that war, and after the war… that has a happy ending.
Thanks for taking time to read my blog!
Loren
Comments