thedrifter
04-24-07, 06:20 AM
Iraq War Theatre Is 'Catharsis' for Vets
Aaron Glantz, OneWorld US
Mon Apr 23, 11:33 AM ET
LOS ANGELES, Apr 23 (OneWorld) - Sean Huze smokes a cigarette on the first floor patio of his two bedroom apartment in the heart of Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley. The 32-year-old Iraq war veteran still keeps his hair in a crew-cut and wears a sweatshirt that reads "Marines" across the front.
His four-year-old son, Andrew, plays X-Men on his PlayStation 2 in the living room.
"I was a Marine Corps infantryman and I went to Iraq as part of the invasion in 2003," he tells OneWorld. "But I had a slightly different path towards becoming a Marine Corps infantryman than most, in that I grew up in theater."
Huze got his start in theater as a child in Louisiana, when at age seven he was cast as the Scarecrow in a children's production of the Wizard of Oz. He later moved to Los Angeles where he worked as an actor, mostly playing bit parts in TV series and commercials.
On September 12, 2001, in response to the 9/11 attacks, Huze walked into the Marine Recruiting Station on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. A year and a half later, he was ordered to war in Iraq.
"After coming back from Iraq I was dealing with a lot of the things that most combatants do and trying to sort it out and process it and deal with it -- and instead of turning to some more negative outlets [like alcohol or drugs] I turned to what I knew, and that was theater," he tells OneWorld.
In 2004, Huze wrote his first play, called "The Sandstorm," a series of ten monologues based on his experiences as an infantryman. The play was commercially successful, with performances in Los Angeles; Denver; Portland, Maine; and Washington, DC.
"That wasn't what I would consider the biggest reward from it," Huze says. "The catharsis of kind of translating how I felt and what I was struggling with and dealing with putting it on a page -- writing it and then acting in this play was really very healing for me and allowed me to start having some kind of resolution to the experience of combat."
Huze wanted other soldiers who fought in Iraq to be able to experience that sense of resolution, so he founded VetStage, the first nonprofit theater company run by veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. VetStage's theater is on Santa Monica Boulevard in the heart of Hollywood's theater district.
It's mission is to present "one of the best opportunities for our nation's veterans to define their experience and how it is perceived by the public. In addition to that, it provides a positive, creative outlet for veterans to process their personal experience, enable them to make an artistic contribution to society, and ease the transition back into civilian life."
In addition to producing plays, VetStage offers acting and playwriting classes to veterans, among them U.S. Army veteran Karl Risinger.
Like Huze, Risinger moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in acting, but after the September 11 attacks a recruiter sought him out and he re-enlisted, traveling the country to train soldiers before their deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Risinger says he's particularly happy to act in VetStage's first production, "The Wolf," penned by Sean Huze.
The play follows two Marines who face courts-martial over their actions in Iraq: the first, a female soldier accused of killing a fellow Marine after he raped her; the second, on trial for massacring an entire Iraqi family in their home.
Near the end of the first act, the two soldiers break out of a military mental institution where they await trial, but they can't lie low. Violence seems to follow them wherever they go.
This is how the play's main character describes the massacre he perpetrated to his local priest: "They were sheep," he says, "and I am a wolf and I did what wolves do and that's what I told 'em and that's why they keep me locked up."
"And what about now, you're still a wolf?" the priest asks.
"You can't turn someone from a sheep into a wolf and then back again, so where does that leave me now?"
"I like the production," Army vet Risinger tells OneWorld. "I think it's a story that needs to be told. [Veterans] have been programmed and trained and they're soldiers and suddenly they get out of the military and they're home to normal life and they don't have to go through the normal regimens they have to go through in the military."
"They're dealing with the stuff they've done during their military careers," he adds. "Nobody really knows how to deprogram a soldier."
"The Wolf" is a decidedly anti-war play, focusing not only on the conditions for soldiers after they come home but attacking the Bush administration's reasons for attacking Iraq. Still, VetStage founder Huze told OneWorld that the theater company isn't only for veterans who think the war is wrong.
"There are veterans who are part of VetStage who are conservatives who voted for Bush twice," he said.
"Certainly, for me, even though those aren't viewpoints that I hold -- if they are vets who are involved in this who still have issues they want to work through, and [if] they're able to do something artistically, it helps them to transition back to being a civilian or a citizen."
"I just care if they're military," he said, "and if they are I want to help 'em out."
Ellie
Aaron Glantz, OneWorld US
Mon Apr 23, 11:33 AM ET
LOS ANGELES, Apr 23 (OneWorld) - Sean Huze smokes a cigarette on the first floor patio of his two bedroom apartment in the heart of Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley. The 32-year-old Iraq war veteran still keeps his hair in a crew-cut and wears a sweatshirt that reads "Marines" across the front.
His four-year-old son, Andrew, plays X-Men on his PlayStation 2 in the living room.
"I was a Marine Corps infantryman and I went to Iraq as part of the invasion in 2003," he tells OneWorld. "But I had a slightly different path towards becoming a Marine Corps infantryman than most, in that I grew up in theater."
Huze got his start in theater as a child in Louisiana, when at age seven he was cast as the Scarecrow in a children's production of the Wizard of Oz. He later moved to Los Angeles where he worked as an actor, mostly playing bit parts in TV series and commercials.
On September 12, 2001, in response to the 9/11 attacks, Huze walked into the Marine Recruiting Station on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. A year and a half later, he was ordered to war in Iraq.
"After coming back from Iraq I was dealing with a lot of the things that most combatants do and trying to sort it out and process it and deal with it -- and instead of turning to some more negative outlets [like alcohol or drugs] I turned to what I knew, and that was theater," he tells OneWorld.
In 2004, Huze wrote his first play, called "The Sandstorm," a series of ten monologues based on his experiences as an infantryman. The play was commercially successful, with performances in Los Angeles; Denver; Portland, Maine; and Washington, DC.
"That wasn't what I would consider the biggest reward from it," Huze says. "The catharsis of kind of translating how I felt and what I was struggling with and dealing with putting it on a page -- writing it and then acting in this play was really very healing for me and allowed me to start having some kind of resolution to the experience of combat."
Huze wanted other soldiers who fought in Iraq to be able to experience that sense of resolution, so he founded VetStage, the first nonprofit theater company run by veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. VetStage's theater is on Santa Monica Boulevard in the heart of Hollywood's theater district.
It's mission is to present "one of the best opportunities for our nation's veterans to define their experience and how it is perceived by the public. In addition to that, it provides a positive, creative outlet for veterans to process their personal experience, enable them to make an artistic contribution to society, and ease the transition back into civilian life."
In addition to producing plays, VetStage offers acting and playwriting classes to veterans, among them U.S. Army veteran Karl Risinger.
Like Huze, Risinger moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in acting, but after the September 11 attacks a recruiter sought him out and he re-enlisted, traveling the country to train soldiers before their deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Risinger says he's particularly happy to act in VetStage's first production, "The Wolf," penned by Sean Huze.
The play follows two Marines who face courts-martial over their actions in Iraq: the first, a female soldier accused of killing a fellow Marine after he raped her; the second, on trial for massacring an entire Iraqi family in their home.
Near the end of the first act, the two soldiers break out of a military mental institution where they await trial, but they can't lie low. Violence seems to follow them wherever they go.
This is how the play's main character describes the massacre he perpetrated to his local priest: "They were sheep," he says, "and I am a wolf and I did what wolves do and that's what I told 'em and that's why they keep me locked up."
"And what about now, you're still a wolf?" the priest asks.
"You can't turn someone from a sheep into a wolf and then back again, so where does that leave me now?"
"I like the production," Army vet Risinger tells OneWorld. "I think it's a story that needs to be told. [Veterans] have been programmed and trained and they're soldiers and suddenly they get out of the military and they're home to normal life and they don't have to go through the normal regimens they have to go through in the military."
"They're dealing with the stuff they've done during their military careers," he adds. "Nobody really knows how to deprogram a soldier."
"The Wolf" is a decidedly anti-war play, focusing not only on the conditions for soldiers after they come home but attacking the Bush administration's reasons for attacking Iraq. Still, VetStage founder Huze told OneWorld that the theater company isn't only for veterans who think the war is wrong.
"There are veterans who are part of VetStage who are conservatives who voted for Bush twice," he said.
"Certainly, for me, even though those aren't viewpoints that I hold -- if they are vets who are involved in this who still have issues they want to work through, and [if] they're able to do something artistically, it helps them to transition back to being a civilian or a citizen."
"I just care if they're military," he said, "and if they are I want to help 'em out."
Ellie