thedrifter
06-25-07, 06:40 AM
One man, eight heroes telling their tales
By Michael Kuchwara
Associated Press
NEW YORK - What makes a reluctant warrior - a man able to kill for his country and come out a hero?
It's a question that is answered with remarkable poignancy in Beyond Glory, Stephen Lang's stirring examination of the lives of eight men who received the Medal of Honor for bravery in World War II, Korea and Vietnam.
The one-man show, which the Roundabout Theatre Company opened Thursday at its Laura Pels Theatre, is a testament to the power of upfront address. Lang, who adapted the evening from the book Beyond Glory by Larry Smith, lets these military men speak for themselves in this spare, emotional 80-minute evening.
With his chiseled features and crew cut, Lang has the square-jawed look of a veteran Marine but manages to create distinct characters with his voice and props he pulls from a footlocker.
These heroes are ordinary men in extraordinary circumstances. Except for Daniel Inouye, who later served as a U.S. senator from Hawaii, and maybe James Stockdale, who ran on Ross Perot's ticket in 1992, none became well known.
What makes the men's words so powerful is their matter-of-fact delivery. They tell plainly what happened to them in combat, and, in Stockdale's case, when he was a prisoner of war in Vietnam.
Lang starts with the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack as Navy man John William Finn, at age 97, recalls his morning in bed being interrupted by the Japanese bombing. The gunner leapt up, manned his machine gun and, though wounded, helped down enemy planes.
The heroism is colorblind; Lang tells the story of several black soldiers, including one who managed, despite the flagrant segregation in World War II, to distinguish himself.
Then there is feisty Hector Cafferata, who held off the enemy during a ferocious Korean War encounter.
"I did it, and I know I did it, though I'll be damned if I know how I did it," he says. "But I can tell you why I did it. I did it because I was a Marine. That's just what Marines do."
Beyond Glory is oral history at its most direct and dramatic.
Ellie
By Michael Kuchwara
Associated Press
NEW YORK - What makes a reluctant warrior - a man able to kill for his country and come out a hero?
It's a question that is answered with remarkable poignancy in Beyond Glory, Stephen Lang's stirring examination of the lives of eight men who received the Medal of Honor for bravery in World War II, Korea and Vietnam.
The one-man show, which the Roundabout Theatre Company opened Thursday at its Laura Pels Theatre, is a testament to the power of upfront address. Lang, who adapted the evening from the book Beyond Glory by Larry Smith, lets these military men speak for themselves in this spare, emotional 80-minute evening.
With his chiseled features and crew cut, Lang has the square-jawed look of a veteran Marine but manages to create distinct characters with his voice and props he pulls from a footlocker.
These heroes are ordinary men in extraordinary circumstances. Except for Daniel Inouye, who later served as a U.S. senator from Hawaii, and maybe James Stockdale, who ran on Ross Perot's ticket in 1992, none became well known.
What makes the men's words so powerful is their matter-of-fact delivery. They tell plainly what happened to them in combat, and, in Stockdale's case, when he was a prisoner of war in Vietnam.
Lang starts with the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack as Navy man John William Finn, at age 97, recalls his morning in bed being interrupted by the Japanese bombing. The gunner leapt up, manned his machine gun and, though wounded, helped down enemy planes.
The heroism is colorblind; Lang tells the story of several black soldiers, including one who managed, despite the flagrant segregation in World War II, to distinguish himself.
Then there is feisty Hector Cafferata, who held off the enemy during a ferocious Korean War encounter.
"I did it, and I know I did it, though I'll be damned if I know how I did it," he says. "But I can tell you why I did it. I did it because I was a Marine. That's just what Marines do."
Beyond Glory is oral history at its most direct and dramatic.
Ellie