Letters from the Front

As I can attest from my sojourn to Vietnam decades ago, letters from home in the midst of combat can be a godsend. And, I’m told, letters from the front back home can be both heart-warming and heart-rending.

“If All the Sky Were Paper,” which just completed its run at the Pasadena Playhouse, mines that rich vein of pathos and pain in a humanistic odyssey drawn from actual wartime letters. After finding one moving letter written by a cousin detailing service as a pilot in World War II, author Andrew Carroll traveled to all 50 states in the union, 30 foreign countries, and two active war zones to collect similar wartime correspondences–moving from the Civil War through both world wars to the more recent Afgan/Iraq conflicts.

Written by Andrew Carroll, directed by Jude Lucas, produced by Nico Garcia-Corona, and presented by the Arroyo Repertory, “Sky Were Paper’s” eleven actors take turns donning appropriate costumes and accents to present these letters, which focus so intently on the human cost of war.

The cast of If All the Sky Were Paper included Oraldo Austin, Lily Baer, Katsy Chappell, Brian Lai, Darwin Luján, Lori McKenna, Elijah Reyes, Doug Rynerson, Clayton Searcy, Kat Ventress, and Mark Youngs.

Drawing the many individual vignettes into a cohesive whole is Douglas Rynerson, portraying author Andrew Carroll, who relates the efforts undertaken to collect and catalog many hundred of letters needed to select the several dozen letters used in the play. As our guide, Rynerson introduced and put in context the various letter writers.

Revised to include messages from our more recent wars, “Sky” has been performed throughout the country, including at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and the Kirk Douglas Theatre here in Los Angeles.

This play put us in mind of Fatherland: A Greek Tragedy for Today, currently playing at the Fountain Theatre. Drawing from public court records, interviews, and social media posts, playwright Stephen Sachs has woven together a compelling family drama around the plight of a January 6th protester and his deeply impacted family.

As well, we were also put in mind of “Tracers,” written by John DiFusco and performed 13 years ago in Culver City, thanks to Keith Jeffreys and his USVAA. DiFusco’s moving work had eight front-line Vietnam War veterans relate their experiences, starting from basic training through the war to whatever was left of their lives afterward.

As I watched, I was touched by the memory of how terribly important it was for some of my fellow soldiers to be blessed by such letters when the company clerk arrived to pass them out–small blessings in terribly difficult times.

Clearly, the bottom line for both “If All the Sky Were Paper” and “Tracers” was how pathetically useless a thing war is.