production posters

Wasteland follows two soldiers trapped on the opposite sides of a wall – underground.  Joe is captured in Vietnam and isolated in an underground cell.  From the other side of the wall he encounters another prisoner – also American.  But that’s where the similarities end. 

Both characters are named Joe.  But they are polar opposites – one is a northern liberal, the other a good ol’ boy from Texas.  One supported McGovern, the other Nixon.  One is a homosexual in a time and place where accidents happened on a regular basis to those in the military, and the other is…well, from a more traditional definition of the America Dream. Thrust into each other's lives, the two men are separated by divergent backgrounds, opposite worldviews and solid ground. They must connect to survive, through humor, popular music, games from childhood and Star Trek episodes.  They battle dire conditions, loss of faith, and each other. 

The piece has a unique style.  It follows the struggles of two men but only one is seen onstage.  The theatrical convention mixes live theatre with radio play, gritty realism with a Beckett-like landscape where brutal reality floats over deeper psychological and social themes.  The language is both raw and heightened – while at times it leaps into metaphor when nothing else will suffice, this soaring language is mixed with a heavy dose of the base vernacular of the American soldier in Vietnam. Profanity and poetry live side by side.

WASTELAND was first produced in Chicago at TimeLine Theatre for a three month run.