Los Angeles, CA — The Actors’ Gang is the right bunch to tackle Bury the Dead, Irwin Shaw’s classic 1938 anti-war drama. And the play is the right choice, since the conflict in Iraq is central to the platforms of both presidential candidates. Yet Iraq is like no other war of the past. It’s time to ask: Is the central theme of Shaw’s diatribe against war pertinent to the sort of war are we fighting today?

The scene: a battlefield. The time: WWI. Six dead men lie on the ground and a burial detachment digs a hole to bury them. In a movingly effective dramatic scene, they are rolled into the deep ditch, but with the first shovel of earth, they stand up and refuse to be buried. The problem at hand: How to get soldiers to lie down and be covered with earth to make way for the next contingent of foot soldiers to move in. The players begin to question the game.

But they must lie down and be buried. The military gives them good reasons. This is the way war is fought. It’s a patriotic duty to lie down and die. It’s the way war has been fought since war’s beginning. One line falls, the next line moves in. But as each man refuses, he gives his position eloquently.

When generals fail to convince, the women are brought in to encourage their fallen loved ones to be good and do their duty. The six fallen men give their reasons eloquently. Their women, some voices pitched very low, are not as effective. Notable, though, is the brassy wife who has had nothing from a do-nothing husband, and the loving mother who is certain that she can look at her young son’s mangled face. The mother’s reaction will stay with the audience long after the lights go up.

Young men continue to fight and die for their country, but our current war is not a conscripted war. Soldiers are not exactly the universal soldier of the Donovan’s song. And who exactly is the enemy? WWII had an identifiable enemy. No matter what reality we may recognize in hindsight, we knew then what horrific damage the Nazis were doing, and our “boys on the street” fought hard to defeat them. We saw their deaths as needful valiant sacrifice.

Then came Vietnam…suddenly we began to question the nature of that war. Passions were high. Masses took to the streets and Shaw’s WWI play had true relevance. Then came Korea…and the purpose and causes of war became a bit blurred. Bury the Dead is a eloquent play for a different time, and brave of The Actors’ Gang for bringing to our consciousness who exactly we sacrifice to protect our nation. Is it time again for the players to question the game?

But at this moment, the anti-war marches have slowed. The emotional tone of the man on the street is not outrage but helplessness. The question: Exactly who is this enemy for whom American boys are dying? Who are these “foot soldiers?”  And if we win, how does this effect us here at home…or indeed, in this kind of war, can anyone win? Our enemy is now as amorphous as a cloud of fog or a plague of bees.

After our brave boys died in WWII, we all wanted a little house and a picket fence with roses in the garden. Now we have TV and the Internet. We’ve seen how much is out there and we want…big. We want lottery prizes that pay big. We’re not asked to sacrifice for “our boys.” We are preoccupied with fame and fortune. We all want to be movie stars or famous dancers. Our commercials are all pharmaceutical. You have a problem? Don’t struggle with it or change your life style, just take a pill. And who are our heroes? Look at pop cinema: Supercreatures who can fly out of the sky and save us.

These are anesthetized times. Perhaps that is the best reason for The Actors’ Gang to revive this classic. We’re asked to think about this war and consider…in a time when logic and reason have given way to commercialism and Mad Men.

One hopes that Bury the Dead still reaches the conscience and that we are tempted to leave off the cell and put away the Blackberry and consider the message of the play. Who exactly fights this war? Like the one dead soldier who stands up and questions, this may be the time to question how we solve problems on this planet…if we are not too busy text-messaging and down-loading or pushing away reality with a superhero flick on that little screen.

Bury the Dead is now playing through September 27, 2008
The Actors’ Gang
The Ivy Subtation
9070 Venice Boulevard
Culver City, California

All Photographs by Jean-Louis Darville, Courtesy the Actors Gang