THEATER REVIEW | 'ELLIOT, A SOLDIER'S FUGUE'

3 Generations of Soldiers' Stories in a Melancholy Key
By PHOEBE HOBAN
Published: February 7, 2006

"Elliot, a Soldier's Fugue" is that rare and rewarding thing: a theater work that succeeds on every level, while creating something new. The playwright, Quiara Alegría Hudes, who has degrees in music (a bachelor's from Yale) and playwriting (a master's from Brown), combines a lyrical ear with a sophisticated sense of structure to trace the legacy of war through three generations of a Puerto Rican family.

Ms. Hudes, whose heritage is Puerto Rican/Jewish, is only 28, but she already possesses a confident and arresting voice that has garnered her several prestigious awards. That voice is in finely tuned form in "Elliot," at the Culture Project, which true to its title is composed like a fugue, with several strands of narrative playing in point and counterpoint around a single theme: a soldier's personal experience of war.

Thus we have Elliot, a 19-year-old marine just back from Iraq with a Purple Heart, recalling in intimate detail his first kill and the paralyzing pain of a serious leg wound; his father, little George, or Pop, who fought in Vietnam and was also hospitalized with a leg wound, remembering his first encounter with Nurse Ginny, who later becomes his wife; and Grandpop (also George), a Korean War veteran, describing Bach fugues and playing the flute for his platoon: "Minor key, it's melancholy, it's like the back of the woman you love as she walks away from you. Major key, well, that's more simple, like how the sun rises."

The original tone and tempo of the play are immediately established as the unseen Elliott is evoked by his grandfather (poignantly played by Mateo Gómez); his passionate gardener mother, Ginny (beautifully acted by Zabryna Guevara); and his father (depicted with tragicomic flair by Triney Sandoval). Then Elliot himself appears, stripped down to a towel, a deceptively simple G.I. Joe, portrayed with perfect pitch by Armando Riesco.

At 70 minutes without intermission, "Elliot," directed by Davis McCallum, is written and performed with musical economy and precision. (And indeed, the musical motif extends into the drama itself: one element linking all three soldiers is the flute passed down by Grandpop.)

As the play unfolds, the individual and overlapping voices weave a vivid web of images: from the night-goggle green of a dead Viet cong soldier's blood to the deliberate wildness of Ginny's garden ("When your son goes to war, you plant every goddamn seed you can find. It doesn't matter what the seed is. So long as it grows"); from the silver-garbed splendor of Elliot's prom night to Pop's days in infantry in Dong Ha, searching for body parts.

The simple set works beautifully to frame the characters' narrative skeins. A lush green garden wall, complete with hose and watering can, serves as the backdrop to a sunken circle bordered by several benches and wood planking, a sort of spare patio area that provides ample space for the actors to wander as they unravel their war stories.

Without ever invoking current politics, "Elliot, a Soldier's Fugue," manages to be a deeply poetic, touching and often funny indictment of the war in Iraq.