Wasteland by Susan Felder (review)

First-time playwright Susan Felder’s Wasteland fits squarely with TimeLine Theatre’s mission to stage historically inspired plays that resonate with contemporary social and political topics. Depicting the story of two fictional prisoners of war in Vietnam, this production incorporated an extensive program backstory guide and lobby display, detailed construction of an underground prison cell, and affecting performances immersed in psychological realism. Felder’s emotional script uses the trope of imprisonment and events borrowed from the Vietnam War to explore human connection and its potential to overcome personal differences, a theme that TimeLine mobilized to reflect on the polarization of the United States’s current political climate. In its attention to verisimilitude and the creation of a nearly hyper-realistic atmosphere, Wasteland also raised questions about the use of traumatic historical events in artistic representation. How do artists negotiate ambiguous boundaries between the inspiration and exploitation of real-life experiences? What does it mean for a civilian playwright to imagine a POW’s story and for audiences to soak in this suffering while commending the performers on their excellent acting? TimeLine’s compelling production illustrated the difficulties inherent in representing painful histories in artistic contexts.

The production underscored the play’s theme of the necessity of human connection by exploiting the audience’s dread of isolation within a gritty, naturalistic setting. Ominously, Felder’s script established early on that Joe’s (Nate Burger) first neighboring cellmate hung himself, abandoning Joe to indefinite solitary confinement until the arrival of Riley (Steve Haggard). Only the character of Joe was visible for the length of the play. Although Joe spoke with Riley, the two men never saw each other, and Riley remained a disembodied voice throughout the performance. Wasteland’s program emphasized the highly restrictive, inhumane treatment that real soldiers experience as prisoners of war, and the cramped stage fully realized these conditions within TimeLine’s already intimate theatre. At stage right, a small portion of stone and dirt floor delineated the boundaries of the underground prison, with an opening in the earth above partially constructed overhead, with light and branches descending from the hole. A few wooden boards protruded from the textured dirt walls, and the use of a fog machine added to the claustrophobia of the space. Muddy water pooled on the uneven cell floor, replenished during the production by an onstage rainstorm. A wooden box and a large boulder functioned as additional set pieces, and a filthy, thoroughly wet blanket rested in the corner. Nearly every element of the set functioned as material for Joe’s self-care or survival. Separated from Joe within the small space of the theatre and totally isolated from Riley, the audience thus found itself immersed in the physical, social, and psychological world of the prisoners’ experience.

Director William Brown’s staging echoed the claustrophobic realism of the set design. Like the

Nate Burger (Joe) in Wasteland.

(Photo: Lara Goetsch.)

verisimilitude of the physical environment, the staging emphasized the slow rhythm and daily tedium of captivity. The show commenced with Joe struggling through a long set of pushups. This extended opening established a performance style consistent with the illusion of the scenery, accosting the audience with every loathsome detail of the prisoners’ anguish. In such a physical context, Burger’s and Haggard’s intense, psychologically motivated performances appropriately unsettled the audience. In one scene, for example, the men played a version of cops and robbers: Riley shouted a description of an imagined assault, but then the playacting turned ugly when Joe broke down in an apparent flashback of battle trauma. As Joe struggled to regain control, he asked Riley what they must have been thinking about to partake in such a game.

Such a question might have been appropriate to the entire production. I wondered how Vietnam veterans and former prisoners of war might respond to TimeLine’s realization of Felder’s project, which emphasized vividly realistic depictions in the context of historical authenticity. In Wasteland’s...