Blueprint Specials by Tom Ridgely (review)

Ascending industrial metal stairs and entering the USS Intrepid plunged the audience for Blueprint Specials into another world and set the stage for the first civilian productions of four World War II soldier shows. Decommissioned in 1974 and docked at Pier 86 in New York City, the 27,000-ton, 872-foot aircraft carrier was an impressive, imposing presence throughout the evening. Spectators were packed in its hangar and sat on uncomfortable plastic chairs in close proximity with one another. This helped create a sense of comradery during the performance, which fell somewhere between historical re-creation and contemporary adaptation and prompted consideration of Americans’ current complex relationship to strategic patriotism.

Emily McAleesjergins (Peggy), Laura Osnes (Pallas Athene), and company in Blueprint Specials. (Photo: Ashley Garrett.)

Waterwell’s production was especially significant, given that in 2016 the military defunded official soldier-show productions, which began with the 1940 establishment of the US Army’s Special Services Division. This morale unit originally produced the four “blueprint specials”—Hi Yank (1944), About Face (1944), PFC Mary Brown (1944), and OK USA (1945)—which contain music and lyrics by military service members Frank Loesser, Jerry Livingston, Hy Zaret, Peter Lind Hayes, Alex North, Jack Hill, Arthur Altman, and Ruby Jane Douglass. Each script is a blueprint containing complete directions for the costuming, scenery, musical score, and staging designed to be widely distributed for productions by soldiers with little or no performance experience. The four scripts are representative of the thousands of shows created by and for soldiers, which often addressed subjects such as being drafted, transitioning into the military, sex (or the lack thereof), dissatisfaction with military life, including the food, job duties, and homesickness, and pride in serving one’s country.

Director Tom Ridgely combined the four scripts into one narrative performance that helped transport the audience with humor. PFC Mary Brown was presented in its entirety (minus one scene) and served as the production’s spine. This choice was not wholly surprising, as the other scripts more closely resemble variety shows. It is nevertheless significant, because PFC Mary Brown is one of the few works created specifically for the Women’s Army Corps (WAC). The play follows the story of Pallas Athene (Laura Osnes), who joins WAC out of a sense of duty and a newfound independent identity from her role as Jupiter’s wife. Ridgely incorporated scenes from Hi Yank and About Face to transform Sad Sack (Quinn Mattfeld), a central figure in those plays, into Pallas Athene’s love interest. He also included a song from a notable production of OK USA directed by Sergeant (T/4) Mickey Rooney that utilized “America (Is the Place for Me)” as its musical finale instead of the song originally included in the script, “OK, USA.” The former’s closing line, “America always will be our home,” which was sung by the entire Waterwell troupe in powerful harmony, bade the audience to rhetorically (re)claim the country.

In the midst of this patriotic posturing the performance made apparent the transhistorical receptivity of identity-dependent patriotism. While it did some work to undermine the reinforcement of mainstream gender narratives, whiteness remained centered in the production’s casting (and also in the makeup of the audience). Drag was prevalent in soldier shows throughout the war, and Ridgely incorporated drag performances throughout the evening. However, these were often overshadowed by the production’s rapid scene changes and constant movement, which had the effect of marginalizing certain nondominant expressions of gender. The production did at times spotlight gender nonconformity, but often within a humorous context. For example, the Limón Dance Company performed a beautiful slow-motion dreamscape in which Sad Sack was the hero of a basketball game. As suggested by the script, the chiseled male dancers wore pink tutus and followed José Limón’s original balletic choreography for the scene...