American journalists who cover wars frequently don’t identify themselves as “war correspondents.” They instead are “foreign correspondents,” since they cover wars around the world.
They see horror, get caught up in horrible situations, and return, if not shell shocked, to the eerie rhythm of regular life. It’s a strange, difficult life seesawing between very different realities, like guests in a hellish hotel never truly able to fully return home, and yet one that some journalists live daily. And many of the best “war correspondents” over the years have been female. It seems they might do best to trade this job for a more placid one, and yet they go back to the battlefield. TV reporters, like Christiane Amanpour, have lived the story, but a new play tells a fictional story that still opens a window into this world beyond time covering wars themselves.
Alexis Scheer’s powerful new play “Breaking the Story” focuses primarily on one of these correspondents’ after she returns home. Director Jo Bonney gives Second Stage a first rate production at once artistic and dramatic, expressionistic and realistic, showing us a world where the explosions are emotional and the dynamite is in the dialogue, after the initial earth-shattering sounds of bombs in a dark landscape. Darron L West's sound design opens with a massive explosion that shocks the audience, as if we have been on a battlefield. Moments later we are back in the more ordinary world, as darkness lifts and the ruins of a battlefield suddenly transform to green grass, as if in a second we went from war to a walk in the park.
We then see Maggie Siff as Marina struggle psychologically in a story with periodic interludes of war, largely existing in memory, although these are more infuriating intrusions of the past into the present than simply remembered moments. This is a play about a war correspondent, but not so much about the bangs and booms of war, less about the fog and fatal fireworks of war than the fog of life. While some may wish that this play focused more on war itself, that would be a different play. And the greatest disservice one can do to a play is to review the one not written, rather than the one on stage.
This is not a play about war. It is not "All Quiet on the Western Front," and those expecting to see the shrieks and sorrow of those struck by bombs and drones will not find it here, but that's the point. “Breaking the Story” is an extremely well written play from dialogue to character to plot with top-notch acting and production, from the echoes of war blasts that pierce the characters and our calm to the struggle to survive during and after war.
Louis Ozawa puts in a strong performance as Bear, the cameraman Marina becomes so close to during war – and then at home. The characters try to piece together the puzzle of the two realities of their life. The entire cast brings enough verisimilitude to the stage, so that the audience feels they have seen real emotion and real life, as well as "reel" life via projections.
Maggie Siff gives a realistic, yet dramatic performance as Marina, a war correspondent walking the difficult tightrope of daily life as well as existing in the dangerous worlds of war. We find out about her life, how she receives more credit, probably, than she deserves, struggles with family and herself. And while the revelation of guilt for possibly exaggerated heroism has some of the artificial feeling of a well made play, it still fits the story and the structure.
So many war correspondents stand in the storm of war with poise. They risk death, without being “in” the war,” in order to present it, while they are still "in" the middle of it. Yet we rarely see behind the veneer of that courage as they face the outrages of war. This play's strengths far outweigh any flaws and it provides a powerful, emotional experience.
We follow wars here largely as they enter Siff’s thoughts, through the past, and an occasional projection. The reality, though, is that this is a powerful subject matter and a powerful play, not about war, but about the psychological price that must be paid to tell the story of those in wars, others' stories.
War correspondents, although it's often little noted, often tell the stories not only of armies, but the populations caught in the crossfire. We follow this war reporter home, but we never see the real trappings of domesticity. She, like Homer, can never truly return "home." The house, in a set masterfully designed by Myung Hee Cho, looks more like a house made of sticks than bricks. And changes in lighting by Jeff Croiter turn the dark confines of a war zone into the green pastures of a local park with the flick of a switch.
In a contrarian culture where we like to find what is "wrong" with the world, as if life is a game of "What's wrong with this picture?" it is easy to fault this play for “not” being about a war reporter during a war. That, though, is another play. "Breaking the Story" is about the psychic wounds this woman faces and must heal. She is terrified of letting go of her work and her identity, so accustomed to the adrenaline rush of survival in a dangerous world.
We spend a lot of time on her romance and relationship with those who help her cover the war and the sometimes forced family feeling that comes from that. The bonding over near death must be very deeply rooted, but what happens when that danger disappears? Do people drift?
Anyone who defines themselves by their work must know the fear of letting go of what they do. “Breaking the Story” is an extremely good play and this is an extremely good production. It may break the mold, in that it follows this war reporter's life more at home than on the battlefield.
But then theater is an emotional battlefield and the battles fought in this play, if not a private war, remain an engaging struggle where character and conflict collide and people wrestle with the elements of their life, at home and away, that they cannot, and never could, control. This correspondent is at war, but with herself, as much as she is involved in other's wars. And that is a battle well worth watching, seeing and presenting again and again.
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