From our audiences:
“Breathtaking!” “Everyone should see this powerful piece of theatre!” “Brilliant!”
And from our reviewers – read the full review at the links below:
“The power of theater is pressure-packed into Beowulf Alley’s production of Last of the Boys… Seldom this season has any local company presented such a solid effort to reach such a compelling conclusion. The finale comes screaming out of the darkness, full of battle noise and desperate sobbing, a truly poetic conclusion packing many kinds of impact.”
-Chuck Graham
Let the Show Begin at tucsonstage.com
“Director Susan Arnold has worked wonders with this production—choosing the right cast, helping the actors create detailed performances, and not backpedaling on the script’s stylization. She has shaped a production that shies away from answers. Instead, she favors the shattered fragments of how we experience, perceive and remember Vietnam—and, by extension, the wars of today…The result, like the play’s own symbolism, is rich, complicated, emotional and not easily put into words.”
-Nathan Christensen
tucsonweekly.com
The Cast includes Royah Beheshti, Mary Davis, Lucas Gonzales, Gabe Nagy, and Clark Ray.
Ben and Jeeter fought in Vietnam, and for thirty years they have remained united by a war that divided the nation. Joined by Jeeter’s new girlfriend and her off-the-grid whiskey-drinking mother, these friends gather at Ben’s remote trailer for one final hurrah. As the night deepens, the past makes a return appearance, and its many ghosts come flickering to life. This is a fierce, funny, haunted play about a friendship that ends-and a war that does not.
Performance Dates, Times and Ticket Prices:
Dates and Times-
Thursdays – Saturdays, 7:30 p.m. April 15, 16, 17, 22, 23, 24.
Sundays, 1:30 p.m., April 18 and April 25
Ticket Prices-
General, by phone or at the door – $20 (VISA, MasterCard, Discover)
Online only discount – $18 via PayPal or Google (any credit card they accept)
Military Discount – $15 (guaranteed seating, must present military ID at will call night of performance)
Student/Military Rush – $12 (cash only, ID required, 15 minutes prior to curtain, based on seating availability)
Box Office Phone Number: (520) 882-0555
Run Time with intermission: 2 -1/4 hours
Parking: There is no charge for parking on the street or at meters on weekends and holidays! Pennington Garage is only $2 after 6pm weekdays and on weekends it is also only $2 all day. The lot across from the theatre at 6th Avenue and Broadway is available after 5 p.m. weekdays and all day Saturdays and Sundays.
Live theater is all about pathos, and Last of the Boys is chock full of enough of it for the whole extended family of veterans of the Vietnam War.
Laced with 60’s music from the moment you enter the Proscenium, any sentient being cannot help but be transported back in time to one of the most tumultuous decades in American history. Big smiles were flowing with our entourage of vets as we tapped our feet along with a man in his early 70’s who was gesticulating to the Rolling Stones, “Gimme Shelter.” Our music will never die, and our war will never end, at least not from its educational half-life.
I am not so sure that the reviewer in the Arizona Daily Star had a hold on the clear scripted undercurrent of the irreparable scars that have tattooed themselves, literally on the character Salyer, a daughter of a Vietnam soldier who died without ever knowing his woman/ child, and the rest of the Republic for the past 40 years.
The arc of the dramatic dialogue between two Vietnam veterans, Ben and Jeeter, with their dark humor, does seem to languish, but then that is how life is for many Vietnam vets…..stalled, as if the clutch is stuck for life. The screenwriter, Steven Dietz and Director Susan Arnold have captured these tortured psyches with a narrative that matches the daily lives of men of war; a bit foggy and a bit zoned out.
How poignant that the title of the Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara’s autobiographical interviews is. ” The Fog of War.”
The Last of the Boys captures the historical commentary of Secretary McNamara in his effigy that embodies Ben as he flashes back to the early years of the war and spews the contradictory speculations and plans for warfare that contradict the realities of the war.
Ghosts, if only symbolical, are real in the minds of combatants. And the creative license taken in these scenes delivers that reality to those who have the receptor sites.
Be prepared for some brick in your lap emotions, shortly after the Intermission.
The Bible does not say, “the Truth will set you free,” It states, knowing the Truth will set you free.”
The Last of The Boys has some knowing of historical truths that are both purging and freeing. Take a pal, and hold tight. Welcome Home!
The Beowulf Theater production of Last Of The Boys touch me on several levels. The intimate performance space brings you into the isolated lives and interaction of the characters. The play brings you a complex mix of emotions. It also reinforces the response that there are no simple answers to complex questions. Lives of veterans and the lives of the families of soldiers are often a network of secrets, a fraternity that they were unaware they joined, with secret passwords and signs to let others know they share the experience. The play showed this for the former soldiers, widows and children of deceased soldiers. Several times the small inside humor had laughs that non veteran types didn’t seem to understand. The music seemed to reflect the trapped in an era which was intensified by the sound and lighting to enter the sequences of authority figure appearances. Perhaps the experience was intensified for me as the past week also had departures of young people for current war zones. I had an eerie feeling that I may be seeing the future of several of them. The play is powerful, but one can hope that it will not have a counterpart in thirty years for current veterans. In the actors and their interaction, I saw reflected the people I have known for the years since returning from Vietnam. The voices rang true, even if the emotions called forth were larger that many I knew would permit for themselves. Perhaps an unfortunate consequence is that it is accurate enough to reinforce negative stereotypes of folks involved in the era. Well performed strong works can do this while seeking to find what is behind the stereotype. As an exploration into what is behind the stereotypes, this performance by these actors is a success. That said, I look forward to the theater’s next production of A Piece Of My Heart. Beowulf Alley is courageous in presenting such pieces. I hope that audiences may find them and learn from the messages of the plays.