In the summertime of 1932, some 17,000 veterans and their households descended on Washington D.C. to demand the pay that Congress had promised them years earlier as a bonus for his or her service throughout World Battle I – however (in a funds compromise) didn’t plan to ship the cash to them till 1945. Within the depths of the Nice Despair, when many had been jobless, homeless and hungry, the veterans couldn’t wait that lengthy. They traveled from all through the nation, referred to as themselves the Bonus Expeditionary Drive, or Bonus Military, and arrange a number of camps all through the capital metropolis.
It’s a little-remembered second in American historical past that playwright Sam Collier makes an attempt to dramatize in “A Hundred Circling Camps,’ a manufacturing of Dogteam Theater Undertaking, a brand new Off-Broadway theater firm.
The play wants work.
“A Hundred Circling Camps” might be at its most profitable in introducing us to a quartet of intriguing precise historic figures who had been concerned within the occasions.
There’s Walter W. Walters (Jose-Maria Aguila), an ex-sergeant and out-of-work fruit picker from Portland, Oregon who got here up with the thought for the Bonus Expeditionary Drive (a play on American Expeditionary Drive, the official identify for the U.S troops who fought in France). He instructions the BEF as if it had been an actual military, with an insistence on self-discipline (and maybe an overinsistence on loyalty – rooting out not simply Reds however these he considers traitors.) The plan was to remain of their makeshift camps till Congress was persuaded to cross new superseding laws.
Walters comes into battle with Pelham D. Glassford (Alex Draper) who was himself a Brigadier Common within the warfare, and sympathetic to the ex-soldiers’ complaints, however has been appointed Superintendent of the DC Police Division, and must maintain order – which turns into extra tense after the Senate refuses to cross new laws on their behalf.
Then there’s Marita McKee as Sewilla Lamar, whose brother and first husband died within the warfare and traveled alone to D.C. from L.A., by foot and freight prepare. Adamant on behalf of the trigger, she realizes it’s misplaced after the Congressional defeat, and tries to persuade Waters to retreat.
“We’ve the sympathy of 100 million folks. We will’t squander this second,” Waters replies.
“In case you inform the vets to remain when you realize they don’t have an opportunity…This may finish with bloodshed.”
The fourth historic determine is Evelyn Walsh McLean (Lynn Hawley), spouse of the proprietor of the Washington Publish, however very wealthy in her personal proper ( proprietor of the Hope Diamond) who lectures the police superintendent on his responsibility to the vets, and buys them espresso and sandwiches en masse.
These 4 work together with practically two dozen different characters (portrayed by the remainder of the 14-member solid.) There are such a lot of two-character scenes with these peripheral, fictional those that it begins to really feel much less like an effort to current the total image and extra like a chance to present each actor some traces.
“A Hundred Circling Camps” will get its awkward title from The Battle Hymn of the Republic, the identical rousing Civil Battle-era tune (which ends: “Glory, glory, hallelujah!/Whereas God is marching on”) from which John Steinbeck took the title for “The Grapes of Wrath,” a novel that’s additionally set within the Nice Despair. Little in “A Hundred Circling Camps” replicate that novel’s unrelenting sense of desperation; below Rebecca Put on’s route, the marches and the songs really feel extra like leisure than a present of anger, desolation or despair. A memorable exception happens when a personality named Morrow (Zack Maluccio) repeatedly tries to placed on a pair of footwear that somebody donated to the vets, however his toes are too bruised and damaged down.
Though it’s solely about 100 minutes lengthy (with no intermission), Collier’s play appears to expire of issues to say concerning the 1932 confrontation. How else to elucidate her determination to incorporate scenes from different D.C. protests all through the years? There are characters from the Poor Folks’s Marketing campaign of 1968, which arrange a Resurrection Metropolis as a mass demonstration to demand the federal government handle the employment and housing wants of the poor, which had been deliberate by Martin Luther King Jr, and happened on a smaller scale after his assassination. There’s the Nice Peace March of 1986, which traveled from L.A. to D.C. calling for the elimination of nuclear weapons. There’s the Occupy D.C. encampment from October 2011 to June 2012 protesting wealth inequality.
And the characters from these totally different eras discuss to 1 one other.
Regardless of the factors that Collier is making an attempt to make by injecting these different eras, they’re not well worth the diffusion and confusion.
The final scene is clearer. It takes place outdoor in DC within the 2020s – explicitly “not January 6” however in any other case unspecified. A younger girl named Zoe (Naja Irvin-Conyer) is carrying a picket signal however we are able to’t see what’s written on it. She’s on a starvation strike, she says. Pop (Fidel Vicioso) comes over to supply her some soup, however she refuses; it’s a starvation strike.
“It actually wouldn’t harm your trigger one bit should you simply ate this soup,” Pop argues.
“I do know you assume that,” retorts Zoe, who’s clearly pissed off with the entire world: “All my pals had been right here the primary day And the second day and the third day. The information was right here
They interviewed us. Now it’s simply me.”
Pop seems to be a veteran of the 1932 protest, which, given the timeline, requires some suspension of disbelief, however permits us to be taught what occurred within the aftermath of that demonstration. However the principle level of the scene is outwardly to ask us to contemplate: Do these protests matter?
“Someone has to do one thing,” Zoe says to Pop concerning the unspecified downside that she’s protesting. “It’s an emergency and everybody round right here is simply residing their lives.”
“Generally folks change the little issues, and that modifications the large issues.”
“That’s not sufficient,” Zoe protests. “That’s not quick sufficient.”
A Hundred Circling Camps
Dogteam Theater Undertaking at Atlantic Stage 2 via August 4
In repertory with The Widow
Operating time: 100 minutes with no intermission
Tickets: $33.85 ($23.18 for college students, seniors and army.)
Written by Sam Collier
Directed by Rebecca Put on
Set design by Mark Evancho, gentle design by Calvin Anderson, sound and music design by Madison Middleton, costume design by Summer season Lee Jack
Solid: Jose-Maria Aguila as Walter W. Waters, Alex Draper as Pelham D. Glassford, Lynn Hawley as Evelyn Walsh McLean, Zack Maluccio, Marita McKee as Sewilla Lamar, Kayodè Soyemi, Fidel Vicioso, Aidan Amster, Maggie Blake, Naja Irvin-Conyers, Gibson Grimm, Peyton Mader, Francis Worth, and Katelyn Wenkoff.
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