23 Shows Down, 77 to Go - Soldiers: The Desert Stand

Soldiers is the kind of show you root for: a locally produced world premiere, staged in a far-off-Loop studio, purporting to be a serious protest of our current engagement in Iraq and a satire of American militarism gone amuck. Alas, that package looks so much better on paper than on stage. Joshua Aaron Weinstein’s script is neither bold nor original enough to cut through the media noise machines to offer trenchant analysis or, for that matter, biting humor. This stuff was timely during the original Desert Storm in 1991, when quick victory and slick Smart Bomb videos pushed stories of military excess far from the front page.

 

Seventeen years later, satires like Weinstein’s are falling from the sky, oozing out the internets, cable programs, and a theater near you. Six years after the new Bush’s new invasion, with thousands of American troops and many more thousands of Iraqi civilians dead, we’re fatigued. Weinstein’s broad strokes don’t begin to address this morass. When gawky pre-teen Toma masters a combat video game, she’s urged to head to her local recruiter and give them a secret code. The hyperactive, socially maladjusted tyke with a mouth like a sailor is, of course, one of the sharpest recruits they’ve seen in a while.  She’s shipped to the desert with the overly juiced Sergeant Dan, stoned slacker Harold, and Martha, an obsolete office worker with by-the-book daddy issues.  Toma leads by default, taking her commands from Sally, leader of the “foolish soldiers” trio who interject mildly amusing but not terribly necessary commentary. After their climactic showdown, we learn they've all been fighting for The United Corporation of the World and that the inspiring text messages of loyal subjects kept our soldiers strong.  For good measure, and no other reason I could discern, the victor straps herself with dynamite and self detonates at the final curtain.

 

This “in joke” of a show might thrive as a viral video, forwarded by Board office workers craving a quick diversion.  But the occasional break from Soldiers’ predictable staging and timid dialogue—an Abu Graib reference, Sgt. Dan’s Top Gun-inspired ramblings and struts— reminds us the company had loftier expectations that simply couldn't be met.