War and Music

Passage Theatre’s ‘Willie B. Came Into the Sun’ finds the chords of human pain.

By: Susan Van Dongen

From left, Adam Overett, Joy Franz and Johnny Tran will perform in Passage Theatre’s Wille B.Came Into the Sun.

When playwright Jean Sterret traveled to Vietnam, she kept hearing spontaneous laughter as she walked the streets of Saigon. She couldn’t imagine what was so funny, and kept turning around to see what they were laughing at.
   The people were laughing at her — or rather, a distinctive hat she was wearing — but not in an unkind way.
   "This was at a time just when the United States was beginning to recognize Vietnam, so I was a bit of a curiosity," she says. "Everywhere I went, they would turn and laugh their heads off. They were (amused by) an African straw hat I was wearing — they just loved it. They wanted to take it off my head and try it on. They wanted to buy it. But mainly they laughed. They just thought I was hilarious.

Playwright Jean Sterret

   "So instead of being hated, as I thought possibly might happen, I found myself loved," she continues. "They’re such nice, affectionate people. Having only been there two weeks I’m in no place to judge a country. But I really liked them a lot. It was a wonderful experience."
   Ms. Sterret was motivated to travel from Saigon to Hanoi, taking in the flavor of Vietnam, which she previously had just imagined in her play Willie B. Came Into the Sun.
   "I was only there 10 or 11 days," she says. "I went there after I’d written the first draft of the play because I wanted to get more of a feel for the country I was writing about, and I did. I got a great deal of color and also came up with the idea to include someone playing a dan bau, a stringed instrument native to Vietnam. It was amazing how much the trip contributed to the play."
   Passage Theatre Company opens its 2004-2005 season with the world premiere of Ms. Sterret’s Willie B. Came Into the Sun. Directed by Robert Kalfin, the play runs at Mill Hill Playhouse in Trenton Oct. 14-Nov. 7. Opening night is Oct. 21.
   Set in the mountains of Vietnam, Willie B. explores the volatile relationship between a bereaved Vietnamese father and a young American soldier he has captured. The American, a classical pianist, uses his imagination to create a fantasy world where he can escape from his captivity into musical theater, jazz clubs, romantic interludes and wartime flashbacks. As time passes, the Vietnamese captor, also a music lover, begins to realize that he too has been caught in a trap of hatred and revenge.
   Ms. Sterret, also a classical pianist, wanted to connect the men through beauty as well as pain and gave the play an unusual format. While the issues are serious, music is interwoven into the story to provide humor and illuminate the different times in the lead character’s life. Classical music on a grand piano transports us to the American’s boyhood music lessons, Gershwin classics remind him of his first meeting with his girlfriend and traditional Vietnamese music played on a dan bau brings him back to his present circumstances.
   The use of music is Ms. Sterret’s way of imagining how an artist might survive a long period of captivity, as well as providing a link between the two men.
   "In the end, time and music is a connection between the two men and changes their attitude toward each other. They’re both very much involved in music. The Vietnamese character lost his whole family in the war and his wife played the dan bau, and music was a big thing in their home. There’s that connection.
   "I think if you’re in a terrible situation and you have nothing, you have to depend on the resources within," she continues. "The idea has flitted through my mind for years — ‘What would you do if you were captive?’ If you were an artist you’d have to try and do something to stay sane. You’d recite all the poetry you knew, or as a musician you’d play all the music you knew in your head. I think that wonder led me to write the play."
   Because of all the music interwoven with the drama, the cast needs to have a certain amount of musical talent. The players include Broadway veteran Joy Franz as the American soldier’s formidable French piano teacher, a major influence in his life. Ms. Franz’s career includes performances in six Stephen Sondheim musicals on Broadway, including Into the Woods, Company and A Little Night Music. She was in the original cast of Pippin.
   Ms. Sterret was born and raised in Australia and is now a naturalized citizen living in Atlanta, Ga. She trained as a pianist at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, performing and teaching piano during her "first career."
   She was formerly married to a World War II-era American Air Force sergeant and part-time singer who came to the music school seeking an accompanist. Ms. Sterret was asked to play for the young man — who introduced her to American music, from spirituals to Gershwin — and a romance followed.
   "Six weeks later we were engaged," she says with a laugh. "I didn’t know anything. All I knew was music."
   She turned to writing in the second half of her life. She was drawn to playwriting, having been active in theater for many years as an actor, director, sound designer and props builder. Two of Ms. Sterret’s plays, The Moebius Band and Afternoons at Waratah, have won national awards. Willie B. Came into the Sun was awarded a prize of $25,000 by the Onassis Foundation in its International Playwriting Competition. Ms. Sterret’s plays have been staged or read in New York, Atlanta and New Orleans, among other locations.
   Before her studies at the conservatory, Ms. Sterret was at a Catholic boarding school. It was here that the seeds of Willie B. were planted, when she discovered a macabre story about a medieval nun.
   "In my fourth year, I found a book about a nun who was found in a dungeon in a convent," she says. "Her fingernails were very long and her hair was matted — it was obvious that she had been chained there by the nuns for years. That was the first time I thought about the horror of this kind of thing. I don’t know if it was true or not. But when you think about the Middle Ages, any possible thing is true. Or when you think about today, any possible thing is true."
   It’s interesting that Willie B. Came Into the Sun, with its Vietnamese setting, will overlap with Last of the Boys at McCarter Theatre, which is anchored around the unresolved relationship of two Vietnam-era veterans. That conflict is much on the minds of American people lately, with the ongoing saga of the war in Iraq and the presidential candidates arguing about their military service. But Ms. Sterret says she didn’t plan for Willie B. to be so timely — she actually wrote the play a decade ago.
   "This play could have taken place anywhere, it didn’t have to be Vietnam," she says. "It could be any war or any place that people came from their own country to fight and somehow were left behind. I’ve always had this feeling about how ghastly war is, how useless it is in the end. My feelings about war come through in the play, though, and I guess it’s a suitable time for them to come through."
Willie B. Came into the Sun by Jean Sterret plays at the Mill Hill Playhouse, Front and Montgomery streets, Trenton, Oct. 14-Nov. 7; opening night Oct. 21. Performances: Thurs.-Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 5 p.m. Tickets cost $22 Oct.14-17 (previews); $28 Oct. 21-Nov. 7. For information, call (609) 392-0766. On the Web: www.passagetheatre.org