Men of War
Stalag 17 presents Franklin with a strictly macho (and satisfying) stage experience
by Martin Brady
Pull-Tight Players is no secret. The Franklin community theater has been doing business for 39 consecutive seasons, which, with the exception of Circle Players, doubtless makes it the oldest live theatrical enterprise of any kind in the immediate Nashville area. The company operates in an absolutely charming 92-seat theater, which from the outside looks very much like the downtown Franklin church it once was.
Pull-Tight mounts five mainstage shows a season, plus two other Youth Guild productions. Through the years, the company has served as a training ground for talented artists with greater ambition, but primarily its mission is to mount shows for and by the locals.
“We don’t usually encourage reviews,” says Pull-Tight board president Ricki Keckley. It’s understandable. This is a tight-knit, positive-thinking, family-friendly operation that’s more about doing and sharing than it is about approval or egos.
Nevertheless, the company’s current staging of the World War II drama Stalag 17 merits some attention, if only because the selection seems so timely. Over the past decade, the American cultural landscape has been studded with such World War II reminders as Tom Brokaw’s The Greatest Generation, Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan and most recently Ken Burns’ PBS series The War. As the veterans of that conflict begin to fade away, works such as Stalag 17 play an increasingly important role in keeping the history alive.
Donald Bevan and Edward Trzcinski’s script exposes us to the dreariness of day-to-day life in a German POW camp, where Allied prisoners use dark humor to endure their depression and to coexist with each other’s very different personalities. The drama ratchets up when it’s determined that there’s a stoolie in the ranks—someone is snitching to their captors about escape plans, troop movements and the like. The play is about the discovery of the traitor, and ironies abound.
Billy Wilder’s 1953 screen adaptation arguably improved on the Bevan/Trzcinski script, adding some clever character development and increased dramatic tension. But for a strictly macho stage experience (there’s not a single woman in this cast), the Pull-Tight production has its entertainment value.
In a bit of real-life community theater drama, director Beth Woodruff had to leave town for a family emergency two weeks before opening, so another director, Linda Gibbs, oversaw rehearsals and got the show onstage. The efforts of both are worthy, though the production does have a few minor flaws. The cast, for instance, is a young one, and the players don’t always have the palpably grizzled world-weariness of prisoners of war. (The directorial team might have pushed these troops a little more to bolster the drama.) Moreover, the blocking at times seems a little stilted, which is probably due to the modest size of the Pull-Tight stage. Yet earnestness abounds, and there is certainly a committed esprit de corps onstage.
Like many community theater productions, performances here are somewhat uneven, but fortunately the main players all give reasonably literate readings, which should only get better during the final two weeks of the run.
As barracks chief Hoffman, Philip Murrell is suitably stern, which goes double for Parker Boase as the prickly barracks security man Price. To the critical role of Sefton, the soldier everyone loves to hate, Wade Woodruff brings a gnarly charm, while also introducing us to a decidedly health-conscious stage prop: the smokeless cigarette.
Jeremy Bolton is particularly good (and funny) as Marko, the camp’s version of the town crier. On the side of the enemy, James Huffnagle plays the captain, and he speaks his German-only lines very convincingly. Michael Lenzen, an older and obviously seasoned actor, does especially realistic work as the Geneva official who comes to the camp to report on possible abuses.
The technical aspects of the production are good, with Sean Aiello’s authentic-looking barracks set featuring austere bunks dotted with pictures of pin-up girls. Ryan Daniel’s lights, meanwhile, keep things appropriately murky and drab. There’s also a nice soundtrack that combines stirring (and slightly disturbing) German folk anthems with Sinatra and the big-band recordings of the period.
Overall, it’s a nice effort, though one clearly exceeded by the simple joy of the warmly open Pull-Tight experience.
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