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If All the Sky Were Paper

Reviewed by Lovell Estell III

Kirk Douglas Theatre

Closed

Iraq War veteran and novelist Kevin Powers once said that “to write honestly about war, is to be inherently anti-war.” It’s one of the jarring insights that emerge from sitting through Andrew Carroll’s unsettling drama, which is based on his books War Letters and Behind the Lines.

The play is a recitation of letters written by those directly involved in and impacted by the nasty business of war: soldiers, men and women, civilian employees, scores of innocents, including children, and loved ones back in the States.

More a stream of monologues than theater, its emotional resonance and dramatic clout are provided by a stellar cast of actors and actresses (among them Annette Benning and Gary Cole), who imbue these missives with an perceptible immediacy under the sturdy direction of John Benitz, Captured in them are graphic, historic moments direct from mankind’s most infamous slaughter pens, the American Civil War, Bosnia, Vietnam and both wars in Europe. What is truly remarkable about these letters –aside from their grim illustration of man’s savagery and destructiveness — is the range of emotions they convey. On the humorous side, there’s a letter from a sexually frustrated German Hausfrau, pleading for a leave for her husband, the jocular insistence of a Fort Benning recruit to his mother not to send any food or milk of magnesia, and a husband who types terse replies on his wife’s letters and sends them back. The show is embellished perfectly by the use of vintage period photos.

Kirk Douglas Theater, 9820 Washington Blvd., Culver City. Sat. Closed.