Playwright Turns One Man's Fact Into Fiction
TheatreSquared Presents Public Reading of 'My Father's War'
Last updated Thursday, May 24, 2007 9:36 PM CDT in Entertainment
By Becca Bacon Martin
The Morning News
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FAYETTEVILLE -- Arthur Herzberg insists that his World War II experience "was more like a Jerry Lewis movie than a John Wayne movie," says his son-in-law, playwright Bob Ford. But after seven months as a scout -- "the most lethal position in the platoon," Ford says -- Herzberg was the last man standing. The rest of his 40-man platoon had been killed or wounded.
"From the moment I first heard one of Art's stories, I knew they needed to be told," Ford says. "He manages to surround the sheer horror of war with irony and humor and poignancy. I knew I didn't want to fictionalize his stories into a novel, but dramatizing them as a play was something I found creatively compelling."
The completion of Ford's first novel, "The Student Conductor" delayed the process. But the drama, "My Father's War," is finally in the developmental stages. A public reading, followed by a talk-back with the playwright, his father-in-law, the director and the cast, is set for 7 p.m. Sunday at the Walton Arts Center's Nadine Baum Studios in Fayetteville.
Director Alice Jankell is flying in from New York, actress Rebecca Harris from Pittsburgh and local actors Kris Stoker, Chris Crawford and Jason Engstrom round out the cast. Amy Herzberg, head of performance at the University of Arkansas drama department, will portray her father.
"Crazy as it sounds, it seemed completely natural to have Amy play her own 19-year-old dad, landing at Normandy on D-Day," Ford says. "They share the same wicked sense of humor, and the same upbeat outlook on life."
Ford says he struggled most with how to do justice to the stories his father-in-law had to tell.
"Amy sat him down in front of a camera some years back, and he told three hours worth of his World War II stories," Ford says. "I actually indexed that video, and there are 50, maybe 70, stories. One of my thoughts has always been, 'Why not just bring in an audience and play the video?' But to get at the truth sometimes requires art -- that artistic element. What we wound up with was something that is nonfiction but heavily fictionalized, if that makes any sense.
"A particularly ironic theme running through some of his stories is the anti-Semitism he had to put up with in his own ranks."
TheatreSquared, of which Ford is a founding company member, is developing "My Father's War" with support from the Arkansas Arts Council. Local senior citizens' and veterans' organizations have been invited to view the development process and comment on the progress of the play, and the $5 ticket price for Sunday's reading will be waived for veterans and their immediate families. The play is slated for a full production by TheatreSquared in spring 2008.
In the meantime, Ford's most recently completed play, "The Fall of the House," was featured this month as part of the Alabama Shakespeare Festival's Southern Writers Project.
On Stage
"My Father's War"
A New Play Reading
Date and Time: 7 p.m. Sunday
Venue: Walton Arts Center's Nadine Baum Studios in Fayetteville
Admission: $5; veterans and their immediate families will be admitted free
For information, call 445-6333.
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