War, what is it good for?
Hearts has sincere intentions to honor our GIs and do justice to their war-time experiences and post-war challenges. But the production at the Alliance Theatre's Hertz Stage has trouble keeping up with Holtzman's drastic shifts in tone and time, and though Hearts proves an inventive show with a satisfying payoff, it has no easy time getting there.
Sgt. Donald Waldman (Allan Miller) is the play's hero and "host," beginning the evening by talking to the audience and doing his limited repertoire of impressions. He introduces Babe (Traber Burns), Herbie (Don Mayo) and Ruby (John Seidman), the fellow veterans, schoolmates and St. Louis neighbors with whom he plays cards every week.
Unfortunately, the early part of the play comes across like weak Neil Simon, with contrived shtick such as Herbie taking off his pants to play cards and Donald and Babe dancing a cha-cha together. Donald makes a gruff but garrulous host with a good sense of humor, but the play can turn deadly serious, with a quiet theme involving racism and anti-Semitism and a more persistent one involving the eating disorder and nervous breakdown Donald suffers as a side effect to his time in combat.
Not unlike Slaughterhouse-Five (only without the sci-fi), Hearts cuts back and forth between Donald's tour of duty, which includes the Battle of the Bulge and the liberation of Buchenwald, and highlights from his postwar life. Director Kenny Leon makes the battle scenes especially effective, blending foxhole humor, military Catch-22s and disorienting light and sound effects. A bombardment of shells can give way to Lyndon Johnson announcing that the military action in Vietnam will continue.
But apart from the war scenes, the play seldom "clicks" for nearly an hour, with the one-liners falling flat and the drama in too loud a pitch. Seemingly everyone plays pop psychologist -- "Why are you killin' yourself with food?" -- and Donald's son and granddaughter speak in blatant generational clichés. Holtzman has a handle on the most recent decades and the European conflict but less confidence with the years immediately after the war.
Only in the play's latter third does it begin to connect with the audience, with funny episodes involving Donald reading the encyclopedia, taking his son to a Jewish steam bath and trying to obtain his long-lost Army medals. Holtzman explores some intriguing complexities of a Jewish veteran, such as Donald's rage at Holocaust victims for being merely "survivors" and not "warriors." Donald finds a kind of peace in, of all places, the chat rooms of the Internet.
Allan Miller is one of those the-face-is-familiar character actors you've seen for years in movies and TV shows without having a signature role. As Donald he's innately likable and conveys his food issues by savagely shoving candy into his mouth. But either he often plays against much of Holtzman's humor or his comic timing was off on opening night. And despite his salty dialogue, he seems to lack that ability to swear comically.
The rest of the cast play multiple roles and sexes, with Audrie Neenan at times playing Donald's wife Ev and a profane Southern drill sergeant, while African-American Ron Brice plays Donald and Ev's son and other roles, including a black veteran burning with resentment.
Hearts is the final production Leon directs as the Alliance Theatre's artistic director, and despite the strengths of the play's latter section, his swan song can't qualify as a complete success. But like Leon's other work for the Alliance, the production unquestionably has heart, and then some.
Hearts plays through March 18 at the Alliance Theatre's Hertz Stage, Woodruff Arts Center, 1280 Peachtree St., with performances at 8 p.m. Tues.-Sat. and 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Sun. $21-27. 404-733-5000.
