Woodstock Arts Theatre’s ‘Dogfight’ shares lessons of empathy
“Dogfight” is on stage at Woodstock Arts Theatre through Nov. 14.
Justin Spainhour-Roth
Thursday is Veterans Day, when we honor those who have served in the U.S. Armed Forces. The Vietnam War looms over the musical “Dogfight,” running through Nov. 14 at Woodstock Arts Theatre. In “Dogfight“, three soldiers play a mean-spirited prank on an unsuspecting girl before their deployment to Southeast Asia. The cruel joke, however, leads somewhere they never expected.
Kyle Brumley directed the play and joined “City Lights” host Lois Reitzes along with actor Kinsey Erin, who portrays the character Rose.
Brumley explained the name of the play and the nasty prank to which it refers. “The title refers to an actual longstanding Marine tradition at the time,” he said, “Where Marines would find the most unattractive girl they could and bring her to a club, and as it’s explained in the play, the Marine with the ugliest date wins the pot.”
But although Marine Cpl. Eddie Birdlace, played by Truman Griffin, brings the unsuspecting young waitress Rose into this game, the two find a connection neither imagined possible. “I think it’s the strength of the central relationship, and how layered it is, and how responsive they are to each other; it makes for, really, a story that develops so beautifully,” said Brumley.
Oscar, Grammy, and Tony Award-winning duo Benj Pasek and Justin Paul wrote the music and lyrics for “Dogfight.” They also wrote music and lyrics for the hit musicals “Dear Evan Hansen” and “La La Land.” The seasoned songwriters introduce “Dogfight” with an explosion of masculine energy in the opening song, “Some Kinda Time.” Brumley quotes a lyric: “The whole damn town is ours to borrow / Nothing standing in our way.”
The theme of male entitlement, and the possibility of the great harm that comes from it, looms large throughout the wartime musical. “I think it will be a little jarring, how much of those actions [the audience] can recognize in our contemporary culture,” said Brumley.
Rose’s journey through the story brings not only the bizarre cruelty of the Marines she encounters but a reckoning with her attitudes towards others. “She’s challenging her own beliefs. It’s not just some guy challenging her; it’s the world challenging her; it’s herself. She’s finding herself,” said Erin. “In the middle of the song [‘Pretty Funny’] it builds to this climax where she’s beating herself up for being so positive, and beating herself up for believing in the good in people when in the end, it turns out that that’s exactly what she needed the entire time.”
“That was actually probably the most challenging part of our process, was making sure that we were tackling the play with a modern perspective,” said Brumley. Today, “Dogfight’s” productions greet a slightly different audience than they may have done in 2012 when the musical made its off-Broadway debut. “This was, of course, five years before the online resurgence of the #MeToo movement in 2017. With those conversations still so palpable today, parts of ‘Dogfight’ … can make us quite uncomfortable,” said the director. “We wanted to ensure that we were making use of that discomfort in a way that challenges the attitudes and events presented in the play, and of course, does not condone them — and that can be a very fine line to walk.”
“Dogfight” runs at the Woodstock Arts Theatre through Nov. 14. More information and tickets are available at https://woodstockarts.org/events/dogfight/.
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