Educator's Packet; G.R. Point

Things to know
1) Basic Facts G.R. Point; G.R. Point is set in November 1969, the high point of the anti-war in Vietnam. Pres. Richard Nixon has been inaugurated this begins an end to “the draft,” a draw down in the number of U.S. troops in Vietnam, and at the same time the fighting has been taken into neighboring Cambodia. Many troops in Vietnam are their somewhat unwillingly due to the draft, and a disproportionate number of Black and Hispanic men are Vietnam as opposed to their white brethren who tend to be lower class citizens.

2) Plot and Characters; G.R. Point stands for “Graves Registration Point” this is place inside of a forward operating base that collects, processes (cleans, inventories personal effects) and prepares dead bodies (both U.S. and Vietnamese) to be sent back to the U.S. for burial. Often these men (this is not a job for women at this time in history) go out onto the battlefield to collect said bodies. Having to deal with death on such an up close and personal level leads to the desensitization of some of these men. The worst is Sergeant in charge SGT. Deacon who gives no respect to the dead (American or other wise) often photographing the remains and selling them to other soldiers. He has free reign to do what he wants (even raping the plays only female character Mama-san) do to the lack of interest from the officer in charge First Lieutenant(latter Captain) Johnston, who spends much of the play talking about playing volley ball instead of anything associated with the war. The units newest man Micah who comes from New England, and a Ivy League education joined the army to avoid being drafted and put on the front lines joins his fellow lower level enlisted soldiers; Tito, Straw, Zan, Shoulders and K.P. in smoking weed, the boredom that comes with the routine of military life, and the horrors of war.

3) David Berry born July 8, 1943 in Denver Colorado. A Vietnam veteran his first play “G.R. Point” earned a Obie Award in 1979 for Distinguished Playwriting. His other works include; “Whales of August” “This Sporting Life…” and “O Lucky Man!”

4) Production history and reviews;

a) Hovey Players, Nov. 2003 Abbott Theater, Waltham MA
Director; Michelle M. Augillon
- Review; David Brooks Andrews
“It's also likely to be the grittiest, most courageous play you'll see, and the one that relates most specifically, if by implication, to America's presence in Iraq. It's a play about men being changed,deepened, as they face what it really means to kill and be killed in combat. This is political theater at it's best. Not a theoretical diatribe but a very realistic slice of life that challenges the antiseptic view our government tends to want us to hold of war.”
b) Callboard Theater, Sept. 1988 Los Angeles CA
Director; Howard Fine
- Review; George Gizienski
“Berry confronts the awful exhilaration of war, as well as the difficulty of maintaining an easy-come, easy-go reaction to the steady stream of corpses that emerges from the front lines. His characters look and sound as if they were there.”

Things to do/Think about
1) How did we get here? What was the cause(s) of American involvement in Vietnam? Have students use their knowledge of American and world history to debate/discuss the reasons.

2) What a world? What kind of environment did young Americans have to live/fight in during the Vietnam War? If you have the ability, ask a Vietnam Veteran from either the V.F.W or the Marine Corps League about life in Vietnam. If you cannot get a Veteran to speak to the class, have students watch the History Channel documentary “The Vietnam War.”

3) Kill or be killed. One of the most questions most asked of war veterans is “did you kill anyone?’ or “what is it like to kill?” (If you have a Veteran participate with objective two... do not ask this question!). To help yourself and your students understand this procure “On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society” by Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman USA(Ret.)

4) The Things They Carried. In 1969 there were no iPods, Xbox 360, or more than three T.V. channels. In 1969 a soldier or Marine could only carry few “luxury items” such as books, magazines, and pictures. Think about what you would carry to help you pass the time, discuss.

5) Life’s (been) grand. More often than not U.S. troops serving in Vietnam lost a friend to either being killed or so severely injured they are sent home. Ask your students to discus people they have lost that were close to them, or people who were severely injured that they were never the same again.

Exploring Further

President Richard M. Nixon on the Vietnam War
http://www.history.com/video.do?name=militaryhistory&bcpid=1681694250&bclid=1685979184&bctid=1606752282
This is a short audio sound bit of Pres. Nixon speaking to a group on you people about how the U.S. has fought four wars (up till then) in the 20th Century. Pres. Nixon campaigned for the Presidency on ending the war with honor.

Vietnam War Encyclopedia
http://www.history.com/encyclopedia.do?articleId=225210
This web page is a breakdown of the Vietnam War from the early days of French involvement in Vietnam on to the aftermath of the fall of Saigon.

Number of American Dead
http://www.archives.gov/research/vietnam-war/casualty-statistics.html%23year
This website contains the number of U.S. Service Men from 1950-1998 that were killed in combat, or remains that were found after the war had ended.

Weapons of the Vietnam War
http://www.173rdairborne.com/weapons.htm
This website contains drawings and pictures of the types of weapons used by the United States and their enemies from North Vietnam. The site also contains; rates of fire, types of ammunition, and max effective ranges.

The Vietnam Wall.
http://thewall-usa.com/
This website allows users to see the names on the Vietnam War Memorial (also known as “The Wall). This allows the user to see that the dead were more than numbers, they were actual people who lived just like they do.

Program Notes
To understand G.R. Point one must understand the times in which theses men lived. This is a world set near the front lines of battle, but often the front lines are brought to them. A constant fear of attack by an over whelming North Vietnamese force is an underlying current that is in the river of these soldiers otherwise placid stream of life. This is a reality that is seemingly hardly ever presented in film, T.V. or movies… and why would they; that would be very boarding to the audience. Could one ever expect to see Arnold Schwarzenegger on the big screen sitting on his ass for hours out of the day. The American public has tuned into this notion that in war one is in the thick of battle all day every day, and twice on Sundays. This however is a falsehood that Hollywood righters, and novelist have placed into the collective minds of the American public. Also in this world one how has never served in the armed services might find it odd that being set in 1969 during the height of the civil rights movement that such a racially mixed group of young men live in such harmony together. In a world where human lives depend on one another, the lines that American society had been working toward blurring are gone.
History of Vietnam War as of 1969: President Richard M. Nixon elected 37th President of the United States succeeding Lyndon Banes Johnson, who had committed over 55,000 U.S. troops to the war effort. President Nixon reversed his predecessor’s strategy by what he termed the “Vietnamization” of the war; to force the South Vietnamese army to take the lead on offensive operations due to the reducing U.S. troop levels. Vietnam was the first war in American history where the media; either print or television has almost unrestricted reign on its coverage of the war. Evening news cast would broadcast images from the pervious day’s action, and giving its viewers the daily “body count” of U.S. troops that had been killed. Due to this the American public had been somewhat privy to the horrors of counter-insurgency jungle warfare. With this being said, the American public had become horribly discontent with the war. The Beatles had preformed their last concert together atop of Apple Records in New York, a band that had been the voice of a generation after this incident shall forever become silenced. James Earl Ray; alleged white supremacist had begun to testify before a jury of his peers in the slaying of civil-rights icon Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In a little town in up-state New York the artistic milestone of a generation had been placed in a town called Woodstock. June 28th 1969 broke yet another wall when for the first time in United States history the homo-sexual community openly rebelled against the government, thus firing the opening salvo in what would become the gay rights movement. In the midst of all this turmoil, discontent, and bitterness toward the social norms of the previous years, not every event was marked with scorn. July 16, 1969 three adventuress souls climbed atop a “giant roman candle,” and forever changed how man, woman, or child (no matter race, color, or creed) would envision the cosmos. Three days later two of those men would touch the face of the planet Earths cousin in the stars, thus making the blue ball in the universe we live on seem so much smaller. The nineteen sixty’s was indeed a time of great change for our country, societal, moral, and ethical upheaval abound. Everything that one had thought America to have been before, had come to a bumpy halt. It was truly the American Adolescences. Though there was great strife in the world, there were also victories, the walls of before had started to crumble, to crack. These cracks in time will become doors for things never before believable, for good or ill.
Unlike many works about the Vietnam War you will find that there is no overt stating of (if any) political message. Unlike plays such as “Streamers” or war movies such as “Platoon” by Oliver Stone, there is no blatant anti-war slant. Or as in Stanley Kubrick‘s “Full Metal Jacket” in which the young American war-fighter is depicted as a brain washed peon, here Mr. Berry keeps a simple message… War is hell. Here in the simple confines of a small area on a U.S. Army post somewhere near the Vietnam/Cambodian border, it is here that me meet young men no different that you or I. We befriend them. We laugh, joke, smoke, live, and die with them. Here we see the true depths of a young man’s heart just trying to cope with a world that he is not emotionally equipped for, not has the experience to fully grasp. It is in this small world, we can look into the window of a world that only some few in our society has had the distinction, and the displeasure of seeing into.
Welcome to G.R. Point.

Statement; Producing G.R. Point

Problems posed by the text: First and foremost in my mind would be the set up of the stage. David Berry paints a simple picture with the way he describes the stage set up on paper, but then a diagram is provided a later page. This design (from the Phoenix Theatre, New York City) the set is built upon raised platforms to give some distance for lack of a better term to divide the “pissoir” which is stage right, and the living area/ bunker which leads off stage left. The “G.R.” is set on a platform up stage. Depending on the size of the theater’s stage I cannot really see how the pissoir and the bunker would be necessary. Another thing that bothers me on this that most of the action seems to happen in “hootch” (tent/living area) and there is little other action in any other setting, nor is there another setting.
Problem posed by SHSU: Picking a theater for this would strike me as a problem. The main stage would be great because of the ability to go “balls to the wall” on a set design. Here one could really help give the audience a visual feel of being inside of a forward operating base along the Vietnam/Cambodian border. Also the set designer could paint the picture of being set “outside the wire” (not inside a base, in the bush) by placing actual wire across the perineum giving another layer of realism. Then again, the showcase theater would actually thrust the audience into the action. At the end of Act one scene three and the beginning of scene four the base is attached, and the men must fight for their lives. This implied fire fight could be played out in the showcase. This has been my views on how one could do this play, but for me one of the major problems I could see facing anyone who would want to produce this play here at Sam would be that our talented pool of actors and actresses who can play a lot of different roles, but there are few actors here that can play someone who is in combat… or even in the military. To tell this story faithfully and be true to not just veterans, but to family members of our warriors who never came home the actors would have to be immersed in some sort of “boot camp” to help them find the character, and understand why the characters do what they do. My opinion as a lowly student and also as a combat veteran is that the actors chosen for the roles be placed in a training program that could be facilitated by SHSU’s outstanding military science department. Another problem that I could see would be when the pot smoking scene. I’m sure that a lot of our kid’s here know how to play getting high, but this could run afoul of the local populace here in Huntsville. I don’t know if our department has ever done a scene like that, and I’m not sure where you get fake pot but this seems to me that it could piss a lot of our law enforcement minded patrons.
Other Productions’ Solutions: Due to what little I have found I cannot fully answer this question. Though the 29 April 1979 directed by William Devane had the stage covered in some sort of rubber coating to give an earthen colored look, and little or no buildings for lack of a better term. Something like this could play out well in a theater like our showcase.
Critical Response: From little what I have found about G.R. Point is that critics have loved this piece. It covers a wide range of emotions in a short amount of time. Most of the reviews I found have little to do with the technical side, and more about the actors’ performa

Other Productions; G.R. Point

Theater/Venue
CENTERSTAGE
700 N. Calvert Street
Baltimore, MD

Month(s)/Year
1978 - 1979

Director
William Devane

September 24, 1988

By DON SHIRLEY
Theater/Venue
Callboard Theater
8451 Melrose Place

Month(s)/Year
September 1988

Director
Howard Fine

Set Designer
A. Clark Duncan

Lighting Designer
George Gizienski

http://articles.latimes.com/1988-09-24/entertainment/ca-2243_1

Producing G.R. Point; The Hovey Players

G.R. Point(2003)
Producing Organization;
Hovey Players Inc.

Theater/Venue;
Abbott Theatre, 9 Spring Street, Waltham, MA

Month(s)/Year;
November 14, 15, 16, 21, 22, 23, 28, 29, 2003

Director;
Michelle M. Aguillon

Set Designers;
John MacKenzie and Michele Boll
Lighting Designer; Jeremy Medicus
November 20, 2003
By David Brooks Andrews

"One would love to have heard the '60s music that's played during the intermission woven into the play as well. But none of the shortcomings obscure the fact that all of the actors throw themselves into the play and work well as an ensemble while taking on a topic that is utterly relevant to the soul and future of our nation.John MacKenzie's set of bunks, sandbags and a sergeant's desk is appropriately spare and very evocative, accented by a Michelle Boll backdrop, more impressionistic than detailed."

http://www.hoveyplayers.com/reviews/review_dba_grp.html

Feb/March 2003
by Helene Andersson, Producer
G.R. Point's success would not be complete
without... Many of the props and costumes were
either borrowed or donated to the production
http://www.hoveyplayers.com/prompter/Feb.Mar04.pdf

Producing the Paly; G.R. Point

G.R. Point (1979)
Producing Organization;

Paramount Pictures Corporation

Theater/Venue;
Playhouse Theater 359 W. 48th St., New York NY,

Month(s)/ Year;
Previews March 27, 1979 (24 previews)
Opening April 16, 1979

Closing May 13, 1979

Director;

William Devane

Designers;

Lighting Designer; Neil Peter Jampolis

Scenic Designer; Peter Larkin

http://broadwayworld.com/shows/backstage.php?showid=323395

By Walter Kerr 29 April 1979

Here, however director William Devane working with designer Peter Larkin have created a giant curve of scorched earth that looks like a watermelon rind after a fork has got through rutting it, and the actors are at once forced to trample all over it, looking for places to go, places to sit.

The corrugated effect has been achieved by rubberizing the ridges so that they will give readily beneath restlessly moving boots... in this case it also bounces right back again the minute a heel has left it, creating the impression that the war is being fought on a trampoline.

http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=14&did=133129662&SrchMode=1&sid=1&Fmt=10&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=HNP&TS=1248906600&clientId=96