TIME
Fluctuates between 1980s, just after the war, and during the war.
THERE WILL BE A BRIEF INTERMISSION BETWEEN ACTS
DIRECTOR'S NOTE
Rare is the theatrical experience you are about to have while watching TRACERS. Few shows delve so deeply into the psyche of their characters and leave you breathless, exhilarated, and ultimately emotionally drained the way TRACERS did ever since we first read it in 2005. The story is ultimately an act of therapy--the men who wrote it didn’t write it so much as live it and let those experiences pour out of them onto the page. Many of our audience members may remember living through the Vietnam War themselves, the first war broadcast live into living rooms around the world, the first war that showed in technicolor the real horror, confusion, and trauma experienced by the mostly-drafted “grunts” on the ground. The men we follow in TRACERS (and many of the real men sent over to Vietnam) had absolutely no business fighting in a war--and yet, there they were, guns in hand, sent out as “amateurs to play against pros in a game for keeps”. Since first learning about the Vietnam War as a young woman, I’ve been fascinated by the psychological effects experienced by the soldiers. There is a strange darkness over that time in history, even though I was not alive for it myself—a feeling of otherworldliness, identity loss, rules and regulations breaking down into chaos, a sense of reality coming apart, warping into a real life horror show. Vietnam-inspired films like Platoon, Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket, Born on the Fourth of July—that feeling can be found there was well. I’ve never experienced such visceral “otherness” while being immersed in any other historical era. In that sense, Vietnam is unlike any other time in history, and its story deserves to be told as long as there are ears to hear it. The veterans who wrote this play did not censor themselves, for better or worse. What you will see before you this evening is as true to their experiences as they could put down on paper. Through our production of TRACERS, we hope to honor their stories and sacrifice, and we thank you for being here with us to do the same.
-Katie Meyers and Billy Surges, Directors, Surging Films & Theatrics-
