"When Paula J. Caplan first looked at the effects of war on families in
SHADES, America seemed to be at peace. The first reading of the play
occurred in September 2001, a few days before 9/11. Now, with Americans
still fighting in Afghanistan, SHADES is at The Los Angeles Theatre Center."
SHADES
By Paula J. Caplan
www.youtube.com/watch?v=1h92yuhNqMg
www.paulajcaplan.net
Now Playing thru May 5th at
The Los Angeles Theatre Center
514 South Spring Street, Los Angeles 90013
Tickets Can Be Purchased by Going to:
http://thelatc.org/2013/shows/shades-coming-april-11th/
To Purchase Tickets Over the Phone:
Call our Box Office: <tel:866-811-4111> 866-811-4111
Starring: Shades cast
<https://origin.ih.constantcontact.com/fs147/1101843588139/img/853.jpg>
<http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001v2nIYC4Ga5oDzlY8OqfH81_dJTOSgXVj5cK6cDylS9Ex
3h6MX90ipEnyNMQwhCPJygAFbtE3fFyuXHnAoGgUBN-53AS8xJUt56_lG_n1_FE1GbilhGdDzx9y
1nmLz0CC>
https://origin.ih.constantcontact.com/fs147/1101843588139/img/820.jpg
To purchase tickets over the phone:
Call our Box Office: <tel:866-811-4111> 866-811-4111
Customer service hours: 6am - 6pm M-F / 7am - 3pm Sat + Sun
Group Services: <tel:213-489-0994%20ext.%20100> 213-489-0994 ext. 100
<http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001v2nIYC4Ga5oDzlY8OqfH81_dJTOSgXVj5cK6cDylS9Ex
3h6MX90ipEnyNMQwhCPJygAFbtE3fFyuXHnAoGgUBN-53AS8xJUt56_lG_n1_FE1GbilhGdDzx9y
1nmLz0CC>
https://origin.ih.constantcontact.com/fs147/1101843588139/img/835.jpg
Now through May 5th
Written by Paula J Caplan
Directed by Gary Lee Reed
Produced by The Latino Theater Company
Thursday - Saturday 8pm | Sunday 3pm
$30 | General Admission ($15 LATC Members)
$20 | Students, Seniors and Veterans
$20 | for Groups of 10+
$10 | Thursdays for the first 10 tickets sold, $15 after that.
It's 1997, the Hale-Bopp comet zooms overhead, casting its magical glow over
a time of relative peace in the U.S. An American family is both haunted and
strengthened by its generations of service at home and on the front lines.
The politics of war, race, and sex collide with echoes of the past in this
compelling drama about what happens to family ties when oppositional
politics threaten to tear them apart. Witnesses to life's fleeting nature,
each must take action now or risk losing all. A play about discovering the
path to love, laughter, and even some peace beneath the ruins of war.
Recipient of the Inaugural Pen & Brush Award for Playwriting.
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JewishJournal.com
April 10, 2013
Listening To Veterans
By Naomi Pfefferman <http://www.jewishjournal.com/about/author/42>
www.jewishjournal.com/ culture/article/listening_to_veterans/
<http://www.jewishjournal.com/%20culture/article/listening_to_veterans/>
Dr. Paula J. Caplan
Harvard psychologist Dr. Paula J. Caplan recalled how her Jewish father, a
captain of one of the first black tank units to serve in combat in World War
II, often described his recollections of the war: He spoke not only of the
heroism of his men, but also of the smell of burning flesh as he passed by
enemy tanks and of seeing bodies frozen on fences or blown apart by shells.
"When he talked about terrible things, he teared up and was clearly in pain,
but he never talked about being in jeopardy or being frightened in any way,"
said Caplan, who lives in Boston and Palm Desert, in an interview from her
California home.
She gained some insight into his behavior back in 1995, while watching a
videotaped interview her father made about his experiences; she was stunned,
in particular, by his memories of serving as a forward observer, a kind of
scout who sneaks as close as possible to enemy lines in order to determine
its exact location.
"At that point in the tape, I broke down, weeping, and had to turn off the
video," said Caplan, who is the author of several plays focusing on
psychological issues, including "Shades," spotlighting veterans'
experiences, which opens April 13 at the downtown Los Angeles Theatre
Center. "I just couldn't bear the image of my father being so vulnerable
that he could have been killed. And I realized that my father had intuited
this all of these years; he knew we couldn't bear to think of him in such
danger, and that's why he never talked about those feelings.
Caplan, author of the book "When Johnny and Jane Come Marching Home: How All
of Us Can Help Veterans," began thinking about vets who talk about their
emotions and those who don't. "I wondered about how some people come out of
the war totally wrecked and others are seemingly unscathed, and how people
cope with having been traumatized, whether it was something you directly
experienced or that a loved one experienced," she said.
What emerged was her 2000 play, "Shades," which revolves around four diverse
veterans of World War II and the Vietnam War: The eldest is Jerry, who like
Caplan's late father, served as captain of an all-black unit that was
awarded for meritorious service; he declines to discuss his emotions, but
even so he has led a satisfying life, having regarded each day since the war
as a gift.
Then there is Jerry's son, Don, a former Vietnam War chopper pilot who is
suffering from a mysterious lung disease; a family friend, June, an
African-American who has been a quadriplegic since her shrapnel injuries
just before the fall of Saigon; and Jerry's daughter, Val, who is reeling
from the death of her husband, a Japanese-American who was born in an
internment camp, enlisted in Vietnam to prove his patriotism but after the
war was so haunted by flashbacks and survivor's guilt that, as Val puts it,
"Sam came back alive, but [his] soul came back in a bag."
Caplan, who is as much of an activist as she is a psychologist, has
counseled almost 1,000 veterans since the onset of the Iraq War in March
2003; after conducting a Harvard study on the healing effects of civilians
listening to veteran's stories, she launched a national project, "Welcome
Johnny and Jane Home," which urges civilians to simply listen to combat
veterans' stories, one-on-one, without judgment or asking questions, for as
long as the vet wishes to speak.
Information regarding the project will be handed out at performances of
"Shades." "Veterans often don't want to tell their loved ones about their
experiences because they don't want to upset them, and you don't want to be
forever in their eyes the person who went through hell," she said. "So if
other people in the community don't give them a chance to talk, then they're
alone."
So far, she said, citizens have not stepped up to the plate: "Of course many
soldiers come back devastated, because that's what war does, but we tend to
tell them, 'You've got a mental illness, go see your therapist, close the
door behind you and take your drugs.' And the result has been that the
suicide rates have gone up." According to a new study from the U.S.
Department of Veterans Affairs, the suicide rate among the approximately 23
million veterans in the United States is at an all-time high with 22 deaths
a day.
Caplan traces her activism on behalf of veterans and other disenfranchised
groups to her childhood among just 40 Jewish families in Springfield, Mo.,
where her parents "instilled in me that to be Jewish was to fight for the
underdog," she said, adding that she became a psychologist "in order to help
reduce human suffering."
She first became an activist in psychological circles in 1985, when she
heard that the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) committee to revise
its diagnostic manual was planning to include two new labels she feared
would be harmful to women: masochistic personality disorder and
pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder. Along with other feminist psychologists,
her concern about the masochistic diagnosis was that battered women and
others suffering with understandable life problems would be labeled mentally
ill, threatening their health insurance coverage, job promotions and even
custody battles. She promptly launched a national petition campaign to
protest the diagnoses.
After Caplan served on (and resigned from) two APA committees to revise the
diagnostic manual from 1988 to 1990, she wrote her 1995 book, "They Say
You're Crazy: How the World's Most Powerful Psychiatrists Decide Who's
Normal," proffering her view that "many so-called mental illnesses are
actually problems in living, such as grieving or loneliness, or having been
a victim of violence or oppression."
When the Iraq War began a decade ago, Caplan worried that veterans suffering
from the aftershocks would be labeled mentally ill (primarily in the
category of post-traumatic stress disorder), rather than simply suffering
from "a deeply human response to war - and that marginalizes them even more
than their war experiences have."
In her "Welcome Johnny and Jane" project, she has listeners confirm this
distinctly human reaction: "I urge civilians to say, 'I am sure if I had
experienced what you described, that, like you, I would be having flashbacks
or insomnia, and I hope you know that that is not a mental illness, you're
not crazy,' " she said. "I have seen strong veterans weep in response."
For tickets and information, call (866) 811-4111. For information about the
veterans listening project visit:
<http://whenjohnnyandjanecomemarching.weebly.com>
whenjohnnyandjanecomemarching.weebly.com
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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