This review originally appeared in the MetroWest Daily News on Thursday, November 20, 2003.

Hovey's 'G.R. Point' is sharp

By David Brooks Andrews / News Correspondent

Surely, the most relevant play any of us will see this season is now being performed, not in Boston's downtown theater district, nor at one of the more celebrated regional theaters, but on the intimate, basement stage of the Hovey Players, Waltham's community theater. 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.

The play is "G.R. Point" by David Berry. The title is shorthand for Graves Registration Point or the place where American soldiers cleaned up the bodies of their dead comrades in the Vietnam War before sending them on to the morgue in Saigon and eventually back home to America. 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.

When the new enlisted man, Micah Bradstreet, arrives, life at G.R. Point is what one of the soldiers calls "Hollywood West" with lots of dope smoking, easily available women, and a macho, jokey atmosphere. Bradstreet is the odd man out, bringing a serious, moral concern to the war around him, until one night, he
becomes the unexpected hero, gunning down numerous North Vietnamese soldiers just as they're about to overrun the American position. Garrett Blair as Bradstreet is terrific at going through a wide range of
emotions as he describes the experience. Don't be surprised to find this play establishing a link between killing and sexuality. What makes Blair's performance so compelling as the moral and emotional center of this play is his understatement and emotional honesty as he holds his feelings at bay until they rise irresistibly to the surface.

Director Michelle Aguillon has done a superb job of calibrating the emotional arc of the production and nurturing an ensemble spirit among the men. There's something appropriate about this play being directed by a woman of Filipino descent, whose father died in the Vietnam War when she was eight years old. This play demands absolutely realistic acting. And some of the actors are more successful at it than others. Patrick Flanagan as Zan, the soldier with the most practical wisdom, is remarkably realistic and believable.

African-American actors Claude Del, Louis Jacques, Jr., and Keedar Whittle bring a wonderfully realistic black lingo and culture to the show. And Jenna Lea Scott is totally convincing and moving as the Vietnamese Mama-San. Tyler Raynold's has the difficult task of replicating a thick Hispanic accent and doesn't make it sound authentic enough. And Michael Corbett as Johnston doesn't seem to have quite found his role until the situation gets really tough. Occasionally, the staging feels a bit too theatrical for such a realistic piece.

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.

"G.R. Point" runs through Nov. 29 at the Abbott Theatre, Joel's Way, 9 Spring Street, Waltham. Tickets cost $15, $13 for students and seniors, and can be reserved by calling 781-893-9171.

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