BWW Reviews: IF ALL THE SKY WERE PAPER Provides Emotionally Stirring Theatrical Experience

If All the Sky Were Paper played the Kennedy Center for two performances heading into Memorial Day weekend following a world premiere at Chapman University - where Mr. Carroll is founder and director of the Center for American War Letters - and several other productions throughout the United States.

Historian Andrew Carroll's endeavor to turn his best-selling collections of wartime letters into a theatrical piece proves to be a most satisfying theatrical experience for audiences. Under the commendable direction of John Benitz (also from Chapman University), a cast of seventeen actors -including notable locals like Evan Casey, Lisa Hodsoll, Dan Manning, and KenYatta Rogers - read actual letters from Carroll's collection that speak to the experience of war from the perspective of those who lived it. They include service men and women, their families, as well as those 'touched' by a given conflict in another close way. The letters span the time and space continuum and convey a broad range of experiences, from the mundane and ordinary to the unexpected, and the truly horrifying to the joyous.

To be sure, Carroll's meaty play is a balancing act. It's clear that Carroll had a considerable amount of solid and varied source material from which to draw upon, but thankfully he is a skilled enough thinker and writer to perform the delicate balancing act of including as much source material as possible, but also delivering a cohesive, logical, and well-organized theme-oriented theatrical presentation.

One way he successfully delivers a swift, neat, and tidy theatrical whirlwind is by using a narrator (a naturally engaging Garrett Schweighauser) to structure the play. Schweighauser, portraying Carroll, explains how, because of his own family experience, he became interested in tracking down these letters and describes the obstacles and unique opportunities his global search provided. As the other actors share the letters, he also identifies the common themes and experiences across the manuscripts, effectively making the point that the human experience at wartime is not dependent on nation-state boundaries, the type of conflict being fought, or the time the event took place. One of the major themes could be summed up as "there's more that binds us together than what separates us."

There are few, if any, missteps. All of the actors do well to dig into and effectively highlight the emotional center of each of these varied letters without resorting to melodrama, which makes the event all the more powerful. Projected photographs (Jason Goussak) draw focus to the people that wrote the letters, and are valuable to help the audience connect the often (for most) unimaginable experiences to our fellow man without pulling focus from the powerfully simple words.

While any mention of particular highlights might prove to be a disservice to one of the play's central ideas that "all experiences matter," I did find that several of the letters proved the most emotionally affecting, by virtue of the experiences described and the care the actors took to convey them aloud. I shall mention four.

The first was written by a Polish child in a German death camp during World War II and is the source for the play's title. In a way that defies his age, the child eloquently discusses how it would be impossible to understand his experience in the camp. The letter is deeply affecting on its own, but is also a key ingredient to establishing the play's overall theme.

The second (read by musical theatre actress Jodi Kimura) is a letter written by a woman who, as a young girl during World War II, built Japanese balloon bombs in the Pacific that were intended to detonate on American soil. She wrote the letter following the May 1945 tragedy in rural Oregon when one of the dormant bombs exploded when a group of six men, women, and children on a picnic found it and examined it. She owns up to her guilt/contribution to the event and pays her respects to the victims in a way that's quite touching.

The third and fourth examples both speak to how the best of the human spirit can shine through even in the most challenging of times. One, penned by the mother of a young soldier that died in Iraq, offers a remembrance of her son and forgiveness to his killer. The other, written by a young soldier in World War II, has a more lighthearted tone, but also delivers words that are most unexpected. He describes how units from opposing sides (German and British) called a truce over Christmas, crossed the lines, took photos of one another, and shared in the holiday season.

These letters, as well as nearly all of the others that are incorporated into Carroll's play, certainly stand on their own. However, when one considers them as a whole unit, they are even more powerful. That's what Carroll's play is - quietly powerful. And that's a good thing.

Running Time: Nearly 90 minutes with no intermission.

IF ALL THE SKY WERE PAPER played the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC on May 21-22, 2015. Photo by Daniel G. Lam (Los Angeles production; Jason Hall pictured).

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