Jack Gilhooley
The Warrior
One-act play — 2w
Tammy is a veteran of the 1991 Persian Gulf War as well as the 2003 war in Iraq. After two tours of duty in the latest conflict, she returns to civilian life with an honorable discharge but a diagnosis of PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder). Tammy insists that she could deal with the combat but couldn’t handle the fact that her husband left her while she was defending the country. What’s more, he has abandoned her for her daughter’s teacher who gained the affection of the child while her mother was away. Because of Tammy’s psychological condition, her spouse has managed to gain custody of their twelve-year-old.
Tammy has agreed to appear on-camera for Monique, a former high school classmate who has become a recognized documentary filmmaker. In a makeshift sound studio, Tammy runs the emotional gamut as she tries to make sense of the war she has just left and the war at home that she’s determined to fight.
Culture Project Impact Festival
NYC, 2006
Directed by Steven Ditmyer
Stage Manager … Maeve Sweeney
Tammy … *Tamara Flannagan
Giselle … *Annie McAdams
The Backlot
Sarasota, Florida, 2007
Directed by Deborah Barone
Stage Manager … Meg Heimstead
Tammy … *Tamara Flannagan
Gisell … Meg Heimstead
Theater of the First Amendment
George Mason University, 2008
Directed by Kevin Murray
Stage Manager … Patrick Magill
Tammy … *Marietta Elaine Hedges
Giselle … *Mary Lechter
Previous Productions
*Member of Actors’ Equity Association
“As Tammy, the main character and documentary subject of the play, Marietta Elaine Hedges is quite remarkable. She gives an emotionally draining and extremely passionate performance. The play’s content is also dense, well-developed, and rife with conflict. The whole experience is very disturbing, and I left the theater unsettled, as I gather was the playwright’s intention.”
—Brian Reed, Washington CityPaper, July 22, 2008
“Theatre of the First Amendment’s production of The Warrior is a surprisingly fascinating look into the secret world of PTSD with a gripping performance by Marietta Hedges. Hedges ticks powerfully and viscerally, captivating the audience as the character unravels. It’s like hearing the thunder and knowing that the lightning will come, it’s just a matter of when...”
-Carrie Klewin, DC Theatre Scene, July 24, 2008
“Ultimately, Tammy is not a symbol, but rather a devastated mother whose ambivalence about Iraq bolsters her real struggle: a war for custody. By turns polemical and voyeuristic, Gilhooley's drama is at its best when the author strives beyond easy political jabs to deliver a nuanced critique of the dangers inherent to appropriating veterans for any agenda.”
--Dan Lopez, TimeOut New York, August 2008
“Tammy’s focus on her abandonment makes The Warrior more a story of a woman’s heartbreak than of a heartbreaking war.”
--Judith Mahoney Pasternak, The Indypendent, August 12, 2008
“Juxtaposed with the writing is Kevin Murray's subtle direction... As more and more props are pulled from Tammy's duffel, they are arranged in such a manner as to suggest the detritus of a life in ruins, helping us see how deeply Tammy is wounded. Marietta Elaine Hedges as Tammy is all spittle and fire...”
--Peter Schuyler, nytheatre.com, August 10, 2008
Warrior and Peace
A local playwright takes on PTSD.
By Joel Roxen
Originally published in Creative Loafing
Sarasota playwright Jack Gilhooley’s latest creation, The Warrior, was set to premiere last September on an Irish stage, as part of the country’s annual Dublin Fringe Festival.
He’d penned the difficult one-woman script during a Fulbright guest artist residency at the National University of Ireland, and with its plot about a shell-shocked female solider coming home from Iraq, everyone was excited for the show’s debut.
Everyone except the author.
“It was the first time I ever had to pull a play because of politics,” says Gilhooley, 66, recalling the production he eventually cancelled.
“I was dealing with a director who was extremely politically militant,” he explains, shaking his head. The conflict escalated when the director told the veteran writer his play needed to be more combative.
“I thought, how much more militant can it be? He wanted [my protagonist] to commit suicide onstage, and for a moment, I thought he meant that literally.” Gilhooley’s edgy snicker is gruff and resounding. “I told him, I think she’s suffered plenty. I mean, that’s not my play.”
Later that month, The Warrior found support back home. At the New York-based Impact Festival for left-wing theater and film, the play won accolades for its honest depiction of a two-time servicewoman coping with the emotional fallout of war.
This week, the production rolls into Gilhooley’s adopted hometown for a two-week run at The Backlot theatre. “I think it’s a myth that audiences here are conservative,” says the New York native, who first came to Sarasota in the ’80s “for respite” but stayed after meeting his now-wife, also a playwright.
Whenever Gilhooley isn’t off overseeing productions of his work in New York, Miami, London and Quebec City — or collecting his routine grants and teaching fellowships — he’s trying to get work his staged here. Since 1977, he’s found success at both Asolo and The Backlot, though those works weren’t as politically charged.
“Our situation in Iraq was driving me increasingly crazy,” he says of The Warrior’s origins, “and I wrote the thing damn fast.”
Tammy, the play’s sole character, returns from active duty as a combat veteran to face a custody battle. But first, she must confront her war-induced anxiety — and her burgeoning post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
It’s a role only a seasoned actress can pull off, says Gilhooley; he had a hard time finding the right woman to realize his vision. Last summer, a producer he’d worked with put him in touch with Tamara Flannagan, a New York equity actor who premiered the part at the Impact Festival. Paired with director Deborah Barone, she’s now up for a Florida reprise at The Backlot.
Flannagan’s approach is unabashedly apolitical. “For me it’s more about the person,” she says.
And Tammy was a character she could connect with. As a high school student in Fort Lauderdale, the performer had military aspirations. “I wanted to join the Air Force,” she says. Flannagan got her start in theater as a backstage technician, which she claims was hands-on preparation for less traditional feminine roles.
“I wasn’t a girly kind of girl growing up,” she says. “I know how to use power tools.”
For Tampa-based director Barone, the play resonates even more. An army brat herself, Barone’s son was deployed as one of the first marines in Afghanistan after 9/11. In 2003, he shipped out to Iraq, where he witnessed casualties firsthand.
“When he got back, there were issues,” says Barone. Though he was able to complete his degree at Hillsborough Community College, he still won’t talk about the war and can’t stand being in crowds. “It’s the usual PTSD stuff,” she says, her son’s dog tag hanging from her neck alongside a peace sign. “I support our troops, but this is a real nightmare.”
Though Barone is “passionate about politics,” she maintains that the play is not political. “For me, it’s about a human,” she says. “It’s more about, ‘Come see what the administration has done to this woman.’”
That distinction — personal versus political — is crucial to understanding The Warrior, says Gilhooley, because many women soldiers must balance the emotional stresses of motherhood with what they see on the battlefield. Men, he asserts, don’t deal with family pressures in the same way.
“Sometimes, I think that’s really what’s behind the fact that we have no draft,” he says. “We know the women would be smarter. They’d be the ones to finally say, ‘Fuck you.'"