It’s the year 1944 and WWII hero David Farrison has just returned from combat, with his best friend, to his parent’s old house. With a grim past awaiting him at the doorstep, he must face the challenge of acclimating to home life once again. David’s sister, Ann-Marie, has been left to care for their mother, grieving still at the death of their father. He, too, has personal issues to deal with beyond the memory of the war: drunken, limping, and chain-smoking onto the stage, David is clearly in need of private revision. The ensuing story provides the plot for Paul Mroczka’s Hero by Proxy, which ran evenings at the Silver Cultural Arts Center from Wednesday, March 6 through Sunday, March 10th, and directed by faculty member Beth Cox.
Audience members coming into the set on Wednesday’s opening night found themselves in a realistic depiction of a small-town, post-WWII household. The two floors were occupied on the bottom by a living room and on the top by two bedrooms, one of which provided the backdrop for the play’s pivotal closing scene. It was relatively easy to become absorbed in the world of Hero’s characters, as their home had been reconstructed down to the minutest of details.
With sophomore Brandon Heath and senior Hester Stark in the lead roles, David and Ann-Marie correspondingly, and Mike Gremo as David’s best friend, Rodger, a strong performance by all had been very much on the table, judging by the firm grip each actor apparently on their respective characters. Self-described by the actor, David apparently had his own set of physical quirks from being wounded in the war, and it is from this external introduction that the audience drew their most lasting impressions. Brandon remarks on him: “There are secrets in his past that he has long been trying to run away from, and dealing with. His leaving for the war was the biggest move in this direction. By the end of the play, he is forced to confront his past, and the result is powerful.”
In fact, the play’s closing scene contained subject material that may have struck alarmingly close to home in terms of emotional implications. The impact on the senses may have been particularly distressing for those having had experience with depression or suicide, (either personally, or through association.) Act II of Hero generally functioned as a steam cooker in which all the previous tensions of the play released themselves: with arguments, confessions, loud shouting, and ultimately suicide. Downstairs, Ann-Marie and Rodger happily dance as David’s suicide unfolds one floor above. Onlookers are met with his heartrending and stark last words, barely audible: “Help me.”
This very intensity of Hero might have been a consideration for audience members expecting a lighthearted plot – as many of the scenes lent themselves to both violence and gore, and were laden with emotionally-charged confrontation. In comparison to other plays given throughout the year by the theater department, assistant stage manager Gordon Fraser describes it as a “20th century realistic tragedy, of domestic realism, whose closest contemporary this school year may be Oleanna.” Other performances given by the Arts Center; for instance As You Like It or The Bard and Broadway, had more of a musical and carefree flavor, whereas Hero may be more inclined to have the audience thinking of their own difficult experiences throughout life.
The writer of the play, Dr.Paul Mroczka, of the Music and Theater Department, has been at Plymouth for nearly 7 years, following a 6-year period on the faculty of the University of New Hampshire. Having grown up in Northeast Pennsylvania, Mroczka received his M.F.A. in dramatic writing at Brandeis University. To date, he has written over 20 plays and screenplays, a good amount of which have been produced in New Hampshire. The Wellfont is one work produced by Mroczka, detailing the life of NH resident Amos Tuck, founder of the Republican party. He described this piece as being a biography dedicated to person willing to “go against the grain.” Another of his productions is The Lost Art, written especially for the Movement Theater in Portsmouth. This, too, was also a biographical work, featuring 19th century author Thomas Aldrich, contemporary of Mark Twain, who was editor of The Atlantic Monthly and created the initial prototype of Tom Sawyer.
Mroczka wrote the first draft of Hero nearly 15 years ago, and was chosen last April by the theater department for live performance. His inspiration for the plot came with an interest in heroism; of defining the hero through everyday action. This non-conventional take is instilled in the character of David, and perhaps more so in his interactions with family and friends on the homefront after his war experience. While Mroczka does not attribute specific points in the plot to his personal experiences, he does say that the characters have been conglomerated by a variety of influences, particularly family and friends from his personal life. In fact, two characters were actually cut from another play he had previously written.
Hero by Proxy was first performed as a reading at the Portsmouth Theater, and later on at the La Mama Galleria, an off-Broadway company. In many senses, the Plymouth performance was the “world premiere” of Hero, certainly a much-awaited, exciting event in Moraczka’s career here at Plymouth. While he had seen some rehearsals, Mroczka says that he tries not to invade the creative process required by live performance, knowing that some editing and deleting of the text will inevitably happen, and appropriately so. For Moraczka, and certainly members of the cast and production crew, the play well lived up to its reputation as being emotionally-orientated and impressively delivered . Visiting rehearsal a week before opening night, he remarked to himself, “Wow, they’re really hitting it on the mark.” Audience members who managed to see Hero by Proxy would undoubtedly agree.