'9 Circles' Concludes Run at Publick Theatre

9 Circles

Written by Bill Cain, Directed by Eric Engel, Lighting and Set Design by John Malinowski, Costumes by Gail Astrid Buckley, Sound Design and Composition by Dewey Dellay, Stage Manager Marsha Smith

CAST: Jimi Stanton, Daniel Edward Reeves (an American soldier in Iraq and after); Amanda Collins, Woman (various); Will McGarrahan, Man (various)

Presented by Publick Theatre Boston at Boston Center for the Arts thru 4/9 www.publicktheatre.com

Over the weekend, the Publick Theatre Boston concluded the East Coast premiere of Bill Cain's 9 Circles, a timely new play about an American army grunt fighting for his life when he is charged with committing war atrocities in Iraq. For the second consecutive year, Cain, the founder of the Boston Shakespeare Company, was awarded the Harold and Mimi Steinberg/American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award for 9 Circles. The prize honors playwrights for the best scripts that premiered professionally outside New York City during 2010.

Directed by Eric Engel, the Artistic Director of the Gloucester Stage Company, the production featured Will McGarrahan and Amanda Collins in multiple roles, primarily as lawyers involved in the case, and Jimi Stanton in a tour de force performance as the central figure, Daniel Edward Reeves. This young man with a personality disorder and criminal background is welcomed into the military and eventually receives an honorable discharge. However, when the horrific nature of his actions in Iraq is brought to light, he becomes a symbol of the evil wrought by war and must suffer the consequences. His only saving grace is to discover his own humanity in the process.

9 Circles is an important new work that raises difficult moral and political questions. Despite containing a fair amount of humor, it is not an easy play to sit through. It may also be exactly what your government does not want to fund with tax dollars. However, it is a shining example of why theatre and the arts deserve our support. At a time when most of us seem content not to ask and the powerful seem content not to tell, it is the playwrights, like Cain, who recognize that there is a rather large elephant in the national room and it needs to be confronted.

Photo Credit: Craig Bailey/Perspective Photo (Will McGarrahan, Jimi Stanton)