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WWI Play: “An American Soldier’s Journey Home”
September 19, 2018 @ 12:00 am
On Veteran’s Day, Sunday Nov. 11, join us at the Museum at 4 pm for a special performance by actor/creator Douglas Taurel, “An American Soldier’s Journey Home.” The play is based on the actual letters of a World War I doughboy. Seating is limited, please reserve your tickets in advance: $20 for visitors; $15 for Hoboken Museum members. (NOTE: Any ticket purchased after Oct. 27 is standing room only.) EVENT IS SOLD OUT.
The new play was commissioned by the Library of Congress’s Veterans History Project, and performed at the Library of Congress on Veterans Day and Memorial Day in 2017 to commemorate the centennial of World War I. Veterans Day, which celebrates the service of all U.S. veterans, is the anniversary of the WWI Armistice, which was signed on November 11, 1918.
The play is based on the life of Irving Greenwald, a soldier who served in World War I in the 308th Infantry Regiment, who was part of the Lost Battalion. His diary is preserved by the Library of Congress Veterans History Project and is part of the Library’s exhibition, “Echoes of the Great War: American Experiences of World War I.” This play is being presented in conjunction with the Hoboken Museum’s exhibit, “World War I Centennial, 1917-2017: Heaven, Hell or Hoboken.”
Taurel’s one-man show weaves together archival images, music and diary excerpts to narrate Greenwald’s entrance into the service and his experiences in France. Clad in period uniform and using a minimum of props, Taurel vividly conveys the intensity and terror of trench warfare, the jubilation of the troops following the Armistice, and Greenwald’s love for his family, particularly his wife, Leah.
When the Library of Congress saw Taurel’s critically acclaimed show, “The American Soldier,” based on true events and documentary letters written by veterans and their family members from the American Revolution through current-day Afghanistan, the Library asked him to create a special show specifically honoring those from World War I. Taurel gladly took on the project and started adapting Greenwald’s diary and letters into a powerful, one-man presentation. The play is about 85% drawn from the diary of Private Irving Greenwald, in his own words. Taurel condensed about 465 days of diary entries into a moving and thought-provoking 55-minute play.
Greenwald wrote his entries in the tiniest of handwriting, eloquently relating his experiences in training, in combat and in the hospital, after he was wounded in October 1918. The diary is the only diary that has ever been digitized, having been transcribed into type by his granddaughter, the daughter of his only child, Cecile.
Taurel explains, “As I worked on the WWI project, I decided to focus only on Irving Greenwald’s diary because of all of his details of the war, and of the deep love he had for his wife. It brought me to tears at times.”
[Photos by Helene McGuire Photographie]
“I stand with bated breath waiting for the explosion of the shell. I imagine the toll of injury and death it takes. The cost of it. The futility of it. The war will never be won on the field of battle. Why not end it all and spare men and women.”
– Irving Greenwald
The Library of Congress created the Veterans History Project in 2000 to collect, preserve and make accessible the firsthand remembrances of America’s war veterans from World War I through the more recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, so that future generations may hear directly from veterans and better understand the realities of war.
About Douglas Taurel
Taurel has been nominated for the New York Innovative Theatre Award and Amnesty International’s Annual Freedom of Expression Award. He’s appeared in numerous television shows, including Mr. Robot, The Americans, Blue Bloods, Person of Interest, The Following, Damages, NYC 22, Believe, and Nurse Jackie. His film credits include The Cobbler (starring Adam Sandler and Dustin Hoffman, directed by Tom McCarthy), Delivery at the HBO Latin Films Festival and the upcoming The Kindergarten Teacher (starring Maggie Gyllenhaal and directed by Sara Colangelo). He recently finished filming his web-TV series, Landing Home, which will air digitally in 2019. Landing Home tells the story of a veteran struggling to readjust to his new life out of the military. Learn more at https://www.douglastaurel.com.