News-Info-Alerts

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Re: Andersonville Trial Opens

Date: July 14, 2001

"Andersonville Trial' Turns History Into Riveting Drama

By Michael Toscano
Special to The Washington Post

The American Century Theater in Arlington is giving area audiences a chance to see one of the most compelling, yet rarely performed, courtroom dramas in American theater, Saul Levitt's "The Andersonville Trial."

The theater has re-created the 1865 war crimes trial in Washington of Confederate Capt. Henry Wirz. Because the events discussed actually occurred and the issues raised by the trial are so profound and reverberate still, "The Andersonville Trial" is riveting.

Wirz was commandant of a Confederate camp for Union prisoners in Andersonville, Ga., where conditions became so inhumane that Andersonville has been compared with Nazi death camps decades later. Wirz said he was following orders and saw his obedience as moral. The prosecutor, Lt. Col. N.P. Chipman, saw the Civil War as a holy fight to end slavery and, believing himself morally superior to Wirz, ruthlessly pressed for the death penalty.

The issues are complex, with no easy answers. Are soldiers supposed to follow orders even if they find them morally indefensible? How far does personal responsibility extend? How can the military function if soldiers are allowed to follow their consciences? This leads to the ultimate question: Can a soldier be tried for war crimes for following the orders of a superior?

In the production, one enters a re-created military courtroom, whose designer is Thomas R. Kennedy. Trial participants come and go, preparing for the proceedings and engaging in talk both small and strategic. The audience sits not on theater seats but on long wooden benches around the room, some just a few feet from actors portraying military officials and lawyers.

With most of the dialogue drawn from actual trial transcripts, the result is total immersion in the grim subject. The effect is so compelling that when the judges enter the room, audience members automatically rise to their feet.

As Chipman, Bruce Alan Rauscher is passionate, trying to find a legal framework for moral questions, even though his co-counsel reminds him that conviction of Wirz is not in doubt, regardless of the evidence. Nat Benchley is forceful as the cynical defense attorney, Otis Baker, who doesn't expect justice to be served.

As Wirz, Charles Matheny manages to do the almost impossible, bringing to life an unpleasant and arrogant character whose arguments make one reexamine the obvious initial reaction to his part in creating a hell on earth where thousands of Union soldiers died.

Jason Lott must be singled out for his performance as James H. Davidson, a witness so haunted by the war and his experience as a prisoner at Andersonville that he nearly disintegrates under aggressive questioning by prosecutor Chipman.

Wirz may have borne the brunt of the North's horror at the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln shortly before his trial, and he was a stand-in for a South that many thought needed to be punished for the brutal war.

Today, more than 130 years later, the legal and moral questions raised by his trial remain unanswered. American Century Theater deserves appreciation for raising them and providing an exceptional experience in the process.

Performances at 8 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, through Aug. 4, with 2:30 p.m. matinees Saturday, July 21-22, July 28 and Aug. 4. The Gunston Arts Center is at 2700 S. Lang St., Arlington. For more information, call 703-553-8782 or visit www.americancentury.org. "