News-Info-Alerts

Re: POW Rescue - The Musical

From: POW-MIA InterNetwork

Date: August 28, 2003

"A Son's Musical Salute To a Belated Tale of War

By Jonathan Padget Washington Post Staff Writer

Composer and playwright Mark Walter Braswell has turned his father's war stories into a musical that will debut at the Kennedy Center this weekend as part of the Page to Stage New Play Festival.


Maurice Braswell's harrowing experiences in World War II as a B-17 tail gunner and a prisoner of war are full of drama, the scope of which his son had no real inkling of until two years ago.

For years, Braswell's mother cautioned her children against pushing their father to discuss the war. Anytime he recounted his experiences, Braswell recalls her saying, nightmares were sure to follow.

So Braswell and his siblings grew up in Fayetteville, N.C., hearing only bits and pieces about what happened to their father during his time in the Army Air Forces in Europe from 1942 to 1945. It wasn't until 2001 that the then-79-year-old Maurice -- at the urging of his oldest son, Edwin -- committed his memories to the page.

A manuscript he called "Flaming Arrow" -- after the B-17 on which he flew 41 combat missions -- emerged. That's when Mark Braswell got the idea for his stage musical, "Paying the Price." The work will debut at the Kennedy Center on Labor Day as part of the center's Prelude Festival.

The play, says Braswell, recounts his father's evolution from a happy-go-lucky enlistee to a battle-weary prisoner of war in Romania.

And that's just the beginning. Maurice Braswell also met Princess Catherine of Romania during his imprisonment in 1944 after bailing out of his burning plane. She kept a watchful eye on POWs in her country and advocated for their release instead of relocation when Axis ground forces pulled out after Romania capitulated and was occupied by Russian troops.

The princess even visited the Braswells and other former prisoners and their families during speaking tours of the United States during her Soviet-era exile from Romania. That didn't seem unusual to Mark because his father was a prominent judge and civic leader.

So a remarkable story was under Mark Braswell's nose all along, something that still amazes him.

"His story is so rich you don't need to take liberties," says the playwright.

But there's only so much you can put in an hour-long play, so Braswell's work focuses mainly on his father's daring rescue by Allied forces, under heavy bombing that claimed many of his comrades' lives.

"It's so painful," Braswell says, finally able to fully appreciate his father's early reluctance to tell his story. "But now, after all these years, I think it's cathartic. He's become proud and excited by the book, and now the play."

A lawyer by profession, Braswell, 45, has been creating material for musicals and revues only since 1995, though he's built a devoted following among many musical theater performers and fans with a portfolio of standard, urbane, love-and-regret fare. "Paying the Price" is definitely uncharted territory for him, with its military action-oriented scenes and anthems and ballads about life-or-death struggles for freedom.

As word of "Paying the Price" spread during its development, Braswell says, people have asked him if he's trying to make a political statement about current world affairs. "Not at all" is his reply. "I'm telling one man's true story. But what resonates with people is that it's so applicable today -- how we value freedom, and what we're willing to do for it. That, I think, is what strikes a chord."

Excerpts from "Paying the Price" will be featured during a Page to Stage program on the Kennedy Center's Millennium Stage North at 6 p.m. Sunday. The full work will be performed on Millennium Stage South at 8 p.m. Monday. Admission to both events is free. Free performances of "Paying the Price" will also be offered in the National Theatre's Helen Hayes Gallery on Nov. 17 at 6 and 7:30 p.m. as part of the "Monday Night at the National" series. For more information, visit www.kennedy-center.org and www.nationaltheatre.org.

©2003 The Washington Post Company"