Pedro and the Captain

[This review was posted online at Variety.com on August 18th.]

Amidst continuing U.S. debate over the use of torture and lingering charges of war crimes directed toward the White House, multi-hyphenate Ami Dayan brings a new English translation of Latin poet, novelist, and playwright Mario Benedetti's Pedro and the Captain to the fourth annual Boulder International Fringe Festival. Based on the experiences of the scribe and interviews with police and army officials and insurgents recalling the Uruguayan junta (1968-85), the story brings home the realities of torture while serving as an inspiration to those who would resist.

The struggle—between the Tupamaros, former university graduates who became an urban guerrilla force, and the military, an array of national and local fascists and their collaborators—is represented by the prisoner protagonist, Pedro, and his interrogator antagonist, the Captain. Benedetti concentrates on torture's physical manifestations and psychological dynamics in six tightly written and feverish scenes, while taking a page from the Greeks by leaving the acts of savagery off stage.

(L to R) Mark Reid as Captain and Aaron Jennejahn as Pedro Photo: Chloe Cook

Head covered by a sack and hands tied in front of him, Pedro is thrown into room where the Captain (a graduate of the School of the Americas torture academy in Fort Benning, Georgia)¹ explains the rules to him: Silence is okay for the first session, but sooner or later everyone talks, depending upon how much abuse they're willing to take; I can give you back your life, you wife, your child, your house; we know that you know a lot of things; if you resist, we will rape your wife in front of you; if you cooperate, we will make it look like you did not cooperate, to protect you from your comrades.

The commonality of torture throughout the world coupled with the intimacy of Benedetti's language and the characters' interrelationship make it impossible for the audience to avoid the personal implications of the drama. We consider how well we would hold up to beatings, finger nail removal, and electrical burns approved by our elected officials and implemented by our troops.

(L to R) Mark Reid as Captain and Aaron Jennejahn as Pedro Photo: Chloe Cook

After all, as Pedro says to the Captain, "How can there be communication, contact, dialogue, not to mention 'trust' ... between a torturer and his victim? ... Aren't you the same as the mastodon who water boards me; the same as the animal who applies the cattle prod. Even you cannot believe there's a difference."

Dayan's bare-bones staging and make-up artist Chloe Cook's impressive array of gory effects keep the focus on the threat and experience of pain. We suffer with Aaron Jennejahn's stoic Pedro as his body is incrementally destroyed, while marveling at his emotional resiliency. The startling conclusion is somewhat dampened by the absence of a convincing psychological shift in Mark Read's cold and calculating Captain, after Pedro tells him that his kids will hear the truth about his sinister deeds.

However, these are no idle words: democracy has returned Uruguay and those who survived the "dirty war" and "disappearances" are now in power. One can hope that such an outcome is possible elsewhere as well, where torture, suicides, plane crashes, automobile accidents, and heart attacks are all too common for those who hold damning information or key votes.

The Boulder International Fringe Festival's presentation of Pedro and the Captain, runs at the Dairy Center for the Arts, East Theatre, in Boulder, on Sunday 8/17 at 6:30 PM, Monday 8/18 at 5:30 PM, Tuesday 8/19 at 7:30 PM, and Wednesday 8/20 at 8:30 PM. Tickets are $14 at the door. Advance sales through www.boulderfringe.com and 720-563-9950.

Bob Bows

Footnote:
¹ Between 1946 and 2001, over 61,000 Latin American mercenaries who do the U.S. Government's bidding were been trained at the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia. The victims of these terrorists far outnumber the people killed by the attacks on the WTC, the Pentagon, the embassy bombings, the USS Cole and the other atrocities that are now laid, rightly or wrongly at al-Qaeda's door. This boot camp for Latin American fascists is now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, or WHISC. See George Monbiot, 10/30/01, "Backyard Terrorism," Guardian Unlimited.