“The Beating of a Warrior’s Heart” by Josh Hornbeck was an unsuccessful attempt to portray the experience of a veteran, suffering from post-traumatic stress, as he attempta to re-enter society.
Although I could only sit through the first act, the “play” suffered from excessive and repetitive exposition, predictable triteness and seemed conceived for the cinema with a lot of motion between different rooms in a house, and the front porch, which would have worked better in film.
The directing even on a technical level was poor, about 20% of the lines were incomprehensible due to bad diction and the actors being positioned on stage so that they delivered their lines upstage instead of towards the audience.
Plays about veterans re-entering society are very topical and tragic; however this play did not illuminate anything new about the post-traumatic stress of veterans.
“The Beating of a Warrior’s Heart” by Josh Hornbeck. Rainier Valley Cultural Center, 3515 S. Alaska St. Seattle, WA 98118, 8 pm Aug. 15, 19, 20, 26 & 27. $7 at www.BrownPaperTickets.com or www.quietonline.org