ReEntry Takes a Realistic Look at Our Returning Vets and Their Families

A most timely and thoughtful theater offering opened this week at in Bethesda.

ReEntry looks at the return of Marines from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The play, which runs through Oct. 30, has played to rave reviews in theaters in New York, New Jersey and Baltimore, as well as military bases and hospitals in the U.S. and overseas.

ReEntry was written by Emily Ackerman and KJ Sanchez (they met through The Civilians, an investigative theater group) and is directed by Sanchez.

Both women are the sisters of vets. Sanchez has five brothers who served in the Vietnam War era and Ackerman has two brothers in the Marines who have recently served multiple deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.

The playwrights did hundreds of hours of interviews with service men and women both deploying to and returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. In ReEntry, they’ve shared those deeply personal stories and ask audience members to consider how they can help, as military family members, as communities and as a country. 

Matthew Bogdanos, a USMC Col. and author of the best-selling Thieves of Baghdad, described the play as “Refreshingly presented without agenda or sub-text .. ReEntry is like war itself: complex, layered, and visceral.”

One of the most important aspects of the work is that it opens dialogue in both military and civilian audiences. Sanchez and her ReEntry cast (Jessi Blue Gormezano, Brandon Jones, Sameerah Luqmaan-Harris, Larry Mitchell and Ben Rosenblatt) just performed the play at USMC Camp Lejeune and Army garrisons throughout Germany and Italy. As the director told Round House Theatre’s Jacqueline Lawton, “All these bases are using the play as a tool to de-stigmatize getting help.

The play is also feeding “the hunger in civilian audiences for some kind of connection to those that are serving.”

As for ensuring realistic representations of our military and their families who sacrifice so much with their service,  Sanchez continued, “When we told Marines that we were playwrights writing a play about coming back from deployment, at first we were held at arm’s length. And rightfully so, there are a lot of plays and movies out there that grossly misrepresent what many of these individuals are experiencing.” 

Having gained their trust, “I put together a group of active duty and veteran service members to read each reiteration of the script.”

They read it for ringing true, and helped the writers identify missing voices. “They were amazing – and fully respected our autonomy," Sanchez said.

A very special feature of this run is that a post-show talkback will follow each performance of ReEntry. There will be an impressive array of speakers, such as a psychiatrist at the a nurse treating combat trauma, an expert in military ethics, a former military physician researching cutting edge treatment for brain injury, an anthropologist focusing on Marine culture and a staffing expert helping vets find jobs, to name just a few.

Because of strong language and subject matter, ReEntry is recommended for ages 16 and up.

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Through Oct. 30 at Round House Theatre Bethesda, 4545 East-West Highway.  240-644-1100, roundhousetheatre.org.  $10 tickets for members of the military are available at all ReEntry performances -military ID required.