Sunstone’s Cold yet Intimate WWII Drama

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Sunstone Studios - Neath the Hills of Bastogne

Sunstone Studios - Neath the Hills of Bastogne

Sunstone Studios marches through the final weeks of February with the premiere of an unflinchingly intense World War II drama. Playwright Zach Thomas Woods explores the complexities of life on the frontlines in ‘Neath the Hills of Bastogne—an intimate, small-ensemble study of Americans, Germans and those caught in the middle of a brutal war during the exceptionally bitter winter the gripped the Battle of the Bulge.

Anya Palmer is crushingly heroic as a woman trying to aid the U.S. troops as a field nurse under some of the worse conditions imaginable. Her journey finds her confronting a prisoner of war (Christian Davis Aldridge with a soulful German accent) and an American G.I. who has seen a great deal of combat (a sharply nuanced and charismatic Joe Picchetti.) Kaila Bingen rounds out the cast as a charmingly silent soldier adding the grace of violin and the ever-present percussion of shells in the distance.

Woods wisely avoids the us-vs.-them clichés that tend to plague WWII dramas. Aldridge and Picchetti deal with the horrors of war from two sides as Palmer plays to the plight of those caught in the middle of a horrific conflict between two warring factions. Everyone is a victim and never one is truly innocent. Somewhere in the midst of the chaos, people are challenged to truly question what they believe.

The script itself has some weak points as the dialogue struggles to capture some very big ideas. Director Samantha Martinson does a brilliant job of bringing together the emotions in an ensemble that has little difficulty navigating through some really heavy moments of intellectual and interpersonal drama without getting bogged-down in abstraction.

‘Neath the Hills of Bastogne continues through Feb. 20, at Sunstone Studios, 127 E. Wells St. For tickets and more, visit sunstonestudiosmke.com.