Vietnam War

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Vietnam War

• Tracers, by 7 veterans

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(No Transcript)
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Vietnam Conflict/War

• 1959-1975 (dates of American involvement)
• Vietnams history of resisting colonizers China,
  France, Japan.
• Cold war conflict 1954 temporary partition
  pending elections North was socialist, South a
  republic. Human rights abuses both sides.
• US perceived communist threat everywhere post
  WWII.
• 1964 Gulf of Tonkin. Attacks on US recognizance
  ships leads to resolution allowing US military
  action, not called war.

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War continued

• 1964-68 War escalates under LBJ
• Minimal info policy to press govt loses
  credibility
• Brutality of conflict, guerilla warfare, new
  chemical weapons (Napalm)
• 1969-73 Slow pull out Nixons peace with honor
• Pullout of troops, but failed to supply money and
  other needed aid, as agreed in Paris Peace Accord
• April 1975 N overruns S Vietnam
• Casualties US 57.5K S Vietnam 240K N Vietnam
  over 250 K

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Hair!

• 1968, USA
• Pacifist, anarchist, and counterculture depicts
  youth protesting the war among other things
• Vietnam as a waste of human life, on both sides
• Improvisation in performance
• Loose structure as concert, with story elements
  of love affairs, drug use, paternity, draft
  dodging and war protest.
• Rock and roll -- first musical to use it. Hits
  Age of Aquarius, Let the Sunshine In
• Concept musical -- based not on plot but concept
  of hippie tribe taking over theatre

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Miss Saigon

• USs final departure of military in 1975, with
  flashbacks to earlier times
• US military and Vietnamese civilian love affair.
• Prostitution of women for US military hope of
  love (Kim and Chris) safety (Gigi, Kim)
• Amerasian children have no life there (Bui Doi)
• Based on Puccinis Mme Butterfly Frenchmen
  Schonberg and Boublil wrote in 1989 Richard
  Maltby English lyrics
• Video The Heat is On documented audition thru
  opening night

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Tracers, 1983, conceived John DiFusco

• Slips in time, but 3 basic ones
• 1960s basic training
• Williams is harsh to help them survive 18 weeks
  vs. 18 months (USSR. p. 23)
• Vietnam - the life of the average, teenage
  soldier
• Patrols,drugs, rats and rabies,prostitutes,
  killing, blanket patrol
• 1980s veterans discuss ongoing problems
• PTSD, war wounds, birth defects in children,
  cancer, children left behind, ingratitude of
  nation

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Evolution of Tracers

• Workshoped by actors who are also veterans, with
  a writer to help shape text
• Director, lead writer, actor DiFusco
• Workshop performance to complete writing
• All scenes based on real events
• Characters are composite of experiences
• Veterans of today, looking back, is the frame of
  the play

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Tracers Quotes

• Eighty percent are targets we have no time to
  train them to be more. Ten percent are fighter.
  One in a hundred may become a warrior.
  Williams, p. 23

• The unwilling, led by the uneducated, to do the
  impossible for the ungrateful Habu, p. 61