2008.01.24: January 24, 2008: Headlines: COS - Colombia: Country Directors - Colombia: Protest: Vietnam: Seattle Post Intelligencer: Elena Hartwell says her father was the Peace Corps director in Colombia. He wasn't allowed to march because he worked for the American government. So he sat on the embassy steps.
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2008.01.24: January 24, 2008: Headlines: COS - Colombia: Country Directors - Colombia: Protest: Vietnam: Seattle Post Intelligencer: Elena Hartwell says her father was the Peace Corps director in Colombia. He wasn't allowed to march because he worked for the American government. So he sat on the embassy steps.
Elena Hartwell says her father was the Peace Corps director in Colombia. He wasn't allowed to march because he worked for the American government. So he sat on the embassy steps.
"I was 6 weeks old at the time," she says. "My mother took me with her on an anti-Vietnam War march in front of the American embassy. My father was the Peace Corps director there. He wasn't allowed to march because he worked for the American government. So he sat on the embassy steps. A baby with blond hair is an attention getter in Bogota. My picture was in the next day's newspaper."
Elena Hartwell says her father was the Peace Corps director in Colombia. He wasn't allowed to march because he worked for the American government. So he sat on the embassy steps.
'In Our Name' playwright used 'real-life details' for her Iraq war monologues
By JOE ADCOCK
P-I THEATER CRITIC
Caption: The main character in each one-act of "In Our Name" is someone -- two of them mothers, the other a wife -- who has a loved one involved with the war in Iraq.
Elena Hartwell started early as a peace activist. That was almost 40 years ago, in Bogota, Colombia. (Note: Hartwell is not quite 40.)
"I was 6 weeks old at the time," she says. "My mother took me with her on an anti-Vietnam War march in front of the American embassy. My father was the Peace Corps director there. He wasn't allowed to march because he worked for the American government. So he sat on the embassy steps. A baby with blond hair is an attention getter in Bogota. My picture was in the next day's newspaper."
Hartwell is now a theater professional -- playwright, performer, director and technical worker. Continuing right along with her early activism is her latest play, "In Our Name." It is a trilogy of three one-acts. The main character in each scene is someone -- two of them mothers, the other a wife -- who has a loved one involved with the war in Iraq.
"I've read hundreds of interviews," Hartwell says, "and I've done interviews myself. My characters aren't exactly based on real-life particular individuals. But their stories are based on real-life details."
The one-acts essentially are monologues. In the first one a mother is lecturing about Shakespeare's tragedy "Macbeth." The war and violence in the play segues into the woman's experience with her daughter, who lost an arm and a leg in a roadside bomb attack. Mother and daughter are alienated. The mother had urged the daughter not to get involved with the military.
The second monologue is delivered by a woman whose husband, a national guardsman, was called up for a second Iraq tour. The woman is talking to the couple's unborn child.
In the third piece, a Bush supporter who believes in the war deals with the fact that her son has volunteered for service in Iraq inspired by her ideology.
"In Our Name" premiered last year at the 11th Annual New York International Fringe Festival. It plays for two nights only -- tonight and tomorrow night -- at Live Girls! Theater in Ballard.
The play's text is due for publication next month in Plays & Playwrights' annual anthology.
"You might not guess it, because the subjects are serious" Hartwell says, "but there's a certain amount of humor, at least in the first and third monologues."
I talked to Hartwell earlier this week when she was in the midst of her day job -- stage managing for StoryBookTheatre -- a touring company that presents musical shows for 3- to 8-year-olds, performed by adults. The company was rehearsing "The Three Little Pigs" at the Kirkland Performance Center. Our conversation was interrupted when her management duty called: "Excuse me, I have to watch these pigs running around on stage."
With Rebecca Nachison -- one of the "In Our Name" actresses -- Hartwell has formed a company called Iron Pig. "We both have a concern for theater work that addresses important social issues," Hartwell explains. "We met 15 years ago when we were both working in San Diego -- that's where I'm from. Now she lives in Eugene and I'm in Seattle.
"The name of our company is a convoluted play on words: You know the only kind of pigs and the only kind of iron that flies? Pig iron -- those weights that go up and down on ropes to work stage scenery. Also, Rebecca and I had this joke. If we couldn't work in theater, we'd have a pot-bellied pig farm. I give up. I told you it was convoluted."
Hartwell is single, "which allows me to write at 2 in the morning if I want to," she says. Among her current projects are a trilogy of full-length plays, a novel, a screenplay and a play titled "Killing Mother."
"The stimulus for 'Killing Mother' was our own experience," Hartwell says. "Rebecca's mother died not long ago. And my mother in San Diego is going through her own mother's dying process.
"The character in the play is a daughter whose mother is conscious, but very ill. She wants to die. There's a death-with-dignity theme.
"It sounds pretty serious, doesn't it? But actually, it's essentially a comedy."
Links to Related Topics (Tags):
Headlines: January, 2008; Peace Corps Colombia; Directory of Colombia RPCVs; Messages and Announcements for Colombia RPCVs; Country Directors - Colombia; Protest; Viet Nam
When this story was posted in February 2008, this was on the front page of PCOL:
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Story Source: Seattle Post Intelligencer
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Colombia; Country Directors - Colombia; Protest; Vietnam
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