HMVIETNAM

Hillary Morgan //The Life and Times of Tulsa Lovechild// and //The Vietnamization of New Jersey//, both interesting, dynamic plays, deal with quite a few of the same issues but in varying ways. In both, the playwright observes life in the 1960s and 1970s along with problems concerning the Vietnam War. //Lovechild//’s approach is subtle. The main focus of the time spent in the 1960s is the life of Tulsa’s parents—her hippie mother and her father who has just been drafted. Through small scenes, Tulsa’s father in army garb dramatically is trained and then dies in Vietnam. These scenes, in sharp contrast to the overall dreamlike quality of the rest of the play, are serious and dark. //Vietnamization//, however, is far from subtle. Its portrayal of the disintegration of the family unit as a result of the War is loud and clear. It is an obvious parody of the 1960s sitcom //Ozzie and Harriet//, as the main characters are Ozzie Ann and Harry with their son David. Instead of being a perfect television couple, these two are experiencing the fear and terror of having a son fight in the War. When David comes back, blind and married to who he thinks is a Vietnamese native, he expresses the immense guilt of American soldiers. The fact that he is blind is a commentary on how most Americans are oblivious to what occurs during times of war in foreign countries. The younger son, Et, is unintelligible, crass, oversexed, belligerent, and vaguely idiotic, an incredibly negative stereotype of all that is perceived of Americans. Hazel, the black maid, is the hidden wisdom in the story. She is the sanest out of all of the people but is only around the periphery of the action, typical of America’s treatment of African Americans. So whereas //Lovechild//’s commentary on the 1960s and the Vietnam War is quiet, almost like a side note to the real story, //Vietnamization// is glaringly obvious and intentionally symbolic of the problems in American life. The other main issue in both plays is the idea of the American family, and how family life is responsible for the behavior of the children. //Lovechild//, again, is gentler. Tulsa grows up with her hippie mother and a right-wing Vietnam veteran for a stepfather. There is a scene which shows what a typical breakfast must have been like in the household in which Tulsa and her stepfather snipe at each other through the entire meal, eventually blowing up at one another. All the while, Tulsa’s mother tries to unsuccessfully mediate between the two. This scene shows that Tulsa was raised to believe in peace by her mother while experiencing a kind of war between her stepfather. As a result of this confusion, Tulsa is a very vocal anti-war liberal who does not vote or do much to change life for the better. She learned to talk the talk but not to walk the walk and is at a loss for what to do with her life. On the other end of the spectrum, the parents in //Vietnamization// run parallel to their children. Ozzie Ann, the mother, seems half-crazy to begin with, constantly repeating what others are saying and unable to handle the stress of taking care of Et. Et focuses on remaining unintelligible to stay in the background, though when Liat comes, he obsesses with having sex with her. Later, when militant Uncle Larry comes, he gladly helps to radicalize the family into a form of military life, taking on head first where his mother would have hidden. Harry, the father, avoids real life. His head is buried in his newspaper, and he does not tell anybody that he lost his job, instead choosing to ignore it and try to forget it. Eventually, he kills himself. His son David comes home literally blind and ignorant of his surroundings, even to his own wife. He kills himself as well, following his father’s example of avoidance. Though //Vietnamization// is definitely the more violent and radical of the two, both plays chronicle the disillusionment and destruction of the family unit as a result of the Vietnam War. The characters are based on everyday life and hyperbolized into something almost cartoonish in order to draw attention to where the problems with everyday life lie. Both playwrights use the War as a backdrop of chaos and disorder. //Lovechild// uses this as a starting point in a journey of overcoming the madness, while //Vietnamization// only becomes more and more like hell on earth.