Next Act's "9 Circles" is a Harrowing Journey and a Must-See
Next Act Theater’s production of 9 Circles is a devastating look at one soldier’s journey through Dante’s mythical nine levels of hell. Deftly directed by Michael Cotey and featuring an extraordinary cast led by Casey Hoekstra, the play is composed of nine scenes that jump backwards and forwards in time. The story chronicles the destruction, resurrection, and ultimate murder of one man’s soul, while also documenting the havoc he wreaks around him during his descent. And for those in the audience who believe this story could never really happen, well, I have some bad news for you. Lauded playwright and Jesuit priest Bill Cain based this harrowing play about the dangers of antipathy and the horrors of war on a story ripped directly from the headlines.
9 Circles is loosely based on the sensational war crimes trial of Steven Dale Green, an honorably discharged army private. With a troubled past and an increasingly unstable mental condition, he was accused of leading a brutal attack on civilians while stationed in Iraq, including the rape and grisly murder of a young girl. Normally someone with Green’s criminal record and emotional problems would not be allowed to serve in the military, but like 11,000 other newly minted soldiers in 2006, he was given a “moral waiver,” largely so recruiters could fulfill their quotas during an unpopular war.
Like 9 Circles’ main character Reeves, Green’s sketchy past was erased and he was sworn in, issued a gun, and assigned to patrol an extremely dangerous region south of Baghdad, nicknamed the “deadly triangle.” As he witnessed the gruesome realities of war, his mental state deteriorated and his tenuous grip on right and wrong suffered, leading to acts that, even in the scourge of modern warfare, were unconscionable.
Playwright Cain picks up the story from here, imagining what led the army private down such a dark road, how the military machine itself failed him on so many levels, and how someone so broken might have been callously manipulated by powerful people with competing agendas. As a Jesuit, Cain also makes the audience ponder larger questions about the immorality of all war, our collective loss of humanity when we cannot have empathy for others, and the use of the death penalty.
But at the center of the story is Reeves, brought to life in a truly stunning performance by Casey Hoekstra. Peeling back a new, raw layer in every scene, the actor conveys all of the private’s intelligence, wit, emotional emptiness, savagery, vulnerability, and pathos as he is lobbed back and forth between pragmatic lawyers, idealist politicians, crass evangelicals, and disillusioned therapists. Hoekstra is the catalyst for each of these scenes, most of which find him at the end of his quickly fraying rope. Whether he is belligerently fighting his honorable discharge, dancing around the idea of getting mental health care, punishing his body with calisthenics to avoid thinking about his situation, or seething, physically restrained and muted, an inch away from madness, the actor has our hearts in his hands. We hold our breath and lean forward towards the screen from the first scene through the last heart-wrenching moment. The story – and this amazing performance – are simultaneously too hideous to take in and too gruesome to look away from. The audience’s implied culpability in the action of the play is also enough to keep viewers up at night.
Malkia Stampley, Chiké Johnson, and Next Act Artistic Director David Cecsarini populate the dizzying world surrounding Reeves that wants to contain or control him, make an example of him, or simply dispose of him. Each actor is in top form, inhabiting quirky authority figures who care more about their own objectives than discovering the truth, or acting on behalf of Reeves’s health and well-being. The final trial scene is particularly taut as officials argue about the private’s life, what he’s done, and what is to become of him.
Director Michael Cotey and scenic designer Steve Barnes both lean into the symbolism of the circle in the action and setting of the play, assuring that for all Reeves’s running, he goes nowhere. Arranging a collection of props from each interaction in a circle – a pair of boots, a bottle of Jim Beam, a bible, etc. – Reeves ultimately has little to show for his circular journey. Camera angles are also directed well to depict the ever-deepening hole that the main character is sinking into.
A stunning and eminently theatrical accomplishment, each scene in this play is as painful as swallowing barbed wire. But Reeves’s final monologue caps them all, until the audience longs for some resolution or relief, perhaps as much as the doomed soldier. Whether that end is ultimately eternal salvation or damnation is up to the viewer to decide. But what’s clear is that Private Reeves only had two moments of actual emotional connection in his brief, twisted life, and both were devastating. If only we, as a society, could have intervened sooner. Perhaps things could have been different.
9 Circles is available to stream through May 16. Don’t miss it.