"BOB AND JEAN: A LOVE STORY" IS BASED ON THE TRUE LIFE STORY OF THE PLAYWRIGHT'S OWN PARENTS IN THE BIG WAR

 

By Chuck Graham, TucsonStage.com

 

                                                   photo by Tim Fuller

Bob (James Bentley Young) and Jean (Mary Mattison) believed in the power of their love, despite the demands of World War II.

Thanks to the earnest work of many novelists and filmmakers, we all know it is never a good idea to fall in love during wartime.

But we also know how the heart will make its own decisions, wartime be damned.

Noted playwright Robert Schenkkan (“The Kentucky Cycle,” Pulitzer Prize; “All the Way,” Tony Award) was able to imagine that his own parents met and fell in love several weeks before the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 – and when the war ended in 1945, they were still in love.

Even better, Schenkkan had his parents own sealed-with-a-kiss love letters to prove it. Patiently written and optimistically mailed, all the hopes and fears of those two crazy kids reflecting on such wrenching times faithfully circled the globe from his military assignments in the South Pacific as a naval officer to her USO assignments entertaining the troops wherever she was sent.

Schenkkan the accomplished playwright then poured his own heart into reading, studying and arranging his parents letters, setting their dreams against the havoc of world history.

Now it is Arizona Theatre Company's turn, producing the world premiere performance of Schenkkan's play about those letters his parents wrote each other, “Bob and Jean: A Love Story.”

There are only three cast members. Bob (Jake Bentley Young), Jean (Mary Mattison) and the Narrator (Scott Wentworth) who mythically represents the playwright commenting occasionally while inserting himself into the love story of his own parents.

ATC's own artistic director, Matt August, directs this study of dedication to beating the odds when life keeps giving you more years of clashing armies.

The stage design by Stephen Gifford completes the symbolism by creating a massive backdrop from yellowed pages of stationary with curling edges, aged by time but united in its strength to endure.

Young's enthusiastic Bob has a movie idol's innocence, exactly what you would expect from those more proper times in the very early 1940s. He is matched by the equally girl-next-door wholesomeness of Mattison's high-minded Jean.

As a girl she had always dreamed of becoming a movie star, but when World War II made its own demands, Jean gave her talents to the USO. Every battle-fatigued GI she saw reminded her that those guys' girlfriends and families had the same dreams that her own Bob carried for her through each night.

“Bob and Jean: A Love Story” runs through April 12 with performances Tuesdays through Sundays at various times in the downtown Temple of Music and Art, 330 S. Scott Ave. The run time is two hours. For details and reservations, www.atc.org or phone 833-ATC-SEAT (833-282-7328).