Returned From the Front, a Predator Still at War
Charles IsherwoodMarch 28, 2014: PHILADELPHIA — Under the destabilizing pressure of his wartime experience, not to mention the cruel workings of his own personal demons, an American Marine disintegrates before our eyes in Don Juan Comes Home From Iraq, a new drama by Paula Vogel having its premiere at the Wilma Theater here. The play was loosely inspired by Don Juan Comes Back From the War (1936), by the Austro-Hungarian writer Odon von Horvath, in which the Lothario of legend wanders through Berlin in the grim aftermath of the First World War in search of the woman he loved and scorned. Although it differs from the original in almost all particulars, Ms. Vogel’s play also concerns the odyssey of a man named Don Juan (Keith J. Conallen) who is haunted by the fate of a woman he became involved with after meeting her in Philadelphia between deployments.
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