War hero who can’t go home again

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Lily Majekwu stars in Next Theatre’s "Welcome Home, Jenny Sutter."

You’d think that anyone who risked their life for our country would be considered a hero.

But that’s not what happens if they fought in an unpopular war like Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan.

A U. S. Marine has to deal with that reality, as well as her own demons, in “Welcome Home, Jenny Sutter” at Next Theatre.

Jessica Thebus, who directed the world premiere of Julie Marie Myatt’s play at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2008 and its remount at the Kennedy Center, directs the Next staging.

Recalling her initial work with the work, Thebus said, “I had a wonderful experience with the play. It is theatrical, it is important. It uses the unique tools of theater to tell an extremely vital story. I have always wanted to do a Chicago production of that play.”

In the work, Jenny Sutter (Lily Majekwu), a veteran who returns from the Middle East war with a prosthetic leg, winds up in a desert community following her military service, unwilling — or unable — to return to her children.

“She’s trying to go home to her children,” Thebus insisted. “She just can’t get on the bus so she’s stuck at a bus station watching buses go by and can’t take any action. She’s unable to go from the military life back to the world with her injury. The whole play is her struggle.”

“She’s not ready to trust who she is as a mother right now,” Los Angeles-based playwright Myatt added. “She’s embarrassed by her body and not sure how her kids will react. And in a state of trauma herself.”

Myatt, whose father was in the Marine Corps, began writing the play in 2005. “I felt like we were at war in Iraq and no one I knew was really talking about it,” she said. “I felt that was strange.”

Myatt wanted to address the question, “How do we talk about a war when you don’t believe in it?” And, in terms of those sent to fight it, “How do you welcome them home from a war you don’t agree with?”

The title character is not based on an actual person but her gender is important because, “This is the first war where we had women in combat,” Myatt said. That raised a third issue for the playwright: “How do we, as a nation, deal with women coming back wounded and maimed by war compared to men?”

Because of her father’s connections, Myatt was able to interview the person who runs her local Veterans Administration office. She also did extensive reading about the issues she planned to address in the play.

Additionally, a great deal of research went into the Oregon Shakespeare production. That research has continued for the Next staging. Thebus noted that dramaturg Alexis Links, “made a wonderful research package for us about post traumatic stress disorder, veterans’ care, trauma, injury, recovery — how that changed over time through these different conflicts.”

Thebus believes that audiences will relate to Jenny’s experience “of being stuck, knowing what you should do, knowing what you want to do and, because of your struggle — your demons, your trauma — you’re unable to move forward until there’s a certain amount of healing.”

Beyond that, Myatt said, war veterans “need our support. They need to know that we care that they were there, even if we don’t believe in the reasons that they were there.”