Let There Be Light…!
I’ve found nothing in Huston’s autobiography that indicates he wanted to subvert the military’s happy-talk message. He spent three months at the hospital with a full crew of cameramen, led by Stanley Cortez (who shot The Magnificent Ambersons and The Night of the Hunter), filming individual and group therapy sessions. And over the course of the hour-long film we witness more than a few psychiatric miracles. In one scene, sodium pentothal is used to treat a soldier’s psychosomatic paralysis. In another, hypnosis cures a patient.
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It would be tempting to go for easy laughs in adapting a film like this to the stage, exaggerating the most manipulative moments and making the propaganda unmistakable, following the model of the Annoyance and Factory theaters. But Ellison and Stinton take a higher, more interesting road, using the material to create a fascinating serious drama. Or rather four interwoven dramas as they focus on four of Huston’s soldiers. Then Ellison, who directs, tells their stories in a way that’s much more compelling than in the film, embellishing her production as the actors do their characters and paradoxically turning Huston’s unbelievable “truth” into convincing fiction.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Don Hall.
