JON GITCHOFF
Jack (Ryan Lawson-Maeske) and Louise (Molly Burris) star in the two-hander Dear Jack, Dear Louise.
The Greatest Generation gets another homage in Dear Jack, Dear Louise, a play at New Jewish Theatre. The two-hander is about U.S. Army Captain Jack Ludwig, a military doctor stationed in Oregon, and Louise, an actress living in New York. The two have never met, but their fathers know each other and suggest they start a correspondence that lasts from the summer of 1943 until the end of World War II.
You know what you’re getting when you head into the theater and hear Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby songs. Posters for the USO with idealized, meaty-faced soldiers hang alongside historic guns and military uniforms on Jack’s side of the stage. On Broadway-aspirant Louise’s side are gingham dresses and posters for Oklahoma, Gene Kelly’s Me and My Gal and Cary Grant’s Arsenic and Lace — all of which are mentioned during the show.
Winner of the 2020 Helen Hayes award for best new play, Dear Jack, Dear Louise is based on Ken Ludwig’s parents’ own epistolary love story during World War II. So if it feels nostalgic, it’s meant to.
That doesn’t mean it’s bad.
Does it follow some tropes? Sure. Louise (played by Molly Burris) is the exuberant, emotional actor who brings her whole body into every story she tells, in contrast to the more straight-laced Jack (Ryan Lawson-Maeske) who has to be cajoled into signing his letters without his full name and military title. But to everyone’s credit, we don’t slide fully into free-spirited-girl-teaches-straitlaced-guy-how-to-live-a-little. Burris and Lawson-Maeske don’t let their characters become caricatures, and Ludwig keeps transformations of heart and mind within reason. That’s no doubt helped by Ludwig’s seeming adherence to biography — he uses his own last name, Ludwig, as Jack’s in the show.
But while the characters are developed, the times they find themselves in are not. They are Jewish, but that doesn’t seem to matter. Colonel Ramsey doesn’t respond to Jack’s leave request because he’s a hard-ass, not because of anti-semitism. In fact, for the first act of the play, the war itself is almost an afterthought. Jack sees some casualties from the Pacific and a little action, but mostly he and Louise correspond about family issues and her Broadway auditions.
In the second act, the war figures more prominently, as Jack and Louise correspond through D-Day. The ethos heightens, and despite the fact you know it will turn out all right (there wouldn’t be a Ken Ludwig if it didn’t), you do get moved to real tears. This is in part because, despite not directly interacting with each other, Burris and Lawson-Maeske — under the clearly excellent direction of Sharon Hunter — have real on-stage chemistry.
The characters, and perhaps Ludwig’s own parents, never ask the obvious questions, “Where is this going? Is this person really worth waiting for?” Instead, the love, like the outcome of the war, is presented as an inevitable conclusion.
America wins. Jack gets the girl. The Germans are bad. America is good. It’s all rosy-hued and unproblematic and feels very much like someone writing a story about parents he adored and whose love for each other he admired.
But sometimes, as in Dear Jack, Dear Louise, nostalgia can be charming, even comforting, as Sinatra croons a song so pretty it makes you yearn for a time that never was.
Dear Jack, Dear Louise is written by Ken Ludwig. Directed by Sharon Hunter. It will be presented through June 26 by New Jewish Theatre at the J Jewish Community Center (2 Millstone Campus Drive, 314-432-5700). Tickets are $52.97 to $63.78.
