Watched FOG OF WAR last night, having just heard Sean Devine's new play RE:UNION Wednesday. Wow - the two are like companion pieces. Not that you have to see one to appreciate the other, not one bit. But experiencing the two in proximity like that is a remarkable thing, the way Sean's play explores the things in McNamara and Morrison that are glanced at but not expanded. It's not like Errol Morris raises questions that RE"UNION answers: Sean's play is just as full of mystery. But the two mysteries combine to make something much, much richer.
If you can see FOG OF WAR before RE:UNION opens (Oct 21) at Pacific Theatre, definitely do it. I can't help but wonder if Sean's play was triggered by the documentary, that the whole piece is his deeper exploration of some of its hints and feints and teases. Who was this Quaker man who sacrificed himself in protest of the Vietnam war? And he had a daughter who almost died with him? Why does McNamara come back to that - it sounds like it shook him. And what was behind that Medal of Freedom speech? And if his heart changed - as it seems clear it did, to see the man's raw, unexplained emotion - what did he think when the plane hit the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, and he saw a nation gearing up for another Vietnam?
And here's a bit of surprising good news: the DVD I watched last night I rented from VIDEOMATICA!!! We'd all believed their doors would be shut by August 31. But they're still very much in business - not permanently, but for a while. So that means there's still someplace to rent FOG OF WAR! Which is good news all round.
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