Jackbooted Captors Teach Actors To Emote
The Nazis are a little more restless than usual in these dark woods that surround Hayden Lake.
The crack and roar of assault rifles and combat shotguns shred the crisp autumn air. Hooded prisoners march single file to the curses and commands of their jackbooted captors.
The sound of angry interrogations seeps through the thin mustard-yellow walls of a run-down cabin on McClean’s Bay.
No need to call the FBI.
These are just pretend Nazis, not the real Aryan dummkopfs who infect Richard Butler’s racist ranch a few miles away on Rimrock Road.
“I can only guess what the neighbors along the lake must be thinking,” says John Goodwin, 26, one of the men playing a weekend war game to prepare for a role in an upcoming play.
That’s right. All the gunfire and Gestapo tactics are part of an elaborate Saturday exercise in method acting.
Goodwin and the others are members of a Rogue Players production of “Stalag 17,” a classic tale of suspicion and betrayal set in a World War II prisoner-of-war camp.
To get in closer touch with their characters, director Jeff Ward and his brother, Tim, turned the family lake place into a makeshift penal colony.
They strung up barbed wire and recruited some survival-trained U.S. Air Force members to portray gun-toting Nazi SS interrogators.
None of the actors was told where he was going. They were loaded onto a truck at 5 a.m. and driven from Spokane to Idaho.
The moment the truck stopped, the faux Nazis tossed the actors into the mud, covered their faces and began to disorient them in the less violent but similarly mind-bending ways by which captured American GIs were tormented.
“My first image was black boots and jump pants,” says Jamie Flanery, one of the POWs. “That’s right out of this area.”
Hayden Lake’s neo-Nazi reputation certainly crossed the mind of David Casteal, the only black cast member. “When I managed to escape, I started thinking, ‘Hey, maybe wandering around out in these parts isn’t such a good idea.”’
“They really did mess with us good,” adds another actor, sipping a beer after the ordeal was over.
“In your mind, you know it’s not real, but when someone puts a hood over your head and starts firing weapons, well, you begin to wonder.”
The play, which will open Dec. 6 at Spokane’s downtown Masonic Temple, is performed rarely in Spokane.
That’s because it calls for a cast of about 20 men who are on stage most of the time. There generally aren’t that many strong male actors to round up for one show.
“I was told I was crazy to want to do ‘Stalag,’ that it would never work,” says Jeff.
But he persisted and convinced the board of the Rogue Players, which began about nine years ago through the West Central Community Center, that he not only could pull off this ambitious project but that it also warranted renting the huge Masonic Temple basement ballroom.
One reason for his confidence is having Flanery as co-director. Flanery is a terrific actor and experienced director who owned ACT, the now-defunct Spokane Valley repertory company.
“I’m pleasantly surprised by the quality of the cast,” says Flanery. “Most directors wouldn’t take this big of a risk.”
In addition to the war game, Jeff had his cast meet with former World War II POWs and timed it around Veterans Day weekend to add to the significance.
The actors also went through the diaries of Goodwin’s grandfather, the late John Emch. The B-17 pilot was shot down over the Netherlands and imprisoned by Nazis in Stalag 3, the site of the famous “Great Escape.”
“The whole reason for doing this show is to honor and pay homage to these great men and the chore they went through,” says cast member Terry Sticka.
“To put out a less-than-excellent effort would be unfair to those fellows.”
, DataTimes