Kate Wenner’s play dramatizes the struggle of veterans with acute brain injuries

By Lloyd Garrison

Norfolk’s Kate Wenner, a novelist and former producer at ABC’s 20/20 who spent a year researching the widely misunderstood effects of brain trauma on veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, just ended a three-week sellout run of her first full length play, “Make Sure It’s Me,” at Portsmouth New Hampshire’s West End Studio Theater.

The next stop may not be Broadway or even off-Broadway, for however deftly staged and well-acted, the subject is hardly entertaining. Still, prompted by word of mouth and a fine review in Portsmouth’s lone newspaper, local theater goers, many veterans, packed every performance.

This production by the Artist’s Collaborative Theater of New England received considerable buzz even before the debut. The director, Leslie Pasternack, obtained local foundation grants to stage readings in five New Hampshire libraries. Each reading was followed by audience discussion, as was the staging in Portsmouth. In many respects, it was this post performance audience participation that made the experience of attending the play so powerful.

Many veterans tearfully recalled their own struggles with the “invisible wounds of war” — post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD), and traumatic brain injury (TBI). Family members of veterans still suffering from multiple hits to their vehicles by improvised explosive devices also frequently attended both the play and the Q & A that followed.

Wenner was pleased by how well the play was received at many levels, but especially by veterans and the military, including top brass of the New Hampshire National Guard. “What was very important was not to write a polemic,” Wenner told the audience after the play’s last performance. “I wanted this play to help bridge the civilian-military divide we’ve got in this country.”

One audience member was struck by a line in the play in which a civilian trauma researcher says that the initial failure of the military to take trauma injuries seriously “could be the Agent Orange of the Iraq war.” Wenner was asked where she got the quote. “From an army doctor at Ft. Carson, Colorado,” she said without a pause.

One of the five actors who portrayed veterans in the play, C.R. Marchi, had himself served two tours in Iraq as a staff sergeant before he was wounded by a sniper. As if to confirm the power of the play to hit home with those who had actually encountered the physic consequences of combat, Marchi stepped up to Wenner after the final performance and told her, “I can’t thank you enough for writing this script. It has changed my life.”

The play, set in a civilian trauma clinic with a grant from the Pentagon, follows the agonizingly tentative steps towards recovery by five combat veterans, including one woman staff sergeant who was injured when the supply convoy she was leading in Iraq was ambushed. All five characters were drawn by Wenner after extensive interviews with real survivors as well as family members who find themselves under incredible stress.