‘Unknown Soldier’ Makes for a Soaring Romance (Review)
metroweekly.comUnknown Soldier, by Daniel Goldstein and the late Michael Friedman, so poignantly depicts.A gripping mystery sparked by an ages-old news photograph, the show marks its D.C.
premiere at Arena Stage in a new production staged with dexterity by Trip Cullman.The photograph in question — of an unidentified U.S.
soldier home from World War I, pictured with a possible young lady sweetheart — first sparks the imagination of 12-year-old Ellen Rabinowitz (Riglee Ruth Bryson) in 1973, preparing a report on the Great War in her grandma’s kitchen in upstate Troy, New York.Thirty years later, Ellen (Lora Lee Gayer), now an Ob-Gyn in Manhattan, suddenly stuck in Troy trying to unload her recently deceased grandma’s house full of memories, rediscovers the photo, clipped from a magazine. “Has Unknown Soldier Found True Love?” reads the photo caption, referring to the soldier’s lady companion.
The lingering mystery reignites Ellen’s flame of curiosity.“I wanna know what happened,” she sings, certain that the “true love” in the photo is her grandma as a much younger woman, but uncertain of whether the soldier is, in fact, her grandfather.
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