Short Description

Patriotism, honor and sacrifice got our brothers into the war, CR-PTSC got one out. He enters a social hothouse and ethical quagmire where he can be either a liar or a cheat. Being so boxed in  lays bare the choice between being dishonorable or dead. After drinking and soul-searching, seclusion and madness, love and anguish, our hero becomes another victim of the new plague, i.e. one of the 18 CR-PTSD suicides per day.

Full Synopsis

Thousand Yard Stare is an original tragedy in musical stage play format. The work is fifteen scenes with 25 songs over three acts. Thousand Yard Stare opens and closes with US military bugle calls and is followed by all original songs. The musical sound is Americana colored by patriotic acoustic folk and country blue grass blues.

ACT I

With the curtain down, sound effects of a pool party are laid over with “Yankee Doodle,” gun shots and splashing, tick-tocking clock and laughing, marching and diving. A military bugle blows “First Call,” the wake-up song. The curtain rises as “Reveille” blows, revealing a bare one-room basement apartment with a funeral folded American flag on a tightly made bed and a spilled bottle of whiskey on a small table with two chairs. A gunshot is heard as the “Assembly” bugle blows. A body falls from behind the refrigerator and into the floor. Oscar's brother Nelson and his girl Rosie run down the stairs as the curtain closes on their crying. The dichotomous sfx of a happy picnic sounds turn to war and and a tick-tock clock until silence.

The silence is broken by the entry and happy whistling of the central tenor-tenor theme “Sacrifice.” At the train station, early 20s brothers Oscar and Nelson prepare to leave for war. Their good-bye childhood songs move to “I Will Miss this Place,” by the end of the song the brothers are joined by their girlfriends, sisters Rosie and Anna, who finish the song with them with “I Love Yous” all around. The couples pair off, Oscar and Rosie engage in some discussion about life and have a final fling. Nelson proposes to Anna. Oscar sings “I'm A Man” to Rosie and she sings the question (what's) “The Plan” (to come home with both your arms, both your legs and your head still screwed on straight”). Oscar sings ”A Lot Could Happen.”

Both couples are together again and as they begin to leave the quartet sings “The Send-Off.” ACT I closes with the boys off to war, the girls left home and sacrifice and honor in the air.

ACT II

Rosie is pregnant and her parents find out. The family insists she marry another boy (Peter) and pass off the baby. Rosie protests, but her mother (Constance) sings her straight with ”Ode To The Institution.” As the song says, Rosie has no choice but to agree. While she may agree, she is not happy and begins singing to Oscar with the play's first version of “I'm Yours.”

Following is a time sequence montage spanning five years. The sound and lighting effects will sound and surprise the audience. They will feel like they are in battle. Five years pass and the third includes return of Nelson and his marriage to Anna. Year five ends the war as Rosie at home sings to Oscar at war, and he sings to her in the duet “If We Could Be” (together now).

Oscar returns home with the Thousand Yard Stare, a.k.a. shell shock, anxiety, frozen immobility, battle fatigue, stress syndrome, traumatic war neurosis, railway spine. He immediately seeks out Rosie by going to her house. Before seeing her he sings “Lost,” about himself and his long time away. They meet on her front stoop and he learns she is married to Peter, an old flame with whom she has a daughter, Daisey. Daisey runs out to the park followed by her Aunt Anna, who is shocked to see Oscar. Oscar sings “Limbo In War Is Limbo In Family.”

Rosie's husband Peter comes to the stoop and in a sense of gratitude for the vets he offers and insists that Oscar take their newly vacant basement apartment. Once Oscar moves into this social hothouse his PTSD begins to take hold. He sings alone to Rosie the second version of “I'm Yours.” Rosie sees his troubles and comforts him. They quickly begin having an affair. The affair triggers his PTSD because the dishonor of this life is unbearable for Oscar, a man of God and Country.

Oscar descends farther into disorder due to both the illness and the dishonor in his life, but he remains drawn to Rosie. During ACT II Oscar exhibits all the wrong PTSD treatment habits. He stays in, drinks, doesn't go to church and lives in a complex and secretive social circumstance. These qualities are found in the songs of the second act, namely “Rounds” (drinking), “King Kong” (staying alone and secluded, becoming disheveled) and “Ocean” (dishonor and anger). Rosie watches his descent and sings “Oh Where” (“has my Oscar gone”). This time as a duet, the third and final version of “I'm Yours” is sung by Oscar and Rosie to each other, while they are in different rooms. Rosie sings “Honor Honor ('I'm A Man' reprise).”

Rosie has a secret to tell Oscar. She insists, so Oscar promises to keep her secret. Rosie reveals that Daisey is really Oscar's daughter. Oscar now has a far heavier dishonor burden because he is allowing another man to raise his child without her even knowing. Then again, breaking a promise is without honor. Tempered by Rosie's plea that not knowing is best for Daisey and his pull toward Rosie and Daisey, he sings a love song to his daughter, “My Eternity.”

Oscar is descending further into PTSD when he learns Rosie will receive her first communion, that he should attend, but that Peter will of course be handing the paternal duties. Oscar breaks down and stands at the stoop the night before drinking and harassing passers-by. He sings “Secrets.” Rosie finds him, scolds him and sends him to bed with instructions to be at the church and to give confession.

ACT III

Oscar sits in church twitching and having a rough time. Rosie comes in and motions for Oscar to go to confession and for Nelson to remove Oscar as Oscar becomes unmanageable and inappropriate. Oscar goes home and sings “Sinner's Lament,” a plea to Mother Mary. He prepares and sings “Of Death,” a take-off on the traditional Appalachian spiritual. The play started with the suicide and comes full circle here, including the “First Call,” “Reveille” and “Assembly” bugle calls. The suicide occurs as the play started, then Nelson and Rosie rush down the stairs and cry and scream. And the play closes with a standard “3 Volley Salute” (traditional three gun military funeral salute) and “Taps,” the traditional military funeral song.