{"id":5414,"date":"2016-03-11T07:49:11","date_gmt":"2016-03-11T12:49:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=5414"},"modified":"2016-03-31T08:21:52","modified_gmt":"2016-03-31T12:21:52","slug":"remembrance-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=5414","title":{"rendered":"Remembrance Day"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"poppy<\/a>

A small section of the 2014 London installation of 888,246 ceramic poppies, each representing a member of the British military who died in World War I (photo: Shawn Spencer-Smith, creative commons license)<\/p><\/div>\n

The ushers give you a red paper poppy along with your program for this production of \u201cRemembrance Day,\u201d the eleventh day of the eleventh month, when the English\u2014Americans, too\u2014remember their war dead. We call it Veterans Day, emphasizing the identity of the dead, rather than the obligations of the living.<\/p>\n

Eighty-year-old war bride Nancy Ballinger has returned to England for a visit, carrying a memorial wreath, and she names two men in her prayer \u201coh, and even my husband.\u201d We don\u2019t know who the men are, but in the course of this one-hour, one-woman production, we find out. And a lot more besides.<\/p>\n

Remembrance Day<\/em> was written and performed by June Ballinger, Nancy\u2019s daughter, now Passage Theatre\u2019s artistic director. Nancy tells us how much June has pestered her for the secrets of her past, pre-America life, especially the war work she did at Bletchley Park, Mr. Churchill\u2019s treasure-house of secrets. While we may not learn in great detail what she did, we find out much about who she was.<\/p>\n

Ballinger, the actor, moves convincingly at all the ages she portrays, and her director keeps her moving. One hour, no intermission, and interest never flags. Her mother\u2019s character wonders how she will be remembered, when so much essential to herself she felt required to keep to herself. This play, her “remembrance day,” is full of compassion, understanding, and abundant love.<\/p>\n

Remembrance Day<\/em> is one of six one-actor plays being performed at Trenton\u2019s Passage Theatre<\/a> through March 20 in its \u201cSolo Flights Festival.\u201d It will be repeated Sunday, March 20, 3 pm. I\u2019ve heard rave reviews about two of the others: Manchild in the Promised Land<\/em> and Panther Hollow<\/em>. Check Passage\u2019s website for the schedule<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The ushers give you a red paper poppy along with your program for this production of \u201cRemembrance Day,\u201d the eleventh day of the eleventh month, when the English\u2014Americans, too\u2014remember their war dead. We call it Veterans Day, emphasizing the identity … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Remembrance Day - one of six one-actor plays, each a tour de force","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[269,366,104,147],"tags":[128,333,129],"class_list":["post-5414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-actor","category-drama","category-the-morgue","category-theater","tag-history","tag-london","tag-wars-and-conflicts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-1pk","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5414"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5414\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5416,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5414\/revisions\/5416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}