Entertainment

‘Soldier’ haunts

It seems a reasonable request: The dead young soldier standing in front of you forlornly asks for a coin, so he and his men can pay the ferryman to get across the River Styx. It’s easy enough to oblige, since you’ve been handed a penny before entering the theater.

There’s just one thing: Did I mention that the dead soldier is a Nazi?

That moral conundrum is at the center of “Soldier,” the fascinating solo theater piece written by and starring Jonathan Draxton.

For this show staged by Kevin O’Rourke — who, as an actor, plays Mayor Edward Bader on HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire” — the audience sits in folding chairs scattered throughout the small playing area. The intimacy of the space — there’s room for about 18 viewers — only adds to the discomfiting atmosphere.

After what seems an interminable period in which we sit silently staring at each other, we’re eventually confronted by Heinrich Weiss (the Aryan-looking Draxton, giving an impressive performance). He describes how he followed in his Iron-Cross-decorated father’s footsteps and entered the army despite his mother’s objections.

At first his account seems harmless enough, such as an anecdote about helping a teenage fellow soldier lose his virginity to a prostitute in Paris. But things soon take a darker tone. Describing shooting the Jewish men of a small town, he chillingly adds, “We did not shoot the women and children because we knew they would starve to death without the males to work the fields for them.”

He eventually tells of his own death at the hands of a Russian bayonet.

He periodically addresses the audience one by one, holding out his hand for the coins that would enable him and his 98 fellow German soldiers to reach the afterlife.

“My men and I fought for a world we want our children to live in . . . is this a crime?” he asks.

Some of those he asked steadfastly refused, with one young woman reduced to tears. Another woman tauntingly held out two closed fists, inviting him to choose which one held the coveted coin. Many complied with the request. And as each one did, the soldier hauntingly delivered a Nazi salute.

The brief piece is immersive theater in the most emotionally visceral sense. By forcing you to make the choice, it leaves a disquieting sense of complicity that lingers long after you’ve left the theater.

Perhaps you can derive some comfort in the fact that 50 percent of the show’s box-office proceeds are being donated to the Wounded Warrior Project, the nonprofit organization created to help severely injured veterans of the US Armed Forces.