A PLAY'S POWER OF HEALING : `WELCOME HOME, SOLDIER' RESONATES WITH VETERANS WHO LET THEIR EMOTIONS FLOW WHEN ACTORS HIT THE STAGE.

Byline: Reed Johnson Daily News Staff Writer

Show time is still 15 minutes away, but Jim Kinnon is already wearing the thousand-mile stare.

He gets this way on performance nights, the Vietnam veteran says. His eyes turn blank. His features slacken. His thoughts go AWOL.

It's as if the neon cacophony of Lankershim Boulevard suddenly vanishes and Kinnon is left gazing back into the past, back into the jungle half a lifetime away.

Then a voice breaks through the old soldier's reverie: ``Folks, would everybody please take their seats, the play is about to start!''

The man with the chestful of medals flashes forward to the present.

``My stomach's already starting to turn,'' Kinnon says, downing the dregs of his convenience-store coffee. ``I don't know what awaits me. I've seen it 23 times, but I still react the same way.''

And with that, Kinnon turns and trudges into the Playhouse West theater, past other men with camouflage jackets and faraway eyes.

Twenty-three is an unusual number of times to see a play, especially one without prancing felines or singing nuns.

But there's never been anything usual about ``Welcome Home, Soldier,'' an unabashed tribute to the most despised fighting men in U.S. history.

Since opening in 1991 at the small North Hollywood playhouse, ``Welcome Home, Soldier'' has gone on to become L.A.'s longest-running drama, with more than 130 performances and counting. (``Zombie Attack'' used to hold the record, but it closed a couple of seasons ago.)

Written during the buildup to the Persian Gulf War, the play was intended by its authors, Robert Carnegie and Tony Savant, as an antidote to what they perceived as knee-jerk Hollywood liberalism.

At the time, Carnegie was worried that Hollywood opposition to the Gulf War might rub off on his young acting students, many of whom weren't even born when the Vietnam War ended.

In particular, he feared that Gulf War veterans might face the same reception as their Vietnam predecessors, some of whom came home to cries of ``Baby killer!'' and hurled animal blood.

``I was extraordinarily disturbed about the lockstep attitude in Hollywood,'' says Carnegie, Playhouse West's artistic director. ``Literally everybody was against the (Gulf) war. Being an artist, I'm against conventionality. I don't like it when people don't do their own thinking.''

While Carnegie spent his draft-age years on a deferment, studying acting in New York, he thought the antiwar protests were ``despicable.'' No fan of the Oliver Stone school of Vietnam War revisionism, he uses ``Welcome Home, Soldier'' both as a training device in ensemble acting and as a way of getting his students to examine their personal politics.

``I think basically Hollywood has participated in the demeaning and the undermining of our soldier boys,'' he says.

Anything can happen

Adapted largely from interviews with actual Vietnam veterans, ``Welcome Home, Soldier'' combines the you-are-there urgency of documentary theater with the point-blank confessions of a 12-step program.

Anger flows freely. Grief is served up raw. The proverbial ``fourth wall'' between actors and audience quickly evaporates.

You could argue that the play's free-for-all shouting matches, its eagerness to press emotional hot buttons, and its one-dimensional bad guys (mostly stoned hippies and sneering liberals) come perilously close to manipulation.

If that's true, the audience doesn't seem to mind.

``Sure it's manipulative, that's what makes it fun,'' says Leslie Stant, taking in the show with her friend Nick Cleland one recent summer night.

With two acts and a total of eight scenes, the three-hour play employs an unusually large cast of about 40. Its most famous alumna is Ashley Judd, who had a couple of walk-on roles when she was still an unknown.

No two performances are alike because there's no telling how an audience will react when Jane Fonda's name gets mentioned or when the action shifts to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, circa 1983. Once, a veteran stood up during the show and lapsed into a trancelike monologue about bodies floating down a river.

Another time, a veteran was so moved by an actor's patriotic speech that he rose misty-eyed from his seat and kissed the male performer.

``In some ways it can be a little odd, a little bit scary,'' says Mark Pellegrino, who has been with the play six years.

Yet Pellegrino and several colleagues say that ``Welcome Home, Soldier'' has provided a sense of pride and team purpose that's rare in the me-first world of Hollywood. The play's not a 9-to-5 job, they insist. It bleeds into their private lives. Cast members have lent money to veterans and shuttled them to doctors' appointments. They've helped some meet their mortgage payments and paid for others to visit the Wall.

``There's many a time when I've gotten a phone call on a Sunday afternoon from a veteran who's homeless and hungry, and I'll run downtown to L.A. and give 'em 20 bucks,'' says director/co-author Tony Savant, 33.

As for the veterans, several of them credit ``Welcome Home, Soldier'' with lifting them from the slough of apathy, emotional withdrawal and despair.

``Prior to viewing the play, I'd never been able to show emotions for anything or anybody,'' says Rey Martinez, 49, of San Diego. ``The first time I saw it, I rushed out in tears. It was like I was hit by a 500-pound bomb. I couldn't sort it all out.''

A retired Army captain, Martinez spent six years with the 1st Cavalry, fighting hard-core North Vietnamese in the Central Highlands and along the Cambodian border, earning two Silver Stars and a Purple Heart. He once single-handedly took out two enemy machine-gun nests.

He has already seen the show twice and plans to return again this Saturday.

``It's a helluva healer,'' he says.

During its marathon engagement, ``Welcome Home, Soldier'' has raised about $10,000 for U.S. veterans and agencies that support them, such as Glendora-based Task Force Omega. Roughly half the audience is typically made up of veterans and their families, who are admitted free.

After the show, the cast and crew treat the vets to beer and pizza at Little Toni's up the street.

Though the number of performances has dropped from nearly once a week in 1991 to just 12 last year, the 65-seat theater is packed tighter than a troopship on the first Saturday of each month. What began as a civic gesture has evolved into a monthly affirmation of trust and friendship between theater and community.

``This play has been a blessing to my life,'' says Glen King, a North Hollywood auto mechanic, Vietnam veteran and former street person.

The healing of drama

It would be easy to miss Playhouse West as you cruise north past Universal Studios. Squatting next to a BMW dealership, the narrow storefront building keeps a humble profile.

King, 49, remembers his first visit there. He was sporting a long, nicotine-stained beard at the time, and he ``still cursed a lot.''

The son of a Navy veteran, King had volunteered for service in 1965 ``in a race to be accepted by my dad.'' He returned from Vietnam in the late '60s after two years aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise, prowling the Tonkin Gulf.

Since then, he had drifted lower and lower until he found himself scrounging change to stay alive. He hadn't held a job since 1969.

``Every morning, I would go down to the 405 and Sawtelle with a sign, `Hungry, will work for food,' '' he says. ``I'd make about $35 a day.''

Tony Savant remembers the first time King came to see ``Welcome Home, Soldier.''

``He looked like a Hells Angel on acid.''

Today King is practically a Playhouse West poster boy. The beard is gone, along with various chemical addictions. He has a good job and a cadre of loyal friends, including several Playhouse West actors.

After cleaning up his act, he returned to his hometown of Beaumont, Texas, and married his high school sweetheart. Now King brings his wife and his guitar to ``Welcome Home, Soldier'' and joins in the ultra-upbeat finale, set to Elton John's ``Philadelphia Freedom.''

``It's important to me, because I get thanked,'' King says of his cameo appearances.

Not all the play's spinoffs have had such happy outcomes. Veteran Bob ``R.C.'' Cook, who'd been one of the play's most ardent boosters, committed suicide not long after it opened. To this day, the production is dedicated to his memory, and his brother William, also a veteran, keeps a seat reserved for R.C. at every performance.

``You just never know what was going on inside these men,'' says Savant. ``You still don't.''

Carnegie has vowed to keep the play running ``for as long as the Vietnam War, or until our POWs and MIAs are all accounted for, whichever comes first.''

For the record, the war lasted 16 years.

This Saturday, once again, the men in camouflage jackets will be out in force along Lankershim Boulevard.

Among their number will be Jim Kinnon, attending his 24th performance, or maybe his 44th.

He stopped counting after 23, he says.

THE FACTS

What: ``Welcome Home, Soldier.''

When: 8 p.m. Saturday; and the first Saturday of every month.

Where: Playhouse West, 4250 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood.

Running time: Three hours.

Tickets: $7 donation, with all proceeds going to veteran-related charities. All veterans and their families admitted free. Call [phone].

CAPTION(S):

5 Photos

Photo: (1--2--Cover--Color) In ``Welcome Home, Soldier,' ' actor Philip Carruthers, inset, expresses frustration at this treatment upon returning home from Vietnam. (Inset-Color Only)

(3) ``Welcome Home, Soldier'' director and co-author Tony Savant, left, chats with Vietnam veteran Jim Kinnon before a performance of the long-running play.

(4) Veteran William Cook, left, always keeps a seat for his brother, Bob ``R.C.'' Cook, a Vietnam veteran and booster of the play who committed suicide shortly after its opening. At right, actress Cynthia Kam is consoled after telling her Vietnam story.

(5) Veteran Jim Kinnon, right, embraces actor Scott Troost during intermission at ``Welcome Home, Soldier.'' The play, which is performed the first Saturday of every month at Playhouse West, is free to veterans and their families.

Michael Owen Baker/Daily News