9 Circles
| 9 Circles | |
|---|---|
| Original language | English |
| Written by | Bill Cain |
| Characters | Daniel The Military The Legal Team The Shrink The Pastor |
| Genre | Drama |
| Premiere | |
| Date | October 19, 2010 |
| Place | Marin Theatre Company |
9 Circles is a play by Bill Cain based on the military career and subsequent civilian trial of murderer Steven Dale Green.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] The play premiered in 2010 at Marin Theatre Company in Mill Valley, California before premiering Off-Broadway in 2018.[13]
Plot
[edit]The play follows a man named Daniel Reeves, an honorably discharged soldier who is arrested for crimes he may have committed while serving. Grappling with an antisocial disorder, he is put on trial for the rape and murder of an Iraqi family and falls into a labyrinth of bureaucracy. The story is based on the real-life life and trial of Steven Dale Green.[14]
Background
[edit]Cain is a Jesuit priest.[1][2] The play's title refers to Dante Alighieri's Inferno—in which Dante navigates a descent into the "nine circles of hell". In Cain's play, Green passes through his discharge from the Army and various judicial and administrative procedures, roughly paralleling the nine circles of Dante's Inferno. Cain structured the play so other cast members would return to play multiple characters, at each different circle.[15]
Production history
[edit]2010 California premiere
[edit]The play had its world premiere at the Marin Theatre Company in Mill Valley, California, directed by Kent Nicholson and starring Craig Marker as Daniel. The production ran from October 14 to November 7, 2010.[16][17] The play was positively reviewed, and Cain won the 2010 Sky Cooper New American Play Prize and 2011 Harold and Mimi Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award.[18][19]
2018 Off-Broadway production
[edit]The play was next produced Off-Broadway at The Sheen Center for Thought & Culture, running from February 9 to March 20, 2017.[20] The production was directed by Kent Nicholson and starred Josh Collins.[21]
2022 West End production
[edit]The play had its UK premiere in 2022 at the Park Theatre, running from June 29 to July 23, 2022. The production was directed by Laurence Olivier Award-winning director, Guy Masterson, with Collins reprising his role as Daniel.[22][23]
Reception
[edit]The play won praise for being nuanced, and not taking the easy path of demonizing the protagonist.[1][2][3][4][5][6] However, Chris Jones, reviewing a Chicago production of the play, reported that audience members concluded the play meant to imply that Green, who was originally from Midland, Texas, which had been United States President George W. Bush's primary home, had the assistance of the President himself in clearing his entry into the Army in spite of his criminal record.[2][7][8][9][10][11][12]
Awards and nominations
[edit]The script won the 2011 Harold and Mimi Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award.[24] Cain is the only playwright to have two plays win this award two years in a row.
References
[edit]- 1 2 3
John Coleman (November 9, 2010). "9 Circles". America. Archived from the original on March 7, 2014. Retrieved March 6, 2014.
Jesuit playwright Bill Cain S.J., has penned a new and searingly powerful play. Just a year after his earlier successful play about the gun powder plot, Equivocation (see my review), Cain portrays in his new play, 9 Circles, a character, Daniel Reeves, as a disturbed 19-year-old snarled in the web of war. Cain's drama mirrors, through a fictional adaptation, the 2006 Iraq slayings and, subsequent, gang rape of a 14-year-old girl by United States troops. Like the real life Pvt. Steven Dale Green who, partially, serves as the prototype for Cain's Reeves and now awaits life prison without parole for his war crime, the fictional Reeves displays an 'anti-social personality disorder'.
- 1 2 3 4
Chris Jones (September 18, 2013). "Looking for trouble in a war zone in '9 Circles'". Chicago Tribune. Archived from the original on March 6, 2014. Retrieved March 6, 2014.
Or maybe that should be what a man can do to a war. "9 Circles" revolves around a central character, Private Daniel Reeves (Andrew Goetten), who already has been in plenty of trouble before he walks into the office of a recruiting officer looking for soldiers to go to Iraq. Cain's point, surely, is that Daniel, who goes on to commit horrible crimes that appall even the judicial system set up to process and try him, is precisely the wrong kind of man to be allowed to carry military-grade weaponry. The stresses of war, the play argues, could send anyone over the edge. When starting with a guy wound tight enough to burst his own blood-vessels, the smart leader would anticipate trouble.
- 1 2
Terry Frei (January 19, 2012). "Theater review: Curious' "9 Circles" questions U.S. involvement in Iraq". Denver Post. Archived from the original on March 7, 2014. Retrieved March 6, 2014.
"9 Circles" is based on the infamous case of former 101st Airborne Division Pfc. Steven Dale Green, convicted in a federal court in 2009 of raping and killing an Iraqi 14-year-old girl and murdering her family. (Green's sentence, life in prison, was different than that of Reeves in the play.)
- 1 2
Katy Walsh (September 7, 2013). ""9 Circles" (Sideshow Theatre): Must Be Seen". Chicago Now. Archived from the original on March 7, 2014. Retrieved March 6, 2014.
Playwright Bill Cain's story is set in 2006 Iraq but it could as easily be 2013 Syria. The play's underlying questions of 'what is the USA doing? And why?' are timely to today's government debates. Cain plots a soldier's persecution for horrific war crimes as the 9 circles of Dante's "Inferno." A troubled nineteen year old is recruited by the military. His stint is marred by extracurricular war activities. Now, he is the focal point for the rage of the nationS. He is *the* enemy, both foreign and domestic.
- 1 2 Jason Loch (March 20, 2013). "9 Circles by Bill Cain Review". Toonari Post. Archived from the original on March 7, 2014. Retrieved March 6, 2014.
From that point on, Reeves is on a downward spiral. He ends up in jail, accused of raping a 14-year old Iraqi girl and killing her along with her entire family. As he waits for a judge to decide his fate, he encounters various people who allegedly want to help him, from an enigmatic army lawyer (William Bolz) to a pastor with a penchant for internet porn (Whitney Derendinger). In a way, they play the role of Virgil to Reeves' Dante, and each one of them helps guide Reeves along the path to self-discovery.
- 1 2
Roger Catlin (February 13, 2013). "Theatre Review: '9 Circles' at Forum Theatre". Maryland Theatre Guide. Archived from the original on February 17, 2013. Retrieved March 6, 2014.
9 Circles is inspired by an actual case, that of former 101st Airborne Division Pfc. Steven Dale Green, convicted in federal court in 2009 for raping and killing a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and murdering her family.
- 1 2
Ben Demers (February 13, 2013). "9 Circles". DC Theatre Scene. Archived from the original on March 7, 2014. Retrieved March 6, 2014.
Private Daniel Edward Reeves, played by the astonishing Julian Elijah Martinez, stands accused of heinous crimes in Iraq. Reeves is trapped onstage in a concentric limbo of military tribunals, therapy sessions, and jail cells, dressed in stark white scenery by Klyph Stanford and lit in harsh tones by Dan Covey.
- 1 2
Juliet Whitman (January 19, 2012). "Based on Iraq War atrocities, 9 Circles is clear-eyed and tightly written". Denver Westword Arts. Archived from the original on March 7, 2014. Retrieved March 6, 2014.
I was ambivalent about seeing Curious Theatre's regional premiere of Bill Cain's 9 Circles, whose plot tracks very closely with Green's known actions and experiences.
- 1 2
"Review: 9 Circles". Time Out Boston. Archived from the original on March 7, 2014. Retrieved March 6, 2014.
With all the action of the show staged on a claustrophobic circular plinth, 9 Circles takes us through a wretched year in the life of an Iraq War vet. We follow Private Daniel Reeves through a series of holding cells and psychiatrists' offices, as he is indicted for a war crime he allegedly committed while in Iraq. Amanda Collins and Will McGarrahan play a slew of lawyers, military personnel and other authority figures who come to vie for possession of Reeves's soul.
- 1 2
Celia Wren (February 18, 2013). "'9 Circles' offers a thoughtful but unemotional descent into cruelty of war". The Washington Post. Retrieved February 13, 2018.
The intense tete-a-tetes — which offer occasional moments of humor — tease out provocative questions about war, justice, guilt and America's possible exploitation of its troops.
- 1 2
Laura Collins-Hughes (February 17, 2017). "Review: '9 Circles,' a Soldier's Story (and the Damage Done)". The New York Times. Retrieved February 13, 2018.
In Bill Cain's "9 Circles," a contemporary morality play inspired by Dante's "The Divine Comedy," the psychic damage of war does not belong to Reeves alone, and neither do the responsibilities of conscience.
- 1 2
Suzanna Bowling (March 17, 2017). "Nine Circles Portrait of an Iraqi Killer". Time Square Chronicles. Retrieved February 12, 2018.
War is psychologically damaging and like parking tickets or speeding tickets given out just to make their quota, recruters should not pad their numbers with psychologically unfit people and not expect criminal activity.
- ↑ "Sheen Center to Produce Bill Cain's 9 Circles". Playbill. February 16, 2018. Retrieved June 28, 2026.
- ↑ "9 Circles". America Magazine. November 9, 2010. Retrieved June 28, 2026.
- ↑ "9 Circles". America Magazine. November 9, 2010. Retrieved June 28, 2026.
- ↑ "Theater review: Provocative '9 Circles'". San Francisco Chronicle. January 22, 2011. Retrieved June 28, 2026.
- ↑ "9 Circles". Marin Theatre Company. Retrieved June 28, 2026.
- ↑ "Bill Cain Wins Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award for Nine Circles". TheaterMania. April 12, 2011. Retrieved June 28, 2026.
- ↑ "Steinberg Prize Awarded". The New York Times. April 3, 2011. Retrieved June 28, 2026.
- ↑ "9 Circles". TDF. Retrieved June 28, 2026.
- ↑ "9 Circles: A Thought-Provoking Play". The Three Tomatoes. Retrieved June 28, 2026.
- ↑ "Daniel Bowerbank completes the cast of 9 Circles at Park Theatre". Theatre Weekly. February 13, 2018. Retrieved June 28, 2026.
- ↑ "9 Circles". Broadway Baby. Retrieved June 28, 2026.
- ↑ Third Avenue Playhouse opens Winter Play Reading Festival