Paper Tom

Conflict induced post-traumatic stress disorder is the harrowing condition that Handheld Arts’ Paper Tom attempts to tackle twice. The new play neatly parallels the trajectories of a World War One soldier and a contemporary British veteran of Afghanistan, but compelling similarities reap no resolutions. Though richly detailed and imaginatively staged, Paper Tom ultimately feels like two first halves of one ruptured story.

Steven Rodger’s modern infantryman Richard bookends Paper Tom with soliloquies while anxiously folding paper pigeons: “Easier than cranes,” he says. He’s engaging and vividly sketched but his WWI counterpart is less so. Sandy King’s stiff conscript Tom is more of a stock shell-shock reference but is given roughly equal stage time to Richard. He shudders at flapping pigeons and shreds newspapers clumsily, recurring symbols that seem heavy-handed after Rodger’s origami-adept touch. Though divided by a century, their two histories are dispiritingly repetitive: strained distant wives, crude yet intuitive barrack buddies, and the inevitable post-war public crack-up.

Narrative aside, Paper Tom succeeds in its details, layering curious factoids into the script – for instance, how Japanese folklore says that folding a thousand paper cranes grants you one wish. The company's inventive staging is intermittently distracting and devastating. Tom’s waltz across no man’s land is rather too choreographed but Richard’s balletic breakdown in a bookie's broaches upon visceral brilliance. It’s the emotional climax of the play that then rather judders to a halt. A gunshot abrupt ending is merely a flippant goodbye, and the play’s potential—like that of its characters—is cut tragically short.