The local paper for the Upper East Side
WEEK OF NOVEMBER DESIGNING FOR DINING ◄ P.12
8-14 2018
THE VISCERAL VIGNETTES OF VIETNAM THEN
HISTORY
NOW
An Upper West Side theater troupe marks Veterans Day by reprising one of America’s most unpopular wars — with a renewed appreciation for the men and women who fought it BY DOUGLAS FEIDEN
Amanda Vasquez holds a pose. Photo courtesy of Amanda Vasquez
YOGA WITH A TWIST ON THE UES HEALTH Through their new studio, two Hispanic millennial sisters aim to bridge the gap between clinical and spiritual wellness BY KENNEDY MACDONALD
On the Upper East Side, the newly opened Medicine for the Soul Yoga offers an array of yoga, reiki, medi-
tation, and mindfulness classes. It is a humble, cozy studio — no larger than the espresso bar next door — but its owners have big plans: to help bridge the gap between clinical and spiritual wellness. With backgrounds in medical science and spiritual healing respectively, Krysten and Amanda Vasquez are like a millennial yin and yang — opposite yet complementary.
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It has been more than a generation since the unspeakable horrors of the Vietnam War last occupied a paramount position in the collective consciousness of New York City. Now, a scrappy little theater company that’s been dubbed the “History Channel on Stage” is revisiting that ugly conflict and plumbing the longburied memories of its toxic toll. Why now? Veterans Day is Nov. 11. It is a time for remembrance. The combatants, to this day, are haunted by war wounds, both physical and psychic. Yet to millennials, Vietnam is but a chapter in a history book, as relevant to their lives as the Spanish-American War of 1898. Hudson Warehouse is out to change that dynamic. The resident theater company of Goddard Riverside Community Center on the Upper West Side is recounting the real-life stories of seven veterans who served in-country in the 1960s and 1970s in a 70-minute, multi-media theatrical presentation. It’s also attempting a major act of historical redemption: “After World War II, our soldiers came home to a hero’s welcome, and strangers kissed them and hugged them and embraced them and thanked them for their service to our country,” said Susane Lee, the company’s executive director. “But our Vietnam veterans came home in shame to face people’s anger and belligerence — as if somehow, they had become the bad guys, and
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Ex-Sergeant Arthur Faiella with Susane Lee, the executive director of Hudson Warehouse, on the Upper West Side. Her theater company is telling his personal story in an upcoming stage production, along with the stories of six other Vietnam vets, set against the backdrop of the long war. Sergeant Arthur Faiella, then 22 years old, in Vietnam about 1967.
I always felt it was such a beautiful country — except for the fact that all the people were killing each other.” Former Technical Sergeant Tom Pellaton, Vietnam veteran and Episcopal priest they were shunned from society, disrespected, and literally spat upon,” she added. “Now, it is time to give them a hero’s welcome, too.” To do that, Lee located seven vets — six men and one woman, four of them New Yorkers — and conducted and transcribed dozens of hours of audiotaped interviews. Much of what she heard was harrowing. There would be no paraphrasing. No poetic license. “I need to honor their words,” she said.
READ THIS STORY ON OURTOWNNY.COM TO SEE ALL THE PHOTOS So Lee used only verbatim quotes to write, create and produce “Vietnam: Soldiers Tell Their Stories 40 Years Later,” which will be performed at the Goddard Riverside Bernie Wohl Center, on Columbus Avenue at 91st Street, on Saturday, Nov. 10, at 7:30 p.m. Admission is free for all veterans. Tickets for everyone else: $10 or $15. The show is built around the seven vets played by seven actors cast to relate their wartime experiences. As they spin poignant, or chilling, firstperson tales of Vietnam, more than 250 images of their time in the war, and the places and subjects of which they speak, are projected on a large screen above and behind them.
VIETNAM ON PAGE 16 Jewish women and girls light up the world by lighting the Shabbat candles every Friday evening 18 minutes before sunset. Friday, November 9 – 4:26 pm. For more information visit www.chabaduppereastside.com
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