‘Shiloh’ Battles Sparse Set and History

The battle at Shiloh in 1862 resulted in the bloodiest burst of carnage that had ever been seen on American soil. Film’s physical scale, pictorial realism and big budgets might suggest this, but how do you handle it in a theater?

Perhaps by examining the personal narratives of a few soldiers, one by one, as Shelby Foote did in his 1952 novel “Shiloh.” John Slade dramatized and directed Foote’s book, in a production by Santa Susana Repertory Company and California Lutheran University at Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza’s Forum Theatre. But it’s stuck in between the macrocosm and the microcosm, offering the satisfactions of neither.

A 1992 audiotape of Foote’s book lasts 5 1/2 hours, so clearly Slade had to edit. However, he kept all the major characters and even added a couple of his own: a woman who follows her husband to the front and a slave who defects to the Union side. Presumably Slade wanted to expand the show’s concerns beyond those of white men, and the slave does add to the book’s basic “war is hell” theme: At least the war freed the slaves.

Yet Slade kept the running time at 2 1/2 hours. A lot of superficially defined characters roam the stage.

According to the program, we’re not in the battle, but rather at a Shiloh reunion, “some years after the war.” You wouldn’t realize this if you didn’t read it. At a reunion, veterans presumably would swap memories. Here, it appears as if only one vet showed up, for only one man is depicted as living in a later period, looking back at the past: Palmer Metcalfe (Andrew Prine), a Confederate officer.

Everyone else who’s onstage (and even Prine at times) is part of a flashback, including an actor playing young Metcalfe (Brett Elliott). It’s impossible that this is all Metcalfe’s personal flashback--large sections of the story are about people he never met--so whose is it? His role, presumably designed as a focal point, instead adds to the confusion.

Foote’s book is written in the first person. Slade retains some of the words in monologue form, but others become dialogues, where the literary flavor doesn’t always sound natural. The most vivid performances are those of Don Swayze as Gen. Beauregard / Col. Forrest and Nick McCallum as a young greenhorn.

Slade added recorded music and--in the biggest misstep--a bit of martial choreography that resembles an amateur rendition of a number from “Les Miserables.” In this scene, the whole chorus line lustily sings “The Union forever . . .” though half of them wear Confederate grays.

The set--essentially, the Shiloh chapel and a mound--fails to evoke the mud, the blood, the stench, the cannons, the horses, yet it obstructs the free flow of imagination that a bare stage might provide. The program lacks maps or diagrams, which might have helped viewers get their bearings.

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* “Shiloh,” Forum Theatre, Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza, 2100 E. Thousand Oaks Blvd. Friday-Saturday, 8:30 p.m.; ends Sunday, 2:30 p.m. $26. (805) 583-8700, (213) 480-3232. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes.