RECALL: Act Two
In February 1961, the boys of Miami Military Academy are still marching, joking, fighting, shaving, bleeding, stealing, and pretending the world outside the gates is someone else’s problem. But the world is already inside the school. It is in the news from Cuba. It is in the old munitions bunkers by the bay. It is in the secrets the adults keep, the wounds they drink through, and the wars they keep handing down to children.
Written by Academy Award nominee Bruce Davison, and once optioned and held by the great Al Pacino, RECALL is a funny, savage, deeply human coming-of-age drama about abandoned boys, broken fathers, old soldiers, Cuban exiles, secret weapons, and the machinery that turns fear into patriotism.
Act Two begins as Stephen Lishinsky tries to survive the strange education of “A” Company. His head has been butchered. His pride has been beaten. His idea of honor has already taken a few direct hits. When he tries to run, Commander Patterson finds him at the bus stop and gives him the kind of broken advice only a broken soldier can give: if you are in a storm, sometimes the only move is to sit tight and let the morning come.
But morning at Miami Military Academy is never clean.
Coombs is missing. The Razor Fiend is back. Bear is bleeding into the sink. Lindquist, the feral boy from the mango trees, is pulled into uniform and passed off as a cadet because, at this school, identity is just another piece of equipment someone misplaced. Sally Barnes drifts through the place like a lit match, furious at her father, suspicious of Patterson, and impossible for Lishinsky to ignore. Patterson tries to protect her, but the past between him, Colonel Barnes, and Sally’s mother is its own battlefield.
Meanwhile, Slouch and Bebop stop pretending their war is imaginary. The key to Bunker 3 becomes guns, ammunition, and contraband dragged through the machinery of a school that is already falling apart. Patterson lectures boys on amphibious landings while the real invasion waits in the shadows. Bebop is pulled closer to the Cuban exile cause. Slouch, half romantic and half criminal, follows him into the Everglades, into blindfolds, pistols, secret rooms, and men who do not look like teachers.
There is comedy everywhere because boys make comedy out of terror. There is coconut rum, marching songs, bad haircuts, chocolate cokes, contraband, dirty jokes, and the Dade County Fair waiting like a reward for good behavior nobody intends to have. But underneath the noise, the rifles are getting heavier. The lies are getting harder to carry. And the adults are running out of time.
RECALL is about boyhood at the exact moment history stops being a lesson and starts becoming a weapon. It is about fathers who failed, sons who improvise, countries that ask for sacrifice before they explain the cost, and boys who are still laughing because they do not yet understand what the world is loading.
Starring Alan Rosenberg, Carson Bolde, Stone Garcia, Wesley Kimmel, Dan Lauria, Kensington Tallman, Roxton Garcia, Bruce Davison, Luca Diaz, Amari O’Neil, Amir O’Neil, David Errigo Jr., Zeke Alton, Gian Franco Rodriguez, Miki Yamashita, Nemil Mudvari, Sofia D’Marco, and Ashley Ciarra.
A portion of proceeds from RECALL will benefit the National Veterans Foundation and the Lifeline for Vets. To support NVF or speak with a Veteran who understands, visit https://nvf.org or call 888-777-4443.
Produced by Table Read Podcast and Manifest Media Productions, LLC.
Executive Produced by Jack Levy, Shaan Sharma, and Mark Knell.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
USA