After the War, His Struggle Continues.

I think I can confidently say I've now witnessed the most unprepossessing opening to a theater production it is possible to imagine. As the ushers retreated up the aisles at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Harvey Theater on Tuesday night, the audience's attention came to focus on the man who'd been wandering around onstage as we took our seats. What was he up to? He was rubbing the calluses off his feet, carefully collecting the skin shavings on a paper towel. The pedicure as entertainment -- yikes. The image became a metaphor, eventually, for the callused soul of the character onstage. ''Sunken Red,'' which kicked off the theatrical portion of the Next Wave Festival, is an adaptation of an autobiographical novel by the Dutch writer Jeroen Brouwers. He was interned in a prison camp in what is now Indonesia as a child, along with thousands of other Europeans rounded up when the Japanese took control of the area during World War II. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]