The Theatre of War
what ancient Greek tragedies can teach us today
-
- $16.99
-
- $16.99
Publisher Description
Classical tragedy is timelessly powerful – not only does it still move us, but it heals, too.
Bryan Doerries produces performances of Greek tragedies for soldiers returned from conflict, addicts, prison communities, victims of natural disasters, and other vulnerable people. His dramatisations have explored how the story of Sophocles’ Ajax can help today’s soldiers and their loved ones grapple with trauma; why people in the penal system are liberated by Prometheus Bound; and how Heracles has changed the way that some doctors manage end-of-life care. In drawing on such extraordinarily intimate experiences, and in telling his own story of loss and learning, Doerries illustrates the redemptive potential of one of the oldest human art-forms, and the power of re-enacting.
The Theatre of War is a passionate, humane, and purposeful book that shows how suffering and healing are part of an eternally replicable process, and argues that the great tragedies of the Greeks can still light a clear path forward through contemporary society’s most tangled issues.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this moving and personal volume, Doerries shows how performances of Sophocles and Aeschylus can salve the mental wounds of soldiers with PTSD, as well as prison inmates and guards, terminally ill patients, and hospice workers. Doerries's Theater of War project, which stages professional performances of classical tragedy for both active-service and returning soldiers, is his personal crusade to help others and revive the classics. It is the suffering of Ajax, who slaughters a field of animals in blind rage, that resonates most with the veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, many of whom share the character's sense of having been betrayed by his superiors. Doerries also uses the tale of Prometheus to represent themes of excessive incarceration and martyrdom for prisoners in solitary confinement and guards at the Guant namo Bay detention camp. Families and physicians facing end-of-life decisions, meanwhile, see a mirror to their experiences in Heracles's anguish and death in Sophocles's Women of Trachis. Doerries's potent memoir reveals that the enduring power of Greek dramas lies in their ability to help us understand the present.
