Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog
“The Theater of War” What Ancient Greek Tragedies Can Teach Us Today
By: Bryan Doerries
Narrated By: Adam Driver
Bryan Doerries (Author, Artistic Director of Theater of War Productions, an evangelist for classical literature and its relevance to today’s lives.)
The title and book cover of “The Theater of War” is as puzzling as Bryan Doerries’ beginning vignette of his personal life. Doerries graduates from Kenyon College where he majors in the classics. He goes on to earn a Master of Fine Arts in Directing from the University of California. “The Theater of War” recounts Doerries’ journey to become cofounder, artistic director, and historian for creation of a theatrical teaching tool about life and death. The trigger for his understanding comes from the last days of his personal relationship with Laura Rothenberg who dies at 22 from cystic fibrosis. Her death is the introduction to why “The Theater of War” is created.
Doerries and Phyllis Kaufman are co-founders of “The Theater of War” Productions. Ms. Kaufman was the producing director from 2009 to 2016. She died at the age of 92 in 2023 but was instrumental in organizing production events, coordinating actors, and ensuring practical aspects of theatrical presentations.
“The Theater of War” is about the living and how to deal with permanent disability or death. Death comes in many forms from different causes but as the Latin expression says “Memento mori”, “Remember you must die” because death is a part of every life. Doerries explains how famous Greek tragedies were, and still are, teaching tools for those who have life and death influence over others. What “The Theater of War” creates are acted reproductions of classic Greek tragedies for living life when you or someone you know is permanently disabled or killed.
With the help of actors like Adam Driver (who narrates the book), the great tragedies of Sophocles and Aeschylus are presented to military, penal, and nursing audiences across America.
Combat veterans, prisoners, and terminally ill patients face extreme conditions of life. Combat may end in death or future disability. Prison life is about loss of control of oneself and being under the control of others. Terminal illness is also about loss of control of oneself when one is diagnosed as destined for death.
The suicide of Ajax as depicted on an ancient vase in the British museum in London.
Sophocle’s tragedy, “AJax”, offers the truth of psychological trauma and moral injury from battle. In despair, Ajax kills himself because he feels deeply humiliated by the gods for not being given the armor of Achilles who is killed in the Trojan war. Achilles’ armor was given to Odysseus rather than him.
Sophocle’s “Philoctetes” explains the pain and personal isolation that comes from the physical and emotional damage from war. Today, it is diagnosed as PTSD.
Sophocles “Antigone” deals with civil disobedience, justice, and conflict between personal and state ethics. These conflicts are reflected in mobs of unruly citizens demonstrating against what they perceive is wrong.
Aeschylus’s “Prometheus Bound” reflects on the unfairness of a penal system that infringes on human rights.
The recited dramas offer cathartic release and potential change to those who are personally affected by their situational experience. That is the purpose of the presentations. Doerries creates theatrical readings of these classics before military, penal, and nursing personnel.
The presentations lead to questions and answers about the truth of societal disagreement, death’s inevitability, and how to live with their consequences.
Some military generals and prison guards are offended by the implications of their mistakes, but the plays recitals provide a forum for discussion that offer potential for improved human understanding and societal decisions and action.
The Greeks understood dying is part of life. One chooses how they live life, but death is nature’s or God’s choice, a thing beyond human’ control.
REVIEWS AND VIEWS OF LIFE 
