The Theater of War

May 25, 2015
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 Guantánamo 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. Agent: Zoe Pagnamenta, Zoe Pagnamenta Agency.

June 15, 2015
A memoir of a man with a mission, bringing the message of ancient tragedies to modern audiences in need of the comfort of their compelling truths. The founder of Theater of War, "a project that presents readings of ancient Greek plays to service members, veterans, and their families to initiate conversations about the visible and invisible wounds of war," Doerries, a "self-proclaimed evangelist for classical literature and its relevance to our lives today," has adapted the texts of Greek tragedies into everyday speech, believing that the messages they contain can foster compassion and healing. His troupe stages readings of modern translations of ancient tragedies, followed by panel discussions eliciting audience participation. The experience of directing a performance of a Euripedes play while a student of classical languages led him to a career translating and directing Greek dramas. Doerries was able to persuade the military to allow him to present on bases around the world his adaptation of Sophocles' Ajax, in which a Greek warrior stricken with grief, exhaustion, anger, and a sense of betrayal by his superiors commits suicide. The author writes that recognizing themselves in the character of Ajax, servicemen were able to share their stories as never before. Similarly, he has presented his adaption of Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound, a play about discipline, power, hierarchy, and control, to corrections officers. His work has since expanded into readings of other Greek plays to other groups-for example, students and teachers at medical schools and hospitals, with the aim of starting open discussions about palliative care and death and dying. He has also presented the biblical Book of Job before communities suffering in the aftermaths of natural disasters. Samples of his adaptations scattered throughout the book demonstrate that Doerries has a knack for putting ancient speeches into powerful modern words; hopefully, a companion volume containing the full texts will follow.

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August 1, 2015
Though Sophocles' Ajax has been largely forgotten, Doerries believes that in that play the Greek tragedian gave battle-scarred ancient Athenians exactly what they neededa searing depiction of a suicidal combat veteran, a depiction licensing them to voice their own war-born anguish. Doerries has himself witnessed the emotional impact of Ajax by taking it to twenty-first-century American soldiers and their families. He recounts how this play has stirred military audiences, so creating desperately needed venues for saying and hearing suppressed truths. And just as he has brought the therapy of Sophocles' Ajax to those psychologically wounded by war, Doerries and his theater company, Outside the Wire, have taken other ancient plays to those coping with acute suffering. Readers watch as prisoners long held in solitary confinement recognize their own distress mirrored in Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound, or join end-of-life caregivers marveling at how their concerns surface in Sophocles' Women of Trachis, or hear tornado victims echoing laments recorded in the biblical book of Job. A potent reminder of the real-world potential of authentic drama.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)