All four hundred people seemed to lean forward in their seats. Eight hundred eyes locked on the four actors sitting behind a table in front of them. The room was absolutely still except for the actors, in ordinary clothes, reading aloud from ancient scripts.
The audience of marines, their families, and caretakers had gathered to hear scenes from Sophocles’s “Ajax” and his “Philoctetes” at a San Diego hotel—the first of many Theater of War presentations. The soldiers were “voluntold” to attend by the military as a means to confront and hopefully control Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). It was 2008.
(L–R) Actors David Strathairn, Gloria Reuben, and Jeffrey Wright. Paxton Winters
