“I have never felt that I was doing more good telling a story,” said seasoned actress April Grace, who participated in the unique theater project Theater of War at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., this summer.
Theater of War is an ancient theatrical model for addressing contemporary and complex issues. Actors of film and stage read ancient Greek plays for recently returning soldiers and their families on military bases around the country.
“The audience was made up mostly of marines and soldiers, a good portion of them, getting ready to serve another tour,” Grace acknowledges somberly of her performance at Fort Leonard Wood.
The universal and timeless stories dealing with the themes of war, honor, woundedness, and collective responsibility, spark awareness and dialogue regarding the challenges faced by combat veterans today. These issues include post-deployment psychological health issues and the limitations of available resources.
The program hopes to foster greater family and troop resilience and open communication.
Founded by New York-based writer, translator, director, and educator Bryan Doerries, readings of Sophocles’s “Ajax” and “Philoctetes” have been presented to military communities across the United States since 2008.
The 8:30 a.m. curtain call reminded Grace that these two and a half hours “is not about entertainment.” She likened the event more to C-SPAN in its very direct approach. Actors sit behind a table, and all the lights are on.
Theater of War is an ancient theatrical model for addressing contemporary and complex issues. Actors of film and stage read ancient Greek plays for recently returning soldiers and their families on military bases around the country.
“The audience was made up mostly of marines and soldiers, a good portion of them, getting ready to serve another tour,” Grace acknowledges somberly of her performance at Fort Leonard Wood.
The universal and timeless stories dealing with the themes of war, honor, woundedness, and collective responsibility, spark awareness and dialogue regarding the challenges faced by combat veterans today. These issues include post-deployment psychological health issues and the limitations of available resources.
The program hopes to foster greater family and troop resilience and open communication.
Founded by New York-based writer, translator, director, and educator Bryan Doerries, readings of Sophocles’s “Ajax” and “Philoctetes” have been presented to military communities across the United States since 2008.
The 8:30 a.m. curtain call reminded Grace that these two and a half hours “is not about entertainment.” She likened the event more to C-SPAN in its very direct approach. Actors sit behind a table, and all the lights are on.
With very little time to rehearse, Bryan Doerries’s primary objective, explains Grace, is to immerse his recently assembled cast in the context and history of the Greek tragedies. His main direction, according to Grace, was “Go for it as much as you can.”
Because it is a play, read rather than acted out, all the emotion must be conveyed in the voice alone. And as this is a Greek tragedy about Greek gods, “the emotions are on a Biblical scale—nothing is subtle.” It’s there on the surface, she explained further.
Before the ancient Greek drama was considered ancient, it was a form of storytelling. It was a large scale public dramatization of war and acted as communal therapy, helping its society deal with the issues of combat.
Sophocles, a general himself, understood firsthand the mental, emotional, and physical toll of war. He perceived the difficulty for warriors to assimilate back into civilian life and believed that the responsibility to support the reintegration of veterans into society belongs to the military who sent them, as well as to the population they defended.
Taking into consideration that the statistics of suicide from veterans is on an alarming rise, a panel addresses the audience with a question and answer session after every reading. The panel is composed of an active duty soldier and a veteran, a spouse or a family member, and a mental health professional and/or a member of the chaplaincy.
The discussion features a town hall ambiance to help destigmatize psychological and physical injuries. The objective is to preserve the dignity, identity, and honor of the returning soldiers.
Among the roughly 100 film and stage actors who have participated in Theater of War are Paul Giamatti, Terrence Howard, David Strathairn, Michael Ealy, Lili Taylor, Jesse Eisenberg, Bill Camp, Elizabeth Marvel, Jay O. Sanders, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Gloria Reuben, Jeffrey Wright, Tamara Tunie, Charles S. Dutton, Keith David, Jennifer Mudge, and John Ventimiglia.
Their readings of “Ajax” and “Philoctetes” have been offered to the U.S. Marine Corps, West Point cadets, homeless veterans, Army Posts, and the Department of Defense.
Grace has been in numerous television shows and film, including “Lost.” She is a regular in “Joan of Arcadia,” and played a television reporter in the 1999 drama “Magnolia,” playing opposite Tom Cruise. She said of Theater of War, “It was fantastic. I got to really go for it as an actress, tell a story, not for entertainment, but for real service.”
She told the story of a soldier, who after her July reading at Camp Pendleton, San Diego, slipped her a handwritten note describing the profound revelation he had after hearing the words of Athena and Tecmessa. Suddenly, he recognized how they echoed the words of his own estranged wife who he could not hear at the time. Now he heard; now he understood. His message to Grace was, “Thank you, you changed my life.”
The experience of being committed to social change, according to Grace, has “never been better.”
For more information see www.theater-of-war.com.
