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The Theatre of War: What Ancient Greek Tragedies Can Teach Us Today Audiobook
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Publisher Description
A compassionate, personal, and illuminating work of nonfiction that draws on the author’s celebrated work as a director of socially conscious theater to connect listeners with the power of an ancient artistic tradition
For years Bryan Doerries has been producing ancient tragedies for current and returned servicemen and women, addicts, tornado and hurricane victims, and a wide range of other at-risk people in society. Here, drawing on these extraordinary firsthand experiences, Doerries clearly and powerfully illustrates the redemptive and therapeutic potential of this classical, timeless art: how, for example, Ajax can help soldiers and their loved ones grapple with PTSD, or how Prometheus Bound provides insights into the modern penal system.
Doerries is an original and magnanimous thinker, and The Theater of War—wholly unsentimental but intensely felt and emotionally engaging—is a humane, knowledgeable, and accessible book that will inspire and inform listeners, showing them that suffering and healing are both part of a timeless process.
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“In this riveting narrative, simply but elegantly told, Doerries movingly resurrects the inner life of a people who lived 2,500 years ago, but whose struggles evoke our own familiar and damaged present, now endowed by this wonderful book with more drama, more tragedy, more compassion, [and] more possibility.”
— Ken Burns, award-winning documentary film producer
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“The Theater of War is a testament both to the enduring power of the classics and to the vital role art can play in our communal understanding of war and suffering.”
— Phil Klay, National Book Award winner and New York Times bestselling author -
“The theater of ancient Greece was many things…[It is] the therapeutic potential of catharsis that most interests Bryan Doerries… An impressive and accomplished journey.”
— New York TImes Book Review -
“Extraordinary…Riveting…Doerries convinces us that we can find permission to feel our own pain. To see his productions today, or to see Greek tragedy through his eyes, is to become measurably healthier and more human.”
— Daily Beast -
“[Doerries’] compelling, raw book is both memoir and manifesto; he chronicles his own gradual discovery of the power and relevance of Greek tragedies while also championing their social utility…The Greek tragedians can still help us know and cure ourselves.”
— Boston Globe -
“Doerries has a knack for putting ancient speeches into powerful modern words.”
— Kirkus Reviews -
“A memoir that testifies to the power of community in the face of tragedy.”
— Mary Lynn Bracht, author of White Chrysanthemum -
“The Theater of War is an enthralling, gracefully written, and urgently important examination of the vital, ongoing relationship between past and present.”
— Tim O’Brien, author of The Things They Carried
Awards
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A 2015 Amazon Best Books of the Year Selection for Nonfiction
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About Bryan Doerries
Bryan Doerries is a writer, director, and translator. He is the founder of Theater of War, a project that presents readings of ancient Greek plays to service members, veterans, and their families to help them initiate conversations about the visible and invisible wounds of war. He is also the cofounder of Outside the Wire, a social-impact company that uses theater and a variety of other media to address pressing public health and social issues, such as combat-related psychological injury, end-of-life care, prison reform, domestic violence, political violence, recovery from natural and man-made disasters, substance abuse, and addiction. A self-described evangelist for classical literature and its relevance to our lives today, Doerries uses age-old approaches to help individuals and communities heal after suffering and loss.