“To comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable”: Bryan Doerries’ Theater of War performed for Fleet Week senior military leadership
by Alexis Wichowski, Press Secretary & Senior Advisor for Communication
“If we plan to defeat war,” observed one of the 40 plus senior military leaders assembled at City Hall for a special performance of Theater of War, “we need to remember the humanity of not only those who we send to fight, but those we claim victory over.”
These remarks came from a discussion following a Theater of War performance during Fleet Week 2018. At a time when almost 2,500 active-duty sailors, Marines, and Coastguard men and women flood into the streets of New York City, the conversation about morality and humanity in war feels especially poignant. The themes of loss, suffering, morality, and sacrifice that dominate the ancient Greek texts that form the basis of the performance, written 2,500 years ago by the Athenian general Sophocles, don’t feel so very distant. Sitting in the presence of scores of active-duty military service officers, they feel more relevant than ever.
“In 2,500 years,” observed another military general in attendance, “geography hasn’t changed; people haven’t changed. There’s always the temptation to find that secret weapon, that one thing that will make all the difference and end the war.” He paused. “But there is no secret weapon. We always have to remember that. There will always be moral choices to make.”
Moral choices
This issue of morality in war dominates the play, Philoctetes, scenes from which were performed by actors Glenn Davis (24; The Good Wife), Zack Grenier (Fight Club; Deadwood), and Kathryn Erbe (Law & Order: Criminal Intent) on May 24, 2018 in the Committee on the Whole room at City Hall. In the play, a young soldier is ordered by a superior officer to deceive a fellow soldier, Philoctetes, who was abandoned on an island after a snakebite left a festering wound, causing him to howl ceaselessly in pain.
The young soldier, Neoptolemus (Greek for “new to war”), is told by the powerful Greek commander, Odysseus, to trick Philoctetes into believing he will be rescued from the island where he was abandoned by his fellow troops nine years before. Worse, Neoptolemus is commanded to steal Philoctetes’ magical bow and arrow, which Odysseus believes is necessary to win the war in Troy; and without which, Philoctetus, being disabled, will be unable to hunt for food to survive.
Bryan Doerries, New York City’s Public Artist in Residence and the creator of the Theater of War performances, challenged the military commanders in the room to contemplate what Sophocles — himself a general who had, by the time he wrote the play at age 87, seen decades of war — had in mind when he wrote this.
“This play would have been performed for as many as 1,700 citizen-soldiers, with all of the generals seated in the front row, face to face with an actor wailing in agony. In the original, Philoctetes howls of pain last for up to 15 minutes.” Doerries turns to the generals seated before him: “What do you think Sophocles was up to?”
“If you want to lead, you’re going to be exposed to moral choices,” replied one of the generals in attendance. “Even in the face of someone else’s pain, even when it’s hard.” In this performance, actor Zack Grenier portrayed Philoctetes pain with agonizing realism. While for this performance, Doerries instructed Grenier to limit his screams to a few minutes, it was long enough to make the audience feel profoundly moved — and profoundly uncomfortable.
The bravery to help
“Watching someone suffer is hard,” one of the generals noted. “In this play, the pain is so obvious. But pain in today’s society may not be so obvious. You see it in their eyes — the suffering. The question is, will we be brave enough to do something about it?”
“Exactly,” interjects another general. “The suffering may not be so obvious (as Philoctetes’ screams). But that doesn’t mean they’re invisible. As you said, you can see the suffering in someone’s eyes. We need to stop calling mental or moral injuries ‘invisible wounds of war.’ Rather, they are simply unseen — perhaps because it’s so hard to really let ourselves see them.”
The discussion of moral injury — the term used to describe the mental anguish someone experiences when they’ve acted against their internal moral compass — continued for another thirty minutes. At the end of the discussion, as at the end of all Theater of War performances , Doerries closed with a reminder.
“If you take anything from this performance and this discussion today, let it be this: this is the 432nd performance of Theater of War. You and 431 other audiences have watched these scenes and wrestled with the morality of war.” Doerries said, “So, you are not alone in this room.”
“And watching scenes from a play written by a general over 2,500 years ago, remember: you are not alone across time.”
Doerries closed with what he called his “benediction.” He said, “Several years ago, when we performed Theater of War to a group of generals at the Department of Defense, one of them offered these words. When asked what Sophocles was up to, she said: ‘I think he wrote these plays to comfort the afflicted, and to afflict the comfortable.’”
That general was Loree Sutton, now retired from the Army and serving as the founding Commissioner of the New York City Department of Veterans’ Services (DVS).
VetsThriveNYC
Standing up the nation’s first City agency devoted solely to service members, veterans and their families, Sutton has translated her nearly thirty years of experience as a psychiatrist in the Army into a model for mental health that is about to be launched throughout New York City: VetsThriveNYC & the Core4TM Whole Health Model.
The basis for this model is culture, education, and the arts.
“Culture,” Sutton remarked during the closing of this performance, “is not fluff. It’s not for the very wealthy or the very lucky. Culture is life; it reminds us of our shared humanity.”
In partnership with the First Lady of New York Chirlaine McCray’s pioneering ThriveNYC initiative, tackling the stigma surrounding mental health, Sutton’s Core4TM model seeks to change the narrative on how to achieve health and wholeness, both for the veteran community and for the broader population. DVS’s partnership with Bryan Doerries and his Theater of War project marks the first major step towards implementing this mental health model that brings the front lines of hope and healing from the clinic to the communities where we live, where we experience culture, and where we find our shared humanity.
For more information on Theater of War and to check the schedule for upcoming performances, visit www.theaterofwar.com
For more information on the New York City Department of Veterans’ Services and VetsThriveNYC, visit www.nyc.gov /veterans/health/our-program.page
