The ancient Greeks had a shorthand for the mental anguish of war, for post-traumatic stress disorder and even for outbursts of fratricidal bloodshed like the recent shootings at Fort Hood. They would invoke the names of mythological military heroes who battled inner demons: Achilles, consumed by the deaths of his men; Philoctetes, hollowed out from betrayals by fellow officers; Ajax, warped with so much rage that he wanted to kill his comrades.
Now officials at the Defense Department are turning to the Greeks to explore the psychic impact of war.
The Pentagon has provided US$3.7 million for an independent production company, Theater of War, to visit 50 military sites through at least next summer and stage readings from two plays by Sophocles, Ajax and Philoctetes, for service members. So far the group has performed at Fort Riley in Kansas; at the Uniformed Services University in Bethesda, Maryland; and at the recent Warrior Resilience Conference in Norfolk, Virginia.
The scenes from Ajax show the title character plotting to murder Greek generals who have disgraced him. Under a trance by the goddess Athena, he ends up slaughtering farm animals he thinks are the officers. Ajax’s concubine is depicted as trying to bring him to his senses; the final scene shows Ajax in agony, committing suicide.
The Philoctetes segment portrays Greek military leaders plotting to trick the hero into leading an attack on Troy, and shows Philoctetes struggling with both physical and emotional pain.
A special performance was held last Monday night for dozens of service members, veterans, relatives and Pentagon officials at St Vincent’s Hospital in Manhattan. The actors in the one-hour reading were David Strathairn, Jeffrey Wright, Gloria Reuben and Adam Driver, a former Marine.
The investigation of Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 at Fort Hood in Texas, loomed over the reading, though it was mentioned only a few times during the post-performance discussion. Still, there were echoes of Fort Hood, especially in the story of Ajax — in the pain that soldiers and their loved ones faced then and now, and in the questions raised by the play about whether war can drive warriors to acts of evil.
“These plays are part of a 2,500-year history of mental and emotional pain for soldiers that run up to the present day,” said Strathairn, an Academy Award nominee for his portrayal of Edward Murrow in the 2005 film Good Night, and Good Luck.
Bryan Doerries, a writer and director who founded Theater of War, said the performances were not psychotherapy, noting that the efficacy of his group’s work had not been studied in clinical trials. He described the effort as a public health project to help service members and relatives overcome stigmas about psychological injuries by showing that some of the bravest heroes suffered mentally from battle.
“Through theater we’re trying to offer some ideas and experiences for our troops and veterans to think about when they don’t feel comfortable opening up about their private thoughts,” said Doerries, whose work grew out of an earlier effort, the Philoctetes Project, that drew media attention for a performance at the Juilliard School last fall.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
“Sophocles was himself a general, and Athens during his time was at war for decades,” he said. “These two plays were seen by thousands of citizen-soldiers. By performing these scenes, we’re hoping that our modern-day soldiers will see their difficulties in a larger historical context, and perhaps feel less alone.”
Films and performances have long been staples of mental health and rehabilitation services, intended to provoke discussions among viewers who might dislike talk therapy but who can identify with characters or plot points.
For active-duty soldiers, stigmas about therapy can be even greater, psychologists say.
Concerns that they might be passed over for promotion or regarded as weak have prevented some from seeking help from mental health professionals.
“There is good evidence that active-duty personnel worry about the stigma of post-traumatic stress disorder,” said Richard McNally, the director of clinical training in the psychology department of Harvard University.
Some troubled veterans do not seek help even after their service careers are over, said McNally, who has worked in the field of trauma and memory, especially with war veterans, since the mid-1980s but is not involved with Doerries’ project.
“If seeing the Theater of War can reduce stigma and help veterans seek these treatments, then that will be wonderful indeed,” he said.
Because of the Fort Hood shootings, the Pentagon canceled an interview about the project with Brigadier General Loree Sutton, an Army psychiatrist and director of the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury, which awarded the contract to Theater of War.
But Sutton was on hand last Monday night at St Vincent’s, where she told the audience after the performance that Theater of War was an important vehicle for “sharing pain and the promise of learning and growing and healing.”
“We knew that never in the history of our republic have we placed so much on the shoulders of so few on behalf of so many,” she said.
AUDIENCE REACTION
The reading at St Vincent’s kept the audience rapt. As Ajax, Wright, who won an Emmy and a Tony playing Belize in Angels in America, was by turns thundering and growling, and threatened to lash the back of his enemy Odysseus “until it’s red with blood.”
He implored a comrade: “Cut my throat right now.”
“I was the bravest in battle, never lost my wits,” Wright nearly screamed as his character faced his unraveling mental state. “What a joke my life has become.”
Reuben, as Tecmessa, who lived with Ajax as his wife, begged him to think of his loved ones before doing harm.
“The stain of it will shame your family,” she said.
During the post-performance discussion, led by a panel of therapists and military personnel, veterans from the Vietnam War, Iraq and Afghanistan spoke about their own sleepless nights, drug addictions and isolation from family members. A Vietnam veteran described being homeless for 10 years, suffering breakdowns but at last “getting my dignity back” in part from mental health care.
Michael Kramer, a psychologist on the panel, said combat stress for soldiers could “erode their personhood” and he connected the ancient traumas with the modern-day pain that “we’re reading about in the papers.”
Tanya Weekes was among the audience members. As the evening concluded, her husband, Sergeant Daniel Weekes, who served in Iraq with the Army National Guard in 2004-2005, slipped out into the hallway. He still struggles with memories of a particularly bloody bombing during his tour in Mosul, she said, though he has come a long way with psychotherapy. He found the scenes hard to watch at times, she added.
“And the play helped me, definitely, because I could relate to the characters,” Weekes said. “When soldiers come home from war, you never know what to expect. They might get violent. That was my biggest fear.
“We at home might not have been on the battlefield, but it sure feels like it,” she said.
Sergeant 1st Class Tony Gonzalez, an Iraq combat veteran from Brooklyn who was on the panel, recalled that post-traumatic stress disorder was rarely discussed when he first joined the Army. He described his own pain after his platoon captain was killed and he went to pay respects to the man’s wife, also a friend and member of the military.
And he praised the use of theater to help spotlight trauma.
“I’ve been Ajax,” he said. “I’ve spoken to Ajax.”
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