Quotes
“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, 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
“[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
“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
“A potent reminder of the real-world potential of authentic drama.” Booklist
“Doerries has a knack for putting ancient speeches into powerful modern words.” Kirkus Reviews
“Doerries shows how performances of Sophocles and Aeschylus can salve the mental wounds of soldiers with PTSD, as well as prison inmates and guards, terminally ill patients, and hospice workers…Doerries’ potent memoir reveals that the enduring power of Greek dramas lies in their ability to help us understand the present.” Publishers Weekly
“A deeply humane quest, movingly recalled. Doerries’ passionate search for meaning in ancient text has led him out of the dusty stacks of scholarship into an arena of ecstatic public engagement. He has taken his elegantly reasoned thesis—that the main business of tragedy has always been catharsis—and created a theatrical experience that has lifted countless audiences out of isolation and into profound community.” Garry Trudeau, Pulitzer Prize winner
“Bryan Doerries’ ongoing staging of Greek tragedies before US military personnel and others processing trauma is an act of courageous humanism: a tribute to vanished lives and a succor to current soldiers and citizens. In connecting the valiance and pathos of modern military life to a 2500-year tradition, Doerries has returned dignity to countless troops nearly destroyed by war. His capacious yet intimate book offers a privileged look into not only the psychological costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts and other proximate disasters but also the larger meaning of inhabiting an unpredictable and militarized world.” Andrew Solomon, National Book Award–winning author of Far from the Tree
“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, more possibility. Here is the proof at last: our future depends on the gifts of the past.” Ken Burns, Emmy Award–winning director and producer of documentary films
