THE AUDIENCE AS TRANSLATOR
TRANSLATOR’ S NOTE
SOPHOCLES’ AJAX
AN INTRODUCTION
CHARACTERS
AJAX
SOPHOCLES’ PHILOCTETES
AN INTRODUCTION
CHARACTERS
PHILOCTETES
AESCHYLUS’ PROMETHEUS BOUND
AN INTRODUCTION
CHARACTERS
PROMETHEUS BOUND
SOPHOCLES’ WOMEN OF TRACHIS
AN INTRODUCTION
CHARACTERS
WOMEN OF TRACHIS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Bryan Doerries is a New York-based writer, director, and translator
who currently serves as Artistic Director of Theater of War
Productions, a company that presents dramatic readings of seminal
plays and texts to frame community conversations about pressing
issues of public health and social justice. A self-described
evangelist for ancient stories and their relevance to our lives
today, Doerries uses age-old approaches to help individuals and
communities heal from trauma and loss. He is the author of a
memoir, The Theater of War- What Ancient Greek Tragedies Can Teach
Us Today; All That You've Seen Here Is God, four plays by Aeschylus
and Sophocles; and The Odyssey of Sergeant Jack Brennan, a graphic
novelization of Homer's Odyssey, told from the point of view of a
US Marine returning home from Afghanistan. Among his awards, he has
received an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Kenyon
College and was named Public Artist in Residence for the City of
New York.
www.theaterofwar.com
“This is a brilliant, original, and harrowing work.” —Andre
Gregory
“Knowing that these plays were originally authored by military
brass, for an audience long familiar with the effects of war, you
have to wonder what questions they were trying to address with
their contemporaries. For the past decade, I’ve watched Bryan
tirelessly pursue what these questions could have been by bringing
these texts to the doorstep of the best modern source material we
have, our US military. In so doing, he has created a series of
translations that are accessible to both actor and audience, deeply
insightful and wholly unique.” —Adam Driver
“Bryan Doerries’ translations of Greek tragedy in All That You’ve
Seen Here Is God seriously engage both with four Greek originals by
Aeschylus and Sophocles and with his own experience in performing
the plays for disparate audiences who have undergone tragic
suffering in person. His spare, contemporary yet poetic lines jump
from the page to serve an intense delivery that invites his
audience to post-play dialogue.” —Helene P. Foley, Professor of
Classics, Barnard College, Columbia University
“We live in an age defined by mythic catastrophe. We live in
an age of perpetual war. We therefore live in an age that
requires drama of the stature contained between these covers.
Bryan Doerries’ brave, spare, inspired translations of Sophocles
and Aeschylus have the power to bring us into healing confrontation
with ancient, brutal, and essential truth. These are plays
for our time.” —Doug Hughes, Tony-award winning director of
Doubt
“These provocative, hard-driving renderings of Greek tragedy
incarnate the enormous learning, keen auditory imagination,
and expansive moral vision of Bryan Doerries, a deeply
humane poet-translator who has crafted some of
the most potent interpretations of ancient
tragedy available in the English language.” —Thomas G.
McGuire, Poetry Editor, War, Literature, & the Arts, United
States Air Force Academy
“Bryan Doerries’ translations roar down the tracks like a raging
locomotive. The language is lean, taut, raw, vibrant. The demonic
passions of ancient Greek warriors and their thousand-yard stares
chase us down and leave no place to hide. The sparse staccato lines
jump off the page, onto the stage, into the gut. No wonder
Doerries’ revolutionary Theater of War Project has produced such
powerful performances at so many theaters over recent years. This
is Greek tragedy as combat therapy. There is implicit in these
sparse, often unforgiving pages the hope of emotional healing,
signs of renewal to be snatched from the shattered souls of wounded
warriors and their shell-shocked wives. A riveting read and
remarkable accomplishment!” —Stephen Esposito, Assoc. Professor
Classical Studies, Boston University
“Bryan Doerries’ translations are as illuminating to read as they
are to perform. They emphasize personal struggle over
historical gamesmanship and are translated with emotion and humor
that feels not only timely but prescient.” —Jesse
Eisenberg
“Doerries has listened to the pain of the veteran, the patient, and
the prisoner and heard the words of Sophocles and Aeschylus.
He gives powerful voice to both in these stark and sensitive
translations.” —Amy R. Cohen, Editor-in-Chief of
Didaskalia: the Journal for Ancient Performance
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