Digging Deeper: An Ancient Greek Play Illustrates Why We Need
Dramaturgy by Curt Columbus
O
ne evening, late last fall, I sat in a virtual classroom full of military veterans. I had been asked to talk about Greek theater, as a part of our ongoing collaboration with the Providence Clemente Veterans’ Initiative. We were discussing scenes from Sophocles’ Ajax; a difficult play, even for seasoned theater makers, let alone for a group of folks who didn’t frequent Trinity Rep more than once a year. What could this 2,000-year-old play possibly have to say to people who had served in American wars for the last 50 years, from Vietnam to Afghanistan? What could I add that would deepen their 10
THE TRINITY SQUARE • WINTER 2021
experience of this play? In order to begin work on any play, we first need to understand its cultural context. Simply reading a play will give some important information, but to really understand what is actually happening, one needs to do extensive research into the world that gave birth to that play in the first place. Contemporary plays are informed by our lived context, and while we may need to do research into specific aspects of a particular play, we know the broader context intuitively. For example, we might need to research aspects of the movie industry for a production, but we still know what contemporary Los Angeles is like, or how people
