ARTicles vol. 1 i.2: Introducing The Children of Heracles

Welcome to the second issue of ARTicles Online, which we are devoting to one of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken by A.R.T. The Children of Herakles is not only Peter Sellars’ first production at the Loeb Drama Center since 1981–as William Allan points out in his Opinion column, it’s also the play’s first professional production in this country. It isn’t every season that we can announce the American premiere of a play by Euripides.

Sellars is mounting The Children of Herakles in part because he regards it as an unjustly neglected masterpiece, and also because it forces us to consider one of the most pressing concerns of Euripides’ time and our own, the global refugee crisis. Sellars sees it as no accident that the formation of theater in ancient Athens coincided with the birth of democracy. As he told our production staff when he visited the A.R.T. last April “the first performance of Euripides’ play served as a town meeting about refugee issues.” All Athenian citizens were required to attend the theater as a preparation for voting – it provided it a forum where the most challenging issues of the day could be discussed in their true complexity, not by career politicians but by the greatest poets in the land.

Sellars’ mission is to restore to the theater its original function as the meeting place of art and social engagement. “The theater provides some of the last public spaces left in this country,” Sellars says in an interview in this issue of ARTicles Online. “We have a responsibility to create a more open, honest forum where people can speak without ideological bias.” It’s a thrilling vision that has already galvanized audiences in Germany, Italy, and France, where The Children of Herakles played this fall. We hope that you will be as excited as we are to welcome Peter and his company of actors to Cambridge, and we look forward to an extraordinary month of debate, cultural exchange, and great theater.

Sellars is exploring Euripides’ play and the refugee crisis from many different angles, to provide as rich a context as possible for this “town meeting” on the movement of displaced persons. Each performance of The Children of Herakles therefore involves several components, including discussions led by broadcaster and journalist Christopher Lydon, film screenings after evening performances, playback discussions after Saturday matinees with Peter Sellars, and more. See program details on the Herakles home page.

SPECIAL THANKS FOR EXTRAORDINARY CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE CHILDREN OF HERAKLES

The A.R.T.’s production of The Children of Herakles could not take place without the extraordinary collaboration and support of several organizations. These include the Carr Foundation, which is overseeing the pre-performance speaker series and refugee participants, the Harvard Film Archive, the International Institute of Boston, Physicians for Human Rights, the Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma, and Cambridge Rindge and Latin School. We are also profoundly grateful for the continuing support of The Boston Center for Refugee Health and Human Rights, the International Rescue Committee, Amnesty International, and the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Kennedy School of Government, among others.

Hundreds of people have given their time and service to the development of this project. But we wish to give particular thanks to the tireless dedication and hard work of the following individuals who have been involved on a daily basis since last April:

Greg Carr

Sidney Kwiram

Rebecca Sheahan

Christopher Lydon

Susannah Sirkin

THE CARR FOUNDATION

The Carr Foundation is dedicated to human rights education and the arts both within the United States and abroad. In the spring of 2001, the Carr Foundation purchased a former neo-Nazi compound in Northern Idaho, razed it, and created a peace park and human rights education center to replace it. The Foundation is supporting a five-year human rights campaign through the Association of Idaho Cities and recently founded the Museum of Idaho in Idaho Falls, dedicated to cultural and natural history. Here in Cambridge, the Foundation endowed the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Kennedy School of Goverment at Harvard. It also established the Market Theatre of Cambridge, a venue dedicated to new playwrights and productions, which often explores edgy themes. The Carr Foundation is currently working with Afghans for Civil Society to create an independent radio station in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the Carr Foundation was established by Greg Carr in 1998.