ARTicles vol. 1 i.2: The Balm of Ancient Words

GIDEON LESTER: Why did you choose a play by Euripides to begin your investigation of the international refugee crisis?​​​​​​​

PETER SELLARS: I’ve done one Greek play every five years, whenever things get dangerous. I set Sophocles’ Ajax at the Pentagon to explore the ravaging effects of the Vietnam War, and I staged Aeschylus’ Persians in 1993 because the Gulf War made me want to return to our point of origins – The Persians is the earliest extant play in the history of Western drama. With The Children of Herakles I come to Euripides for the first time. I think it’s important to reach to a voice that predates the current crisis, to give us a larger perspective, a larger trajectory. And in this culture of distraction that overwhelms us with images, these ancient plays help us to speak with honesty and simplicity about very complex issues, which is one of the functions of art.

GL: Is that why your production of The Children of Herakles is physically so simple?

PS: Yes, I wanted everything stripped back. The production asks, if every single thing is taken away what would be left? That’s what’s on stage. It’s the question all refugees must ask. Everything you’ve worked all your life to achieve is lost in one day, and you must begin again. But devastating as that is, it’s also hopeful. There’s something empowering about a new beginning, the opportunity to start over, to rebuild at the grass roots.

GL: Do you find that spirit of optimism in The Children of Herakles?

PS: Yes, Euripides filled the play with good news. His strategy was not to make the audience feel ashamed, but proud to be Athenian. He encouraged them to recognize the stature of their nation, to understand that everyone looked to Athens as the world’s leader in freedom. We’re used to discussing world politics with a deep sense of hopelessness, but this play shows us people who have not stopped hoping, who are survivors. Certainly they have their share of survival guilt, that sense that so many of their family and neighbors didn’t make it this far – it was also one of the great questions of the twentieth century. Primo Levi was haunted his whole life by the thought that only cowards survive, and the brave die because they have the courage to be defiant.

GL: What other parallels do you find between the play and our current situation?

PS: Euripides raised questions that a new generation is now asking all over the developing world. Students and young people are fed up with the corrupt, paralyzed leadership of the elders, and with being seen as an international poster child for victimhood. We’re currently meeting refugees in the Boston area who will give testimony during the production. Last night a young Afghani student said, “Please don’t portray us as sad, or ask people to sympathize with us. Show us as successful, determined people who haven’t given up, who are moving forward.” Another young woman, who endured harrowing experiences to get to this country, wrote a poem after September 11 that I asked her to read. The title alone is overwhelming – “Move On.” These people have lived through tragedy and haven’t closed the book on their own lives, but are turning the page and writing the next chapter. Euripides knew all about this life force. The play is filled with the energy of extraordinary people who will not quit, will not just get depressed. Quite the opposite. In the darkest moment of despair when they go up against the wall, their next line is, “Still, there must be some way out of this.” They have survived exactly because they are resourceful, creative, determined, hard to sink. We stage old plays because so much has changed and so much hasn’t. It’s terrific to see what we can still imagine and experience, to test ourselves against these monuments in the history of humanity.

GL: You’re mounting this production in Germany, Italy, and France as well as the United States. Why was this international dimension important to you?

PS: The issues raised by the play are international. The refugee crisis has entirely exceeded borders. It’s the painful contradiction of globalization that now only cash can flow internationally-businessmen can go anywhere but everyone else has to stay put. Meanwhile our economy is supported by virtual slave labor all over the world – we have far more slavery than in the time of Abraham Lincoln. And just like the first abolitionists, people are starting to notice that their economic well-being is based on the servitude of others. At what point does that become unacceptable? At what point are we neighbors? How would life be if we didn’t just ask, “What do I want to do next?” In the opening line of this play, Euripides says, “For years I have known that anyone who’s just is born to serve his neighbors.” That thought is colossal. It cuts to the foundations of justice – in the world, in the United States of America, and in our own lives.

GL: How different have you found the experience of refugees to be in the States and Europe?

PS: Very different. Anyone who’s made it to America is truly exceptional. The United States has shut down all refugee programs and immigration after September 11, so people are in limbo. The refugees we’ve talked to are some of the fortunate few who have made it here through extraordinary connections or personal achievement. They were often politically active in their own countries-future Nelson Mandelas. They left home because they realized they could only help their countries from exile. Our politicians and media characterize refugees and immigrants in the most shocking way, as hoards of ravening locusts. We should recognize the power and honor of what these people have to contribute. Take any cab in New York City, you’ll find your driver was once a physicist or surgeon. These immigrants are not criminals or second-class citizens, they’re the cream of the world’s society. They were leaders in their own countries and now they’re cleaning hotel rooms and serving as our all-night security guards.

GL: How do you account for such widespread misconception?

PS: After September 11 there’s been a tangible chill on free speech in America. The limit of what can be discussed on the op-ed page of the New York Times is appalling. We all have to be cautious what we say right now, and meanwhile we’re living with a government that’s pushing us closer and closer to World War Three. It’s shocking that we’re declaring war on two-thirds of the planet and we can’t talk about it. This is not what this country was created to be. Fifty percent of the American public is convinced that Saddam Hussein had something to do with September 11. Why on earth would they think that when there’s no evidence? Because they’re fed this stuff constantly, and serious critique has been replaced by rumor and innuendo. The theatre provides some of the last public spaces left in this country, and we have a responsibility to create a more open, honest forum where people can speak without ideological bias. Official propaganda of any stripe says, “There’s nothing to talk about.” You can’t get through a Euripides play without saying, “We’d better talk about this!” Great plays are a perpetual challenge, and demand a more sophisticated discussion than our television news with its thirty-second time slots. Turn on CNN and you’ll see footage of children in an Iraqi hospital saying, “Please don’t bomb us,” and then cut to Madonna’s new boyfriend. In the first days of the Gulf War we had round-the-clock coverage from a hotel room in Baghdad where two reporters couldn’t see a thing. For hours on end we’d hear, “Was that a SCUD missile Bill?” “Well, Pete, I think that was!” But what the planet really needed was a three-day teach-in on Iraqi history. The nightmare in America is that somebody is always sending you a message and we don’t recognize it. You may not like the messenger-yes, the building is burning, yes, the World Trade Center is collapsing, yes, it’s horrifying, but it’s also a message. To say it’s horrifying is not enough. We have to ask the next question – why would somebody be pushed to such an extreme to get this message through? Why was no other channel left? Can we begin to open other channels so it’s not necessary to take such extreme measures?

GL: Why is theatre such a good forum for such questions?

PS: At the end of Hamlet the stage is filled with dead bodies, then they all get up for the curtain call. Nobody actually has to die. In the theatre we confront each other, we deal with things that are painful to say in public, and we pay a group of people to speak them aloud in the knowledge that we’ll all survive the evening. The civil discourse of theatre makes democracy possible because it provides a place where you don’t have to be polite, where the gloves are taken off, but where nobody is actually taking the blow.

GL: It’s ironic that one of the most eloquent summations of our current situation was written 2,500 years ago.

PS: That’s one of the beauties of culture, though we tend to forget it in America where we’re only interested in the last five minutes. Most civilizations guide themselves from a deep historical context. If we use ancient words to say what must be said, it helps us realize that we’re not alone, that we don’t have to go out there tomorrow morning with our own best idea – we can avail ourselves of another type of wisdom. A lot of people have worked on this before us and there are some very good ideas out there that have been developed the hard way across generations.

GL: You’ve pointed out that the birth of theatre in Athens coincided with the birth of democracy. Ancient Greek drama also had a strong spiritual imperative – its roots were in ancient religious rituals.

PS: Every page of The Children of Herakles reinforces a sacred, moral order that lies beyond our own consciousness, governing and empowering our actions. There’s something twisted about a moral order whose only yardstick is self-interest. Theatre allows us to access spiritual values in a secular society. If you remove culture from the diet of your citizens, as has happened in this country, you shouldn’t be surprised that you have the most violent society in the history of the world. If you really wanted to do something for national security you would fund the arts. You can have all the armies and tanks in the world and you are not secure. Security is based on communication, on mutual understanding, on the ability to look somebody in the eye, and that is a cultural program, not a military program. Until we realize that no neighborhood will be safe until there are serious and flourishing cultural initiatives, we’ve missed the boat. Right now America has set up for itself a future of endless violence, internally and abroad. The only solution to the security question is massive reinvestment in culture.

Gideon Lester is A.R.T.’s Associate Artistic Director.