Twenty-five hundred years after Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound was first performed, it remains astonishing that the play was ever staged at all. For, this towering work is perhaps the most searing indictment of tyranny ever written. And it was written, and staged before the entire body politic of Athens, at the rose-fingered dawn of Western democracy.
In a very real way, Prometheus’ cry is the cry of conscience. The cry of a prisoner who will not yield. At heart, this is a play about resistance. About the power of a tortured individual to stand alone against evil. And, the action of Aeschylus’ original drama is sublime. It embodies the truth of inaction – the Gandhian power of standing alone. Of saying no. Of defeating one’s enemy by mastering one’s own soul – and never acknowledging the legitimacy of
anyone to rule over it. From our earliest conversations about my translation from the Ancient Greek, Diane
Paulus and I have been determined to honor the radical nature of this play, and perhaps – with our mad, maverick partner Serj Tankian – to suggest that the creation of a piece of theater can be, itself, a radical act.
Witnessing the atrocities of the Second World War, the Ancient Greek scholar and political activist Simone Weil wrote: “Those who are unhappy have no need for anything in this world but people capable of giving them attention.” For fifty years, Amnesty International has helped answer that need, teaching our world how to pay attention to those unjustly taken, tortured, and detained.
On behalf of this production, Amnesty has identified eight silenced individuals from around the world; week by week, our performances are dedicated to them. It will forever be a part of the honor of this ancient play that it has now been staged, here at the A.R.T., for the sake of Jafar Panahi, Dhondup Wangchen, David Kato, Tran Quoc Hien, Doan Van Dien, Doan Huy Chuong, Norma Cruz, Reggie Clemons and Nasrin Sotoudeh. These prisoners of conscience are themselves models of Prometheus’ defiance and of his greatness.
