A combat soldier is inflicted with an incurable and insufferable injury. The soldier’s comrades cannot bear to hear the cries of pain or the sight of the wound. They maroon the injured soldier and sail away. The soldier is forgotten. That is, until ten years later, when they learn the cannot end the war without the help if the wounded warrior. Sophocles’ ancient play, Philoctetes, captures a reality for all combat veterans who have been physically wounded and explores ethical dilemmas, as dynamic and relevant today as they were to the Greeks 2500 years ago. Aquila Theatre explored this ancient play, re-imagining the title role played as a female combat soldier.  

 

A Female Philoctetes premiered in April 2014 to sold-out audiences at Brooklyn Academy of Music Fisher’s Hillman Studio. Aquila Theatre’s A Female Philoctetes will make its international debut, July 2015, at the Michael Cacoyannis Foundation’s Cultural Centre in Athens, Greece, with support from the Theatre Communications Group as a Global Connections grant recipient.

 

This performance is part of You|Stories: Classics – Conversation – Connection, a national program funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. You | Stories is a national program aimed at members of the Veteran community and the public that uses ancient stories about war to inspire new stories. You | Stories includes a story capturing app and public events, performances, talks and readings.

 

Aquila Theatre was founded in London in 1990 and has been based in New York City since 1999. The company brings international artists to America to perform innovative productions of classical drama all over the country in the belief that theatre creates shared emotionality, thought and dialogue. Aquila’s performances and workshops have been seen by thousands of people across the United States in all manner of venues from the White House, Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center to theatres, public libraries and community centers in inner city and rural communities. In each location our aim is to expose people to the rich experience of live drama and create human dialogue, often in very difficult issues that might otherwise not be addressed.

 

Aquila Theatre’s mission is to make classical works accessible to the greatest number. A play becomes ‘classical’ because we recognize that after a time it transcends the original culture it was created for. It retains the power to provoke the central question of what it means to be human. As a company dedicated to the classics, we feel a responsibility to acknowledge and explore newfound classical works.