Theater Theater and Violence

As violence escalates around the world, its victims and perpetrators struggle to develop comprehensible narratives to present truthful accounts of history and experience. This special issue of Theater--a collection of theater artists' responses to contemporary events-examines the human psyche and its capacity for violence and explores theatre's possibilities for political dissent. In Theater and Violence, through interviews, play excerpts, and fulllength plays--including the first American publication of two major German playwrights and directors--theater artists offer their own narratives for humankind's violent psychologies. One full-length play, Falk Richter's Seven Seconds (In God We Trust), probes the mind of an American pilot moments before he releases a bomb on a city below. Another, Rene Pollesch's 24 Hours Are Not a Day, humorously explores the ironies and pathologies of globalization after September 11. The issue also includes a commentary on the National Endowment for the Arts's Shakespeare presentations for the U.S. military; interviews with Russian theater artists on the first anniversary of the Chechen rebels' siege of a Moscow theater; and Jonathan Kalb's powerful adaptation of Heiner Muller's Mauser, set in Tikrit.Sellar, Tom is the author of 'Theater Theater and Violence', published 2005 under ISBN 9780822366157 and ISBN 0822366150.