Refugees are the sort of people who too often live in our minds as a group, like “the homeless” or “the disabled.” The theater director Peter Sellars says it’s easier that way, to see them as television images, as long lines of bedraggled people stuck at some border somewhere.
In a new production of an old Greek play, Peter Sellars is asking people to look longer, and think harder, about what it means to be a refugee. In “The Children of Herakles”, real refugees occupy the stage with Euripides’ play about people who were caught without a home 2400 years ago.
It is a reminder that what separates theater and politics is our own desire for comfort and entertainment. Democracy and drama, the past and present.
Guests:
Peter Sellars, director, “The Children of Herakles,” American Repertory Theatre, Cambridge MA