http://www.thawaction.org/thaw13b.html MORE ANTI-WAR PLAYS by Kurt Schneiderman Below is a list of more plays with anti-war themes that could be read at your theater. Some bibliographic info is provided. Feel free to add to the list! David Rabe, The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel and Sticks and Bones (1971 and 1969) Two plays about the Vietnam War by an author who actually served in it. Both plays are realist with elements of stream of consciousness. The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel follows an all-American kid on his journey through basic training (twenty men, two women, doubling possible, two acts). Sticks and Bones is about a tepid middle-class middle-America family that is torn apart when their son returns from Vietnam having been blinded by an explosion in battle (five men, two women, two acts). Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail (1970) A highly idealistic stream of consciousness play written by the authors of Inherit the Wind. Revolving around the arrest of poet/philosopher Henry David Thoreau in 1846 for his opposition to the Mexican-American War, this play flows backwards and forwards throughout ThoreauA?A’s life from his debates with Ralph Waldo Emerson, his forays into education, his involvement in the Abolitionist movement, and ultimately to his anti-war and anti-technological philosophies (nine men, four women, doubling possible, two acts). Arthur Laurents, Home of the Brave (1945) Not exactly an anti-war play, but a stark attack on racism and anti-Semitism in the U.S. Army. Four soldiers in an American military hospital in the South Pacific in WWII. Through a series of flashbacks and psychiatric visits, one of the soldiers gradually reveals the painful truth about the death of his compatriot during a recent mission to a Japanese-held island (six men, three acts). John Galsworthy, The Mob (1914) An entirely fictitious story of a young British Member of Parliament who opposes his countryA?A’s imperialistic invasion of a small unnamed third world nation. The MP holds true to his principles even as heA?A’s spurned by his colleagues, disowned by his wife, spat on by his children, and finally lynched by a rampaging mob. The amazing aspect of this play is that it was written in 1914 but could just as easily be set in 2003 (fifteen men, six women, four acts). Arthur Miller, All My Sons (1947) A young man from a wealthy family in small town America finds out the hideous truth of how his father earned the family fortune. Not explicitly an anti-war play, but an excellent study of war-profiteering and corruption. Protest is beautifully interwoven into the story with lines like: CHRIS: “I’d like to shoot everybody who got rich off that stinkin’ war. ” JIM:“You’re gonna need a lot of bullets” (six men, four women, three acts). Elinor Fuchs and Joyce Antler, Year One of the Empire (1973) A docu-drama style discussion of the Spanish-American War and the subsequent U.S. invasion and brutal suppression of the Philippine Independence Movement at the Turn-of-the-Century. Not very dramatically effective, but enormously informative about a section of U.S. history that is often shoved under the carpet. This play also gives excellent coverage to the American anti-war movement of the time, particularly the founding of the Anti-Imperialist League of 1898. Calls for dozens of actor, with doubling it could probably be performed with as little as fifteen actors. --

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