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Shakespeare & Beyond

How Shakespeare describes post-traumatic stress disorder

Lady Percy and Hotspur
Lady Percy and Hotspur
Lady Percy and Hotspur

Ellen Adair as Lady Percy and David Graham Jones as Hotspur, Henry IV, Part I, Folger Theatre, 2008. Photo by Carol Pratt.

Shakespeare’s plays are full of battles dominated by men, but one of his most compelling speeches about the life of a soldier comes from a woman: Lady Percy in Henry IV, Part 1, speaking to her husband, Hotspur.

U.S. Army veteran and actor Stephan Wolfert uses this speech in his one-man show, Cry Havoc! which draws together lines in Shakespeare’s plays spoken by soldiers and former soldiers, including Macbeth, Othello, and Richard III. The performance evokes and explains the psychological toll that war can take on those who serve in the armed forces.

“Hotspur, who has just come from combat, is about to leave the next morning,” Wolfert says. “She comes in and gives the best description of post-traumatic stress disorder in the English language, and it was written 400 years ago.”

Comments

One of the things that really struck me – when I first read, and then came to blog about, Titus Andronicus, was how it dealt with the treatment of soldiers come home from the wars. The public service of Titus – and indeed his family – received such scant reward or recognition, in the end. That was part o the tragic aspect of the play, for me.

Abel Guerrero — November 12, 2017