(It's dramaturgy, not thaumaturgy.)
thaumaturg
Main Entry: thau·ma·turg
Pronunciation: \ˈthȯ-mə-ˌtərj\
Function: noun
Etymology: French, from New Latin thaumaturgus, from Greek thaumatourgos working miracles, from thaumat-, thauma miracle + ergon work — more at Theater, Work
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The official blog of the Dramaturgy Department at Baltimore's CENTERSTAGE. For posts related to our current and upcoming shows, click the links to the right. Alternatively, you could begin at the beginning, and explore our posts in chronological order.
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One of the many and varied volumes available at the online bookstore of Marine Parents online, a few of which we’re going to feature here. We’ve also noted other resources—books, articles, websites, merely a scratching of the surface of a vast array available in many media—on our delicious thread. Just follow the Reentry tag. If anyone following or stopping by would like to recommend other works, drop a note and we’ll include them, willingly.
That said, one aside: for anyone who doesn’t know the play ReEntry (yet!), but maybe is considering seeing it—and you should, if you’re anywhere nearby—don’t get the impression from some of these materials that it’s all about PTSD, TBI, and war damage. These come up in the conversation that makes up the play, because it’s based directly on interviews with a range of Marines, some of whom are wounded in various ways; but by no means does the topic dominate the play. These are facets of the larger inquiry into “reentry” covered in the show, from many perspectives.
Dear Brother
a very personal letter from the website dearmeat:
Dear Brother;
It’s been almost eight months since you’ve left us to fight in Afghanistan. We both hate what you’re doing, fighting in a war that seems endless and full of fake promises.
After your first tour you came back shaken, but continued to live, to love and to watch Dave Chappelle and South Park with me. We even were able to xbox some Call of Duty on our days off. As your sister, and best friend I hate to say that this tour, you are different.
I was able to see you on cam and you looked emancipated, tired, and when I showed you outside and said “this is home” - you cried.You don’t talk about family but rather if I can get weed for you. Instead of talking of us hanging out, you’re talking about getting drunk. Instead of being excited to be home, you’re excited to be by yourself in a room.
I know I don’t and never will understand the horrors you’ve seen and had to commit. I wish I could erase that pain for you. I would take it off your back indefinitely just so I could see you smile again.
You are the beating of my heart, and the sunshine in my day. I’ve spent these past eight months holding my breathe to the point of near explosion.
I’m suffocating in our distance.
I want you to know; no matter what you have done, or what has happened I will always be proud of my big brother.
I will always be here, even if we don’t have to talk. Even if you just want to cry; I’ll listen.
I’ll do whatever it takes, all I ask for in return
is for you to smile.
Please smile again,
we all love you so much,
your sister,
Kayla.
“ We have seen…how necessary it is for a prince to have his foundations well laid, otherwise it follows of necessity he will go to ruin. The chief foundations of all states, new as well as old or composite, are good laws and good arms; and as there cannot be good laws where the state is not well armed, it follows that where they are well armed they have good laws. I shall leave the laws out of the discussion and shall speak of the arms.
I say, therefore, that the arms with which a prince defends his state are either his own, or they are mercenaries, auxiliaries, or mixed. Mercenaries and auxiliaries are useless and dangerous; and if one holds his state based on these arms, he will stand neither firm nor safe; for they are disunited, ambitious and without discipline, unfaithful, valiant before friends, cowardly before enemies; they have neither the fear of God nor fidelity to men, and destruction is deferred only so long as the attack is; for in peace one is robbed by them, and in war by the enemy.
Machiavelli, The Prince
“ Out of every one hundred men you send us,
Ten should not even be here,
Eighty are nothing but targets.
Nine are the real fighters,
and we are lucky to have them, for
they the battle make.
Ah, but the one, one is a Warrior,
And he will bring the others back.
Heraclitus
