“There are too many books I haven’t read, too many places I haven’t seen, too many memories I haven’t kept long enough,”
In our world, where people destroy each other’s lives, shared values bring nothing but sorrow, if some of the people who could not enjoy their life fully awake from their infinity sleep and come to bring you to account, what would you do? And what would you expect them say you?
Bury the Dead which is staged by Istanbul State Theatre has all the answers within its lines.
Irwin Shaw who is the author of the play was born on 27 February 1913 in New York. He wrote Bury the Dead when he was 23 years old for “one act plays against the war” competition in 1939 and he became the winner of this. From that time on, Bury the Dead has been curtains’ screams which are uttered against the militarism and the unnecessary of the war that is narrated by Shaw by using his country’s army.
The play begins with gathering soldiers, who are killed “in the second year of the war that begins tomorrow”, to be buried. Yet, something unexpected happens, the dead awakes and refutes the burying. At this point, there emerges criticism and rebellion against the war and humans who cause this situation from the people who experience the destructiveness of the war. Nevertheless, how do politicians, clergymen, mothers and wives response to these? Of course, most of them want to shut the dead up by burying them. At this point, there comes out the most important question. Do we really want a world without wars?
"Maybe there's too many of us under the ground now. Maybe the earth can't stand it no more,"
No matter how many years ago that was written, Bury the Dead will keep its feature of modernity. It will keep because as people o not become conscious, while the time creeps up on, they will regress. As George Orwell indicates “Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.”
Tell ‘em. Tell 'em all to stand up! Tell 'em! Tell 'em!
