Preston Montfort

by Ryan Campbell (World premiere: Carlotta Festival of New Plays)
Yale School of Drama Iseman Theater May 9 – 16 2015
Director: Andrej Visky. Sets: Christopher Thompson. Lighting: Elizabeth Mak.
Projections: Davonte Johnson. Sound: Jing Yin. Costumes: Fabian Aguilar.
Photography: T. Charles Erickson.

Modern day Americans live in an age where war is fought offstage, unseen, unheard of, and better ignored. Soldiers return to the world they fought for, only to realise that civilians haven't the faintest inkling of what it means to be soaked in blood and in death. Preston Montfort is one such soldier, who returns in time to save his family from his brother, only to be consumed by his training:

See the motherfucker. Kill the motherfucker.

See the motherfucker. Kill the motherfucker. We descend into a nightmarish war-torn world, where Preston systematically slaughters his brother, his wife, and his two children.

Adapted from Euripides' Herakles, Ryan's play asks the question: why do we, as a society, not have a civic ritual by which to reintegrate our fighters back into the fold? Why are veterans abandoned by the very people they fought for, left to fight with their own demons by themselves?