Cry Havoc!, a play written by veteran Stephan Wolfert and produced by Off Broadway company Bedlam, begins performances Wednesday, March 15 at the New Ohio Theater, The New York Times reports.

The play exemplifies the kind of creative work that veterans are undertaking to explore and overcome trauma. As Laura Collins-Hughes writes in the Times article, Cry Havoc! “intercuts Mr. Wolfert’s own memories with text borrowed from Shakespeare,” and allows him “to explore strength and duty, bravery and trauma, examining what it is to be in the military and what it is to carry that experience back into civilian life.”

“That’s something that we hold uniquely, I think, as veterans,” Wolfert told the Times, speaking of the intersection between acting and memory. “We know what we’re capable of—even for the so-called peacetime or Cold War vets. The training’s still there. And I don’t care if you’re a clerk typist. You still fired a weapon at a human silhouette.”

In 2014, Cry Havoc! came to the Folger Shakespeare Theatre, during which time Katharine Pitt interviewed Stephan Wolfert on The Folger Spotlight blog. In the interview, Wolfert described the definition of “havoc” as “to break the rules of war.” This is an essential motif of his play, in which his “thesis is that soldiers are wired for war but not rewired for civilian life. Even though we like to believe that havoc is something that existed only in ancient times, it is alive and well wherever there is war. We call it collateral damage but it is still havoc.”

The play is of particular relevance now that President Donald Trump’s administration is considering axing funding for the arts, and possibly eliminating the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Center for Public Broadcasting. As Rick Fulker, writing for international German broadcaster Deutsche Welle, reports, “The NEA also underwrites the Military Healing Arts Partnership, an arts therapy program that helps service members overcome war trauma and reintegrate into civilian life.”

Wolfert, is, of course, not alone in his passion for the theatre; American Theatre profiled Sandra W. Lee, an Iraq War veteran and former Army staff sergeant, who, after leaving the service with a traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress, became an actor.

“It was the theatre and the people in the theatre that really saved me,” Lee, who just finished performing in a military-themed musical called Blueprint Specials at the Under the Radar Festival, said. “If it weren’t for them. I’d be homeless. I probably would have killed myself. It was really a very dark time.”

Purchase tickets for Cry Havoc! at Bedlam Theatre NYC’s website.

Related reading: According to Smithsonian magazine, former president George W. Bush has an art show titled Portraits of Courage, which features sixty-six paintings of wounded military veterans and a four-panel mural, at the George W. Bush Presidential Center at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. The exhibition will run until October 1.

Bush, whose paintings will be compiled in a book, writes in the book’s introduction, “I painted these men and women as a way to honor their service to the country and to show my respect for their sacrifice and courage,” Entertainment Weekly reports. “I hope to draw attention to the challenges some face when they come home and transition to civilian life—and the need for our country to better address them.”

Photo Credit: Ryan Jensen.