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Plays, even those that are poorly written or acted, place life directly in front of us, offering a visceral experience that no other artistic medium can match.
After all, plays are performed live, creating an immediate and direct connection between the actors and the audience and fostering a sense of shared experience and communal participation that is difficult to replicate in other art forms. The presence of live actors performing in real time also means that each performance is unique, with its own nuances and potential for spontaneity. A play’s emotional resonance is particularly profound because the audience witnesses the unfolding of events in real time, experiencing the characters’ joys, sorrows and conflicts alongside them.
The physical presence of actors on stage brings a tangible reality to the performance. The human body in motion, the use of space and the physicality of interactions among characters make the experience especially palpable and engaging. The sustained focus on dialogue and interaction also allows for a rich exploration of human behavior and motivation as great or even greater than in a novel. As Bertolt Brecht emphasized with his concept of the “alienation effect,” the presence of live actors can also encourage critical reflection among audience members by making the familiar seem strange and prompting them to question societal norms.
Watching a play is a collective, communal experience that brings people together, fostering a sense of community without the distractions of everyday life. The shared experience of a live performance transforms the theater into a space for reflection on personal and societal issues, inviting the audience to reflect on their own lives and the world around them.
A drama critic once wrote, “Good goals don’t always make good plays”—and that’s certainly true of Alexis Scheer’s Breaking the Story, “a darkly funny and fiery drama about the cost of war and the audacity of those frontliners armed with only a press badge.”
Now appearing off Broadway, the play has received mixed reviews, with more than one reviewer describing the script as flat, banal, trite, monotonous, cliché-ridden and overly convoluted. Critics quite rightly complain that the playwright bites off a bit more than the play can chew. The play does raise more issues than it effectively addresses.
- Can a compulsive risk-taker, thrill-seeker and an adrenaline junkie with a death wish embrace a boring, homebound life of domestic tranquility?
- Is it possible to return from a war zone and carve out a normal life and cope with the ugly realities of horrific violence and appalling atrocities that can’t be unseen and process intense feelings of guilt, self-loathing and bereavement?
- How should a (white) female professional balance her responsibilities as a mother with her need for self-actualization?
- What are the ethics of war correspondence and photojournalism—to be neutral, objective and detached, or to be engaged and involved in the lives of the people they report on?
- What, precisely, is the value of war correspondence? What good does it do?
The play raises a number of important questions, beginning with the issue of maternal guilt: Does whatever good that the journalist has accomplished outweigh the cost of warping her own and her daughter’s lives?
There’s also the questions involving the functions and purposes of wartime journalism in today’s click-driven, ideologically riven media environment.
Then, there are big, timely issues covered by the play, including journalism’s self-promoting awards culture; white, Western privilege in a conflict zone; and the advantages and disadvantages of being a woman in today’s media culture.
If Breaking the Story isn’t a critical success, the play nevertheless places its audience on a wonderfully intense and engaging emotional roller-coaster ride that raises big issues even if it doesn’t successfully resolve them.
Breaking the Story is one of a number of literary works that deal with war correspondents or photojournalists, like Robert Graves’s Goodbye to All That; Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop; Graham Greene’s The Quiet American; Michael Herr’s Dispatches; Helen Chadwick’s War Correspondents; Emmanuel Guibert, Didier Lefèvre and Frédéric Lemercier’s The Photographer; Greg Marinovich and Joao Silva’s The Bang-Bang Club: Snapshots From a Hidden War; and Donald Margulies’s Time Stands Still and such feature films as Under Fire, Salvador, The Killing Fields and Welcome to Sarajevo.
All of these works explore themes involving truth, ethics, the impact of war and the personal struggles of those who document conflict.
Why would authors, filmmakers and playwrights choose to tell the story of war through the eyes of war correspondents and photojournalists rather than combatants or civilians? Because their perspective offers unique insights into the ethical, moral, emotional and psychological issues that arise from documenting conflict.
In literary works, a war correspondent often serves as a stand-in for the public, giving readers or audiences a vivid glimpse into conflict’s chaos and fear along with the personal struggles that wartime journalists cope with and the courage, ethical dilemmas and the personal sacrifices, costs and emotional toll of documenting violence.
One issue their work raises has to do with journalistic objectivity. Are war correspondents and photojournalists neutral observers who provide an unbiased account of a conflict? Is it their job to bear witness and provide a raw, unfiltered look at war’s costs? Or are they active participants with their own political agenda, often an antiwar message critical of the war’s senselessness and brutality?
Then, there is the issue of journalistic ethics. Correspondents and photojournalists face constant ethical dilemmas, such as whether to intervene in a crisis they are documenting or maintain their role as bystanders and observers.
Then there’s the risk of information being manipulated for propaganda purposes. After all, the way war is reported can significantly shape public perception and policy, and various parties want to manipulate coverage for their own ends. Correspondents and photojournalists must balance emotional detachment to maintain their professionalism with the empathy that is essential to humanize their subjects.
Focusing on war correspondents and photographers offers a way to examine war’s emotional and psychological toll in a way that a civilian audience can identify with. Many journalists—including one that I knew well—struggle with shell shock or post-traumatic stress disorder as well as feelings of guilt for surviving when those they document do not.
While Breaking the Story primarily offers a window into the emotional costs of and ethical issues raised by war reporting, it also delves into a more intimate issue: maternal guilt and whether the play’s protagonist has been a responsible mother and, given her neglectful parenting, whether she should have borne a child at all.
Today, according to a recent study, 44 percent of adult Americans who are not parents 49 or younger do not believe that they’ll have children. Some have made conscious decision to be childless or child-free. But many of the women surveyed attribute the decision to circumstances outside their control, such as an inability to conceive or the lack of a desirable partner or waiting too long to become pregnant as they pursue advanced education and a stable career.
For the first time in American history, childbearing is no longer the default in women’s life script. And not just in the United States. With a few notable exceptions, global birth rates are in steep decline.
The United Nations projects that the global population will reach its peak of approximately 10.4 billion people by the mid-2080s, after which it will gradually decline. It expects the global average fertility rate to decrease from 2.5 births per woman to about 1.8 births per woman by 2100. In addition, the UN anticipates that the rate of population growth will decelerate to 0.5 percent annually by 2050 and will become negative by the year 2100.
A variety of personal, economic, societal and environmental considerations are driving this global trend.
The rising cost of living, including housing, education and health care, makes raising children financially daunting for many young women. Then, too, bearing children poses challenges to career and professional success and work-life balance.
Also playing a role in some women’s decisions to remain childfree are anxieties about children who may be born with disabilities or whose lives may go off-track. Today, it’s possible to test for more than 800 potential disabilities in utero, only a small number of which can be treated. Meanwhile, the expectations attached to parenthood have risen substantially, making raising a child seem much more daunting than in the past.
To be sure, for some women, the desire for personal freedom and autonomy unconstrained by parenting responsibilities is a significant factor. Ditto for the goal of self-fulfillment beyond motherhood, such as personal growth, education and professional achievement. But a bigger factor involves shifting social norms, including the declining stigma attached to being childfree, the greater acceptance of diverse life choices and the feminist emphasis on empowering women to make choices that best suit their life circumstances.
Then, too, concerns about overpopulation and the environmental impact of bringing more children into the world influence some women’s decisions to remain childfree. Certainly, a growing number of women feel that they can contribute more positively to society and the environment by not having children and focusing on other forms of contribution.
Breaking the Story may not be a great play, but it does raise a great existential question: “about the choices, risks and sacrifices that go into making up a meaningful life and who pays the cost of one person’s choices.”
Today, most American adults are freer than ever to choose the life we wish to lead. Despite various economic and societal constraints, our choices largely shape our paths and determine our future. But every choice has consequences, both intended and unintended, and those decisions not only impact oneself, but those who are emotionally and practically connected to us.
As Jean-Paul Sartre famously said, “We are our choices.” Our choices define our essence and construct our identity.
But our choices also expose us to uncertainty and potential loss. Risk-taking can lead to great rewards, such as personal growth and new opportunities, adventures and breakthroughs. However, risks also carry the possibility of failure and loss and, as the psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky argued, people tend to be risk averse.
According to the prospect theory that the two put forward during the 1970s, individuals are more sensitive to potential losses than to potential gains, generally prefer to avoid losses over acquiring equivalent gains and favor options with more certain outcomes. Risk aversion often prevents individuals from taking the necessary risks to achieve meaningful goals.
Sacrifices are the compromises or losses we accept to achieve a greater goal. These often involve giving up something of value to gain something perceived as more valuable in the long term. Sacrifices can be personal or relational and can lead to feelings of regret or loss. But sacrifices are often necessary for achieving long-term goals and personal fulfillment. As the poet, children’s writer and astute observer of people’s psychological interior Judith Viorst put it, there are loves, illusions, dependencies and impossible expectations that we must give up in order to grow and to achieve a meaningful life.
The interplay of choices, risks and sacrifices means that every decision we make is a balancing act that pits potential benefits against possible costs, not just for ourselves but those around us. To navigate these complexities, we need, insofar as possible, to develop a clear understanding of our personal values and priorities. Techniques such as reflective practice, setting clear goals and seeking advice from mentors can help in making more informed decisions that align with one’s desired life path.
A profound societal shift has taken place away from the traditional life script. Cultural defaults have increasingly given way to self-conscious choices and decisions about our life choices. We live in a new age of personal agency and are increasingly free, for better and worse, to forge our path, design our destiny, craft our unique life story and live life on our own terms.
The shift towards personal choice allows individuals to redefine what success means to them, moving away from conventional milestones to more personalized achievements. This freedom to make self-conscious decisions empowers us to take control of our lives
But moving away from traditional scripts, while giving us increased autonomy and self-awareness, also increases existential anxiety. Flexibility and self-determination can certainly increase our personal freedom. But that makes it all the more essential that colleges and universities take a much bigger role in promoting self-conscious life choices, encouraging students to think critically about their paths and providing them with the tools to navigate an unscripted life.
