Laughter Under the Bombs

Book excerpt: Laughter Under the Bombs is intended both as a living testimony to the horrors of surviving under war conditions and as a dramatherapy handbook. The book documents day by day a dramtherapist's feelings as the war takes hold in Lebanon in July 2006 and his amazingly successful attempts to set up a safe space for displaced children and teens to participate in drama workshops. These workshops are aimed at helping the youth to deal with the horrors of war and find a way to heal the mental and psychological wounds that mark them long after any physical wounds. We all have heard much of the war through the eyes of the media but this often removes us from the humanity and the inhumane suffering involved on a day-to-day basis. This book takes us through that suffering with individual stories of pain and suffering, yet always emphasises the need to find time and space for laughter to survive such horrors. These documented workshops also resulted in the opening of a theatre production, literally under the shelling, talking about their experiences as they lived them. The internationally acclaimed play, also entitled Laughter Under the Bombs, caught the world's attention in the midst of the war. The show went on literally under the bombs, the area was under threat - it was announced each night about two hours before the show as planes dropped fliers to say that the area would be targeted that night... and yet... the play opened to a full house and the laughter drowned out the deafening noise of the bombing right outside the doors of the theatre. Also included in this unique publication is an essay and commentary by dramatherapist and playwright JS Hartley whose theatre work and publications have received international acclaim.