The Price Of Freedom

Powerful Reminder of the Cost of Freedom

As the play begins, both Union and Confederate soldiers are anxious to get on the field and teach the other side a lesson. Southern slaves pray that the war might be the end of their living nightmare. Yet as the war wanes, so do the soldiers’ strength, commanders’ stamina, and slaves’ patience. Ambition turns to anguish as soldier after soldier falls on the field, never to rise again. What started as a conflict of states turned into a war of brothers.

As Director Marilyn Montgomery stated in the program, “Beginnings of things are often worth noting.” From the beginning of the show, the audience is taken back to the Old South as a fiddle player welcomes them into the theatre. Throughout the performance, pictures from the war are projected on screens surrounding the stage, bringing with them a sense of the reality and gravity of the war. Rather than focusing on one particular character, the play shows the war from the point of view of many who were involved in the battles. Commanders, soldiers, wives, slaves, and nurses alike share their experiences and heartaches as the war progresses.

The actors each portrayed their parts so well that by the end of the play I too was anxious for the end of the war, if only to relieve myself from the sorrow that weighed upon the theatre as the war dragged on. Deedee Richens and Trevor Jerome (TTHS cast) play Clayton and Bessie Toler, a young slave couple ripped apart as they are sold to different plantations. Richens had the trodden down yet defiant look of one who had seen the worst yet hoped for the best. Jerome, who also played Frederick Douglass, easily slipped in and out of the two roles.

Scott Van Dyke and Scott Wetsel (TThS cast) fill the emotional yet demanding roles of the Union and Confederate commanders. Both realistically displayed the solemnity and honor of their call. In what was perhaps the most moving scene in the play, the commanders sing “Judgment Day,” describing the weight on their shoulders as they send their soldiers to the field, knowing that many would not return. “I pray to God I’m right, then send the boys off to fight.” Although I am familiar with the effects of war, never before had I realized the great responsibility of the generals, with so many lives in their hands. Each “victory” came at a heavy price and each decision cost more lives.

The costumes (designed by Jennifer Johnson) and set pieces (designed by Cliff Cole) worked together to depict the devastating results of the war. In the beginning, the solders’ uniforms were pressed and clean. Yet as the battles continued, the costumes were faded, ripped and threadbare, just like their hopes. A large, tattered flag hung across the stage as a reminder of the war that tore a nation and brought it to its knees.

The price of freedom

Yvonne Ridley in Benghazi

A few short weeks ago I stood on a public platform in London and slammed proposals for Western military intervention in Libya. In my mind, the hasty scramble to get involved by the Americans, French and British lacked strategy and a clear goal; it appeared to be yet another oil-fuelled, reckless act by gung-ho leaders. The possibility looked very real that they would end up being sucked into a long military campaign as futile as the Bush-Blair adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, for which we are still paying in wasted lives.

"Here we go again," I thought. "Another imperialist adventure so that we in the West could get our grubby paws on someone else's oil." I warned those few Libyans present at my talk that they would live to regret this pact with the West; I likened it to selling one's soul to the Devil. Moreover, being very conscious of the fact that I'm not a Libyan, and desperate not to be seen as another opinionated Westerner sticking my nose into matters I don't understand, I sought the views of many Libyan friends and contacts.

Their reaction was mixed, but more often than not I was told that without outside help the Libyan people would be slaughtered by Gaddafi. After all, he actually described his opponents as cockroaches which needed to be crushed. Perhaps the greatest shame is that Arab leaders stood by emotionless as the Libyans begged for help to bring an end to Gaddafi's dictatorship. Some of those Arab leaders showed no such hesitation in answering cries for help from the oppressive royal regime in Bahrain; obviously the Saudis and rest of the Gulf Cooperation Council cabal felt uncomfortable about helping to bring down an evil, brutal, dictator who abused and oppressed his people as a matter of routine, while being very happy to prop-up a similar regime in the Gulf. Libya could have provided an opportunity for the rising regional power of Turkey to take a lead; it was a massive disappointment to the Libyan people that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan refused to intervene.

In the end, therefore, the West stepped in to the extent that although the blood of innocents is still flowing in the streets, at least it is not a torrent. This may be a war led by no one in particular, with no specific aim, but the enforcement of a no fly zone over Libya has prevented a general massacre of the population.

That is the view held by one of Libya's spiritual leaders, Sheikh Mohammed Bosidra, who told me: "We had no choice. It was either make a pact with NATO or be crushed. It was a matter of survival; as simple as that." Many have already paid the ultimate price; every town and city has a special place for its martyrs, and there are many. The faces of young men stared back at me from family portraits hung proudly in Benghazi's central square; it was striking how young they were. In Derna, more portraits of the sons of Omar Al-Mukhtar were displayed in the town centre and some of their bodies have been buried in a cemetery next to the tombs of three of the Prophet's Noble Companions and 70 other martyrs who fought against Roman and Byzantine forces in 692AD. Despite this, it is undeniable that the Libyans are courageous. Those who we in the media refer to routinely as rebels are not; they are shopkeepers, students, doctors, businessmen and mechanics who have never owned a gun or wanted to pick one up in anger, until now. There are tens of thousands of such extraordinary people prepared to die for freedoms and liberties they've never known under 41 years of Gaddafi's rule. I was moved to tears by a regiment of young men who marched, rallied and chanted to demand to be sent to the front lines in Misrata to help their brothers in arms. Their personally-delivered message in Benghazi was to the members of the interim government, about whom they were extremely critical. Some elements of the TNC, claimed the Libyan youths, are more interested in parading around with bodyguards, intoxicated with the little power they have rather than making real decisions.

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