Inspired by the experiences of war photographer Paul Watson: The Body of an American by Dan O'Brien

Mogadishu, 1993. Paul is a Canadian photojournalist who is about to take a picture that will win him the Pulitzer Prize. Princeton, the present day, Dan is an American writer who is struggling to finish his play about ghosts. Both men live worlds apart but a chance encounter over the airwaves sparks an extraordinary friendship that sees them journey from some of the most dangerous places on earth to the depths of the human soul.

Flying from Kabul to the Canadian High Arctic, The Body of an American sees two characters jump between more than thirty roles in an exhilarating new form of documentary drama. It urgently places these two men’s battles – both public and private – against a backdrop of some of the world’s most iconic images of war. Relive the ties created by war in this title at Mediavex.

Hauntings, on a personal and national scale, guilt, obsession and depression form the subject of this dense, knotty play by poet and playwright Dan O'Brien, written after he struck up an email correspondence with Watson. There is an astonishing exchange towards the end between Paul and the brother of the dead serviceman, which takes place across an emotional wasteland where the wind howls and ghosts stalk the empty landscape. Yet all these things that could be negatives become positives in a play that tightens its grip as it probes where war lives, and discovers we each carry it inside ourselves. Read this provocative play at Mediavex.