The Return: Research-Based Theater With and for Ex-Military Personnel Experiencing Posttraumatic Stress

This article discusses The Return, a research-based theater project about posttraumatic stress, performed by actors and ex-military personnel. The objective of the project was to address the stigma of mental health in the military and encourage psychological help-seeking in the veteran and military population. The play combined verbatim text and dramaturgical re-authoring of material to explore the lived realities of mental health experiences of posttraumatic stress (PTS) in the military. Part of the ethical entanglements encountered lay in calibrating the risk-safety nexus, specifically in relation to questions of authenticity, narrative structure, decisions relating to casting actors and ex-military personnel, and how to negotiate the performance of a personal story of trauma. The article argues that performance is innately a process governed by "edgework" as much as safety, and therefore part of the ethical entanglement lies in the negotiations between risky aesthetics, "safe" spaces, and frameworks that enable critical vulnerability.