From the Western Front to the East Coast: Barker's Trojan Women in the USA

When Harley Granville Barker was invited to stage a theatre season in New York following the outbreak of World War One, senior figures within British politics seized on it as an opportunity to promote the British war effort in the United States. It was, however, Barker’s impromptu decision to extend his stay and tour Euripides’s The Trojan Women to major colleges on the east coast that saw him come close to realising this goal. Through close examination of the production, the discourse that surrounded it and the changing diplomatic relations between Britain and the United States, this article explores the extent to which Barker used Euripides as a propaganda tool through which to engage and educate the largely isolationist North American public. At the same time, it argues that Barker challenged the propaganda machine by refusing to perpetuate the dominant nationalistic and xenophobic narratives and, instead, presenting a condemnation of all war.