Chapter 6 concentrates on the Iraq War (2003–11) and a resurging critical interest in just war theory, reflected also in the design and reception of Shakespearean productions. Global public protests preceded the coalition invasion, led by the United States and Britain, of Iraq in March 2003, and the arts, including theatre, provided platforms for voicing this opposition. Chapter 6 adopts just war theory as its organizing principle: the first part considers the justification of conflict (jus ad bellum) as it is critiqued in Nicholas Hytner’s Henry V (2003); the second part examines the violation of just conduct during conflict (jus in bello) as explored within Roy Williams’s Days of Significance (2007) and Sulayman Al Bassam’s Richard III: An Arab Tragedy (2007); the final part considers the end of conflict (jus post bellum), the relevance of the term ‘post-war’, and the erasure of Western wartime responsibility through an analysis of Monadhil Daood’s Romeo and Juliet in Baghdad (2012). This chapter argues that these productions, similar to contemporary Iraq War literature, are sceptical of conflict resolution and closure, but that other production and reception conditions shift their interpretative currency through structures of arts sponsorship and the political and cultural views brought to the theatre, all of which qualify the labelling of these productions as ‘anti-war’.

In this interview, Maria Aberg gives a detailed account of her production of Days of Significance, which premiered at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, on 10 January 2007 and then toured to the Tricycle Theatre in London and to other venues across the UK. Aberg explains how her production highlighted a pervasive presence of violence connected to the kind of masculinity allowed and fostered in young men at home that then has enormous consequences when these same men are sent into armed conflict abroad. She also explains how the fact that Days of Significance was loosely inspired by Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing had a significant impact on how differently her production was interpreted and reviewed in Stratford-upon-Avon and elsewhere, where most members of the audience were not aware (and were not made aware) of the Shakespearean connection. In this respect, Aberg’s interview reinforces the realization shared by most of the contributors to this collection that the significance of ‘wartime Shakespeare’ is often complex and context-dependent.