Jacopo Gassmann returns to collaborate with the LAC, staging The Body of an American, born from the encounter between the American playwright Dan O’Brien and Paul Watson, the Canadian photojournalist who took the famous photograph of the body of American soldier William David Cleveland being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu in 1993.

How does pain, once transformed into an image, continue to live on beyond the moment it was seen and to work within us? Is an unflinching gaze still possible today?
Dan O’Brien’s intense and provocative text takes its starting point from a historical moment in which a single, brutal photograph helped to change the course of global events.
Spanning different times and places, from Rwanda to Afghanistan to the Canadian Arctic, the production unfolds as a sweeping, multi-layered narrative, brought to life through powerful theatrical writing. At its heart lie the ethical and personal consequences of Paul Watson’s photograph, as well as the complex relationship between political upheaval and the experience of trauma in an age saturated with images and information.
In this multi-award-winning work, O’Brien identifies a turning point in recent history whilst simultaneously shedding light on deeply personal issues that resonate powerfully in our present day.