The Trojan Women at The Tom Patterson Theatre

Euripides Tragedy Triumph for 2008 Stratford Shakespeare Festival

Sep 8, 2008 Coral Andrews

The Trojan Women opens with Martha Henry's Hecuba, former Queen of Troy, coiled in a foetal position on the floor as the audience immediately senses the power.

This is playwright Euripides' ancient and timeless insight into loss through the eyes of the captured, in a new translation of The Trojan Women by Nicholas Rudall. Rudall, director of Chicago’s Court Theatre, has also translated the works of Greek playwrights Sophocles, and Aristophanes.

The once vibrant women of Troy, now prisoners of war in squalid camps, await their terrible fate at the hands of the Greeks. For countless women, who have endured loss in their lives during war or peace, Euripides' text is easily translated into a modern scenario. That feeling is further implied as the audience bears witness to political decisions made for these women, forced to watch their homeland burn, having absolutely no control what happens to them next.

Hecuba has two daughters: Polyxena and Cassandra. Polyxena has been sacrificed, but Hecuba is led to believe by Greek herald Talthybius (Sean Arbuckle) that she is “serving at Achilles' tomb”, yet Hecuba yearns to know the whereabouts of her daughter.

Hecuba’s other daughter Cassandra has been given to King Agamemnon, but the seer knows what doom lies in store for the King prophesising the fall of the House of Atreus.

Cassandra's torch burns bright; she knows she will the avenge the death of her brother, Hector, and her father Priamm but Hecuba’s grief doubles thinking Cassandra has gone mad. “O my daughter, O Cassandra, whom gods have summoned to their frenzied train, how cruel the lot that ends thy virgin days!” Hecuba “wastes her body with weeping” for loss of country, home and family.

Enter daughter-in-law Andromache, wife of Hecuba's dead son Hector, who solves the herald’s riddle revealing to Hecuba that Polyxena was sacrificed at Achilles' Tomb. Andromache is given as a concubine to Achilles' warrior son Neoptolemus, informed that her son Astyanax must be thrown from the battlements – guilty by association – so he cannot grow up to avenge the death of his father.

Before Hecuba is taken away, she attains some small comfort telling King Menelaus, who agrees with her, how Helen of Troy , who caused these monumental woes, has “perverted the truth." Helen puts up a valiant but futile battle, protesting her innocence, and is eventually dragged away to be stoned to death. Hecuba is to become slave to Odysseus “O woe is me! Trembling, quaking limbs, support my footsteps! Away! To face the day that begins thy slavery.”

Stratford has had critical success with its productions of Medea, and The Bacchae by Euripides. The Trojan Women is one more successful production of a Greek tragedy, soaring under the superb direction of Marti Maraden.

The ensemble is majestic, in every aspect from the playwright’s four central women to the chorus echoing ravaged thoughts of everyone's fate through Marc Desormeaux’s beautiful score, which is similar to the melodic lament of Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares.

Seana McKenna’s performance is unforgettable, as a mother unable to prevent her son’s imminent demise “I have no …. hope.” For McKenna this is likely an intriguing contrast to playing the title role in Medea – the immoral mother who sacrifices her offspring. As Andromache, McKenna tugs at the audience members' hearts.

Martha Henry is dazzling, her broken voice, like brittle glass, hard and sparkling, making the text of Euripides her own, swathed in rags and profound sorrow as she anticipates her new hell.

Kelli Fox, in a potent Stratford debut, (a wonderful departure from Shaw’s usual spinster repertoire! ) plays torch-bearing prophetess Cassandra, with a controlled tic, sometimes whimsical, spewing forth glorious omens set to Wendy Gorling’s sublime choreography.

This is a play that resonates, the kind of theatre that haunts you, and if you have suffered great loss, The Trojan Women may wax cathartic in times of darkness.

The Trojan Women continues at The Tom Patterson Theatre to October 5, 2008.

The copyright of the article The Trojan Women at The Tom Patterson Theatre in Playwrights & Stage Actors is owned by Coral Andrews. Permission to republish The Trojan Women at The Tom Patterson Theatre in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Seana Mckenna in The Trojan Women