The Trojan Women
Encyclopedia
The Trojan Women is a tragedy
by the Greek
playwright
Euripides
. Produced during the Peloponnesian War
, it is often considered a commentary on the capture of the Aegean
island of Melos
and the subsequent slaughter and subjugation of its populace by the Athenians
earlier in 415 BC (see History of Milos), the same year the play premiered. 415 BC was also the year of the scandalous desecration of the herma
i and the Athenians' second expedition to Sicily
, events which may also have influenced the author.
The Trojan Women was the third tragedy of a trilogy of dealing with the Trojan War. The first tragedy, Alexandros, was about the recognition of the Trojan prince Paris who had been abandoned in infancy by his parents and rediscovered in adulthood. The second tragedy, Palamedes, dealt with Greek mistreatment of their fellow Greek Palamedes. This trilogy was presented at the Dionysia
along with the comedic satyr play
Sisyphos. The plots of this trilogy were not connected in the way that Aeschylus' Oresteia was connected. Euripides did not favor such connected trilogies.
Euripides won second prize at the City Dionysia
for his effort, losing to the obscure tragedian Xenocles
.
The four Trojan women of the play are the same that appear in the final chapter of the Iliad
lamenting over the corpse of Hector
. Taking place near the same time is Hecuba
, another play by Euripides.
after their city has been sacked, their husbands killed, and as their remaining families are about to be taken away as slaves. However, it begins first with the gods Athena
and Poseidon
discussing ways to punish the Greek armies because they condoned Ajax the Lesser
for dragging Cassandra
away from Apollo's temple. (From some ancient Greek paintings many people believe Ajax raped Cassandra, but it does not say that in this story.) What follows shows how much the Trojan women have suffered as their grief is compounded when the Greeks dole out additional deaths and divide their shares of women.
The Greek herald Talthybius
arrives to tell the dethroned queen Hecuba what will befall her and her children. Hecuba will be taken away with the Greek general Odysseus
, and her daughter Cassandra is slated to become the conquering general Agamemnon's concubine
.
Cassandra, who has been driven partially mad due to a curse by which she can see the future but will never be believed when she warns others, is morbidly delighted by this news: she sees that when they arrive in Argos
, her new master's embittered wife Clytemnestra
will kill both her and her new master. However, because of the curse, no one understands this response, and Cassandra is carried off.
The widowed princess Andromache
arrives, and Hecuba learns from her that her youngest daughter, Polyxena
, has been killed as a sacrifice at the tomb of the Greek warrior Achilles
.
Andromache's lot is to be the concubine of Achilles
' son Neoptolemus
, and more horrible news for the royal family is yet to come: Talthybius reluctantly informs her that her baby son, Astyanax
, has been condemned to die. The Greek leaders are afraid that the boy will grow up to avenge his father Hector, and rather than take this chance, they plan to throw him off from the battlements of Troy to his death.
Helen, though not one of the Trojan women, is supposed to suffer greatly as well: Menelaus
arrives to take her back to Greece with him where a death sentence awaits her. Helen begs/seduces her husband to spare her life and he remains resolved to kill her, but the audience watching the play knows that he will let her live and take her back. It is not only at the end of the play it is revealed that she lives but also in the Odyssey
, Telemachus will learn how Helen's legendary beauty wins her a reprieve.
In the end, Talthybius returns carrying with him the body of little Astyanax on Hector
's shield. Andromache's wish had been to bury her child herself, performing the proper rituals according to Trojan ways, but her ship had already departed. Talthybius gives the corpse to Hecuba, who prepares the body of her grandson for burial before they are finally taken off with Odysseus.
Throughout the play, many of the Trojan women lament the loss of the land that reared them. Hecuba in particular lets it be known that Troy had been her home for her entire life, only to see herself as an old grandmother watching the burning of Troy, the death of her husband, her children, and her grandchildren before she will be taken as a slave to Odysseus.
wrote a version that remains largely faithful to the original text. It adds veiled references to European imperialism
in Asia and minor emphasis on common existentialist
themes. The Israeli playwright Hanoch Levin
also wrote his own version of the play, adding more disturbing scenes and scatological details.
A 1905 stage version, translated by Gilbert Murray
, starred Gertrude Kingston
as Helen at the Royal Court Theatre
in London..
Las Troyanas, a 1963 Mexican film directed by awarded Mexican director Sergio Véjar, adapted by writer Miguel Angel Garibay and Sergio Véjar himself, remaining faithful to text and setting. Features Ofelia Guilmain
as Hecuba with photography in black and white by Agustín Jimenez.
Greek director Mihalis Kakogiannis used Euripides' play (in the famous Edith Hamilton
translation) as the basis for his 1971 film The Trojan Women
. The movie starred American
actress Katharine Hepburn
as Hecuba, British
actors Vanessa Redgrave
and Brian Blessed
as Andromache and Talthybius, French-Canadian
actress Geneviève Bujold
as Cassandra, Greek
actress Irene Papas
as Helen, and Patrick Magee
, an actor born in Northern Ireland
, as Menelaus.
Another movie based on the play came out in 2004, directed by Brad Mays
. The production was actually a documentary film of the stage production Mays directed for the ARK Theatre Company
in 2003. In anticipation of his soon-to-come multimedia
production of A Clockwork Orange
, Mays utilized a marginal multimedia approach to the play, opening the piece with a faux CNN
report intended to echo the then-current war in Iraq
.
Charles L. Mee
adapted The Trojan Women to have a more modern, updated outlook on war. He included original interviews with Holocaust
and Hiroshima
survivors. His play is called The Trojan Women 2.0.
The Women of Troy, directed by Katie Mitchell
, was performed at the National Theatre
in London in 2007/08. The cast included Kate Duchêne
as Hecuba, Sinead Matthews as Cassandra and Anastasia Hille
as Andromache.
The Trojan Women, directed by Marti Maraden
, was performed at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival at the Tom Patterson Theatre in Stratford, Ontario
, Canada, from May 14 to October 5, 2008 with Canadian actress Martha Henry
as Hecuba.
The Women of Troy, directed by Barrie Kosky
and adapted by Kosky and Tom Wright, is a heavily adapted version of the play with Narek Armaganian, Nicholas Bakopoulos-Cooke, Patricia Cotter, Arthur Dignam, Natalie Gamsu, Melita Jurisic, Robyn Nevin
, Kyle Rowling, Queenie van de Zandt, and Jennifer Vuletic.
"Trojan Women," directed by Kathy Welch, was performed by Green T Productions at the Old Arizona Theater in Minneapolis, MN in October 2011. The production used the choral techniques of Balinese kecak
to underscore the themes of communal suffering during war. The cast included Natalie Rae Wass as Hecuba , Heidi Berg as Talthybius, July Vang as Cassandra, Heather Brady as Andromache and David Schneider as Menelaus.
Tragedy
Tragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of...
by the Greek
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
Euripides
Euripides
Euripides was one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, the other two being Aeschylus and Sophocles. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him but according to the Suda it was ninety-two at most...
. Produced during the Peloponnesian War
Peloponnesian War
The Peloponnesian War, 431 to 404 BC, was an ancient Greek war fought by Athens and its empire against the Peloponnesian League led by Sparta. Historians have traditionally divided the war into three phases...
, it is often considered a commentary on the capture of the Aegean
Aegean Sea
The Aegean Sea[p] is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the southern Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas, i.e., between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey. In the north, it is connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea by the Dardanelles and Bosporus...
island of Melos
Milos
Milos , is a volcanic Greek island in the Aegean Sea, just north of the Sea of Crete...
and the subsequent slaughter and subjugation of its populace by the Athenians
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
earlier in 415 BC (see History of Milos), the same year the play premiered. 415 BC was also the year of the scandalous desecration of the herma
Herma
A Herma, commonly in English herm is a sculpture with a head, and perhaps a torso, above a plain, usually squared lower section, on which male genitals may also be carved at the appropriate height...
i and the Athenians' second expedition to Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
, events which may also have influenced the author.
The Trojan Women was the third tragedy of a trilogy of dealing with the Trojan War. The first tragedy, Alexandros, was about the recognition of the Trojan prince Paris who had been abandoned in infancy by his parents and rediscovered in adulthood. The second tragedy, Palamedes, dealt with Greek mistreatment of their fellow Greek Palamedes. This trilogy was presented at the Dionysia
Dionysia
The Dionysia[p] was a large festival in ancient Athens in honor of the god Dionysus, the central events of which were the theatrical performances of dramatic tragedies and, from 487 BC, comedies. It was the second-most important festival after the Panathenaia...
along with the comedic satyr play
Satyr play
Satyr plays were an ancient Greek form of tragicomedy, similar in spirit to burlesque. They featured choruses of satyrs, were based on Greek mythology, and were rife with mock drunkenness, brazen sexuality , pranks, sight gags, and general merriment.Satyric drama was one of the three varieties of...
Sisyphos. The plots of this trilogy were not connected in the way that Aeschylus' Oresteia was connected. Euripides did not favor such connected trilogies.
Euripides won second prize at the City Dionysia
Dionysia
The Dionysia[p] was a large festival in ancient Athens in honor of the god Dionysus, the central events of which were the theatrical performances of dramatic tragedies and, from 487 BC, comedies. It was the second-most important festival after the Panathenaia...
for his effort, losing to the obscure tragedian Xenocles
Xenocles
Xenocles or Zenocles was an Ancient Greek tragedian.There were two Athenian tragic poets of this name, one the grandfather of the other...
.
The four Trojan women of the play are the same that appear in the final chapter of the Iliad
Iliad
The Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles...
lamenting over the corpse of Hector
Hector
In Greek mythology, Hectōr , or Hektōr, is a Trojan prince and the greatest fighter for Troy in the Trojan War. As the first-born son of King Priam and Queen Hecuba, a descendant of Dardanus, who lived under Mount Ida, and of Tros, the founder of Troy, he was a prince of the royal house and the...
. Taking place near the same time is Hecuba
Hecuba (play)
Hecuba is a tragedy by Euripides written c. 424 BC. It takes place after the Trojan War, but before the Greeks have departed Troy . The central figure is Hecuba, wife of King Priam, formerly Queen of the now-fallen city...
, another play by Euripides.
Plot
Euripides' play follows the fates of the women of TroyTroy
Troy was a city, both factual and legendary, located in northwest Anatolia in what is now Turkey, southeast of the Dardanelles and beside Mount Ida...
after their city has been sacked, their husbands killed, and as their remaining families are about to be taken away as slaves. However, it begins first with the gods Athena
Athena
In Greek mythology, Athena, Athenê, or Athene , also referred to as Pallas Athena/Athene , is the goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization, warfare, strength, strategy, the arts, crafts, justice, and skill. Minerva, Athena's Roman incarnation, embodies similar attributes. Athena is...
and Poseidon
Poseidon
Poseidon was the god of the sea, and, as "Earth-Shaker," of the earthquakes in Greek mythology. The name of the sea-god Nethuns in Etruscan was adopted in Latin for Neptune in Roman mythology: both were sea gods analogous to Poseidon...
discussing ways to punish the Greek armies because they condoned Ajax the Lesser
Ajax the Lesser
Ajax was a Greek mythological hero, son of Oileus, the king of Locris. He was called the "lesser" or "Locrian" Ajax, to distinguish him from Ajax the Great, son of Telamon. He was the leader of the Locrian contingent during the Trojan War. He is a significant figure in Homer's Iliad and is also...
for dragging Cassandra
Cassandra
In Greek mythology, Cassandra was the daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy. Her beauty caused Apollo to grant her the gift of prophecy...
away from Apollo's temple. (From some ancient Greek paintings many people believe Ajax raped Cassandra, but it does not say that in this story.) What follows shows how much the Trojan women have suffered as their grief is compounded when the Greeks dole out additional deaths and divide their shares of women.
The Greek herald Talthybius
Talthybius
Talthybius was herald and friend to Agamemnon in the Trojan War. He was the one who took Briseis from the tent of Achilles. Preceding the duel of Menelaus and Paris, Agamemnon charges him to fetch a sheep for sacrifice. He died at Aegium in Achaia....
arrives to tell the dethroned queen Hecuba what will befall her and her children. Hecuba will be taken away with the Greek general Odysseus
Odysseus
Odysseus or Ulysses was a legendary Greek king of Ithaca and the hero of Homer's epic poem the Odyssey. Odysseus also plays a key role in Homer's Iliad and other works in the Epic Cycle....
, and her daughter Cassandra is slated to become the conquering general Agamemnon's concubine
Concubinage
Concubinage is the state of a woman or man in an ongoing, usually matrimonially oriented, relationship with somebody to whom they cannot be married, often because of a difference in social status or economic condition.-Concubinage:...
.
Cassandra, who has been driven partially mad due to a curse by which she can see the future but will never be believed when she warns others, is morbidly delighted by this news: she sees that when they arrive in Argos
Argos
Argos is a city and a former municipality in Argolis, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Argos-Mykines, of which it is a municipal unit. It is 11 kilometres from Nafplion, which was its historic harbour...
, her new master's embittered wife Clytemnestra
Clytemnestra
Clytemnestra or Clytaemnestra , in ancient Greek legend, was the wife of Agamemnon, king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Mycenae or Argos. In the Oresteia by Aeschylus, she was a femme fatale who murdered her husband, Agamemnon – said by Euripides to be her second husband – and the Trojan princess...
will kill both her and her new master. However, because of the curse, no one understands this response, and Cassandra is carried off.
The widowed princess Andromache
Andromache
In Greek mythology, Andromache was the wife of Hector and daughter of Eetion, and sister to Podes. She was born and raised in the city of Cilician Thebe, over which her father ruled...
arrives, and Hecuba learns from her that her youngest daughter, Polyxena
Polyxena
In Greek mythology, Polyxena was the youngest daughter of King Priam of Troy and his queen, Hecuba. She is considered the Trojan version of Iphigenia, daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. Polyxena is not in Homer's Iliad, appearing in works by later poets, perhaps to add romance to Homer's...
, has been killed as a sacrifice at the tomb of the Greek warrior Achilles
Achilles
In Greek mythology, Achilles was a Greek hero of the Trojan War, the central character and the greatest warrior of Homer's Iliad.Plato named Achilles the handsomest of the heroes assembled against Troy....
.
Andromache's lot is to be the concubine of Achilles
Achilles
In Greek mythology, Achilles was a Greek hero of the Trojan War, the central character and the greatest warrior of Homer's Iliad.Plato named Achilles the handsomest of the heroes assembled against Troy....
' son Neoptolemus
Neoptolemus
Neoptolemus was the son of the warrior Achilles and the princess Deidamia in Greek mythology. Achilles' mother foretold many years before Achilles' birth that there would be a great war. She saw that her only son was to die if he fought in the war...
, and more horrible news for the royal family is yet to come: Talthybius reluctantly informs her that her baby son, Astyanax
Astyanax
In Greek mythology, Astyanax was the son of Hector, Crown Prince of Troy and Princess Andromache of Cilician Thebe. His birth name was Scamandrius , but the people of Troy nicknamed him Astyanax In Greek mythology, Astyanax was the son of Hector, Crown Prince of Troy and Princess Andromache of...
, has been condemned to die. The Greek leaders are afraid that the boy will grow up to avenge his father Hector, and rather than take this chance, they plan to throw him off from the battlements of Troy to his death.
Helen, though not one of the Trojan women, is supposed to suffer greatly as well: Menelaus
Menelaus
Menelaus may refer to;*Menelaus, one of the two most known Atrides, a king of Sparta and son of Atreus and Aerope*Menelaus on the Moon, named after Menelaus of Alexandria.*Menelaus , brother of Ptolemy I Soter...
arrives to take her back to Greece with him where a death sentence awaits her. Helen begs/seduces her husband to spare her life and he remains resolved to kill her, but the audience watching the play knows that he will let her live and take her back. It is not only at the end of the play it is revealed that she lives but also in the Odyssey
Odyssey
The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work ascribed to Homer. The poem is fundamental to the modern Western canon, and is the second—the Iliad being the first—extant work of Western literature...
, Telemachus will learn how Helen's legendary beauty wins her a reprieve.
In the end, Talthybius returns carrying with him the body of little Astyanax on Hector
Hector
In Greek mythology, Hectōr , or Hektōr, is a Trojan prince and the greatest fighter for Troy in the Trojan War. As the first-born son of King Priam and Queen Hecuba, a descendant of Dardanus, who lived under Mount Ida, and of Tros, the founder of Troy, he was a prince of the royal house and the...
's shield. Andromache's wish had been to bury her child herself, performing the proper rituals according to Trojan ways, but her ship had already departed. Talthybius gives the corpse to Hecuba, who prepares the body of her grandson for burial before they are finally taken off with Odysseus.
Throughout the play, many of the Trojan women lament the loss of the land that reared them. Hecuba in particular lets it be known that Troy had been her home for her entire life, only to see herself as an old grandmother watching the burning of Troy, the death of her husband, her children, and her grandchildren before she will be taken as a slave to Odysseus.
Treatment of the play in modern times
Jean-Paul SartreJean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...
wrote a version that remains largely faithful to the original text. It adds veiled references to European imperialism
Imperialism
Imperialism, as defined by Dictionary of Human Geography, is "the creation and/or maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural, and territorial relationships, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination." The imperialism of the last 500 years,...
in Asia and minor emphasis on common existentialist
Existentialism
Existentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...
themes. The Israeli playwright Hanoch Levin
Hanoch Levin
Hanoch Levin , was a prominent Israeli dramatist. He was also a theater director, an author and a poet, but he is best known for his plays.- Early life :...
also wrote his own version of the play, adding more disturbing scenes and scatological details.
A 1905 stage version, translated by Gilbert Murray
Gilbert Murray
George Gilbert Aimé Murray, OM was an Australian born British classical scholar and public intellectual, with connections in many spheres. He was an outstanding scholar of the language and culture of Ancient Greece, perhaps the leading authority in the first half of the twentieth century...
, starred Gertrude Kingston
Gertrude Kingston
Gertrude Kingston was an actress, an actor-manager and an artist.-Early life:...
as Helen at the Royal Court Theatre
Royal Court Theatre
The Royal Court Theatre is a non-commercial theatre on Sloane Square, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It is noted for its contributions to modern theatre...
in London..
Las Troyanas, a 1963 Mexican film directed by awarded Mexican director Sergio Véjar, adapted by writer Miguel Angel Garibay and Sergio Véjar himself, remaining faithful to text and setting. Features Ofelia Guilmain
Ofelia Guilmain
Ofelia Guilmain was an actress of telenovelas, stage and the cinema of Mexico.She is also the mother of actors Juan Ferrara and Lucía Guilmain...
as Hecuba with photography in black and white by Agustín Jimenez.
Greek director Mihalis Kakogiannis used Euripides' play (in the famous Edith Hamilton
Edith Hamilton
Edith Hamilton was an American educator and author who was "recognized as the greatest woman Classicist". She was sixty-two years old when The Greek Way, her first book, was published in 1930...
translation) as the basis for his 1971 film The Trojan Women
The Trojan Women (film)
The Trojan Women is a 1971 film, directed by Michael Cacoyannis and starring Katharine Hepburn and Vanessa Redgrave. The film was made with the minimum of changes to Edith Hamilton's translation of Euripides' original play, written in 415 B.C., although Cacoyannis said: "We left out the Gods, as...
. The movie starred American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
actress Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress of film, stage, and television. In a career that spanned 62 years as a leading lady, she was best known for playing strong-willed, sophisticated women in both dramas and comedies...
as Hecuba, British
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
actors Vanessa Redgrave
Vanessa Redgrave
Vanessa Redgrave, CBE is an English actress of stage, screen and television, as well as a political activist.She rose to prominence in 1961 playing Rosalind in As You Like It with the Royal Shakespeare Company and has since made more than 35 appearances on London's West End and Broadway, winning...
and Brian Blessed
Brian Blessed
Brian Blessed is an English actor, known for his sonorous voice and "hearty, king-sized portrayals".-Early life:The son of William Blessed, a socialist miner, and Hilda Wall, Blessed was born in the town of Goldthorpe, West Riding of Yorkshire, England...
as Andromache and Talthybius, French-Canadian
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
actress Geneviève Bujold
Geneviève Bujold
Geneviève Bujold is a Canadian actress best known for her portrayal of Anne Boleyn in the 1969 film Anne of the Thousand Days, for which she won a Golden Globe Award for best actress and was nominated for an Academy Award....
as Cassandra, Greek
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
actress Irene Papas
Irene Papas
Irene Papas is a Greek actress and occasional singer, who has starred in over seventy films in a career spanning more than fifty years.-Life:...
as Helen, and Patrick Magee
Patrick Magee
Patrick Magee may refer to:*Patrick Magee , Northern Irish stage and film actor*Patrick Magee , member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, convicted of planting a bomb in the Grand Hotel, Brighton in 1984...
, an actor born in Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
, as Menelaus.
Another movie based on the play came out in 2004, directed by Brad Mays
Brad Mays
Brad Mays is an independent filmmaker and stage director, living and working in Los Angeles, California.-Background and education:...
. The production was actually a documentary film of the stage production Mays directed for the ARK Theatre Company
ARK Theatre Company
The ARK Theatre Company is an actor-driven repertory theatre ensemble working in Los Angeles, California.-General:Ark Theatre Company is an ensemble of theatre professionals specializing in classical theatre, with an eye to contemporary plays that reflect the depth and interplay of language in...
in 2003. In anticipation of his soon-to-come multimedia
Multimedia
Multimedia is media and content that uses a combination of different content forms. The term can be used as a noun or as an adjective describing a medium as having multiple content forms. The term is used in contrast to media which use only rudimentary computer display such as text-only, or...
production of A Clockwork Orange
A Clockwork Orange
A Clockwork Orange is a 1962 dystopian novella by Anthony Burgess. The novel contains an experiment in language: the characters often use an argot called "Nadsat", derived from Russian....
, Mays utilized a marginal multimedia approach to the play, opening the piece with a faux CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
report intended to echo the then-current war in Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
.
Charles L. Mee
Charles L. Mee
Charles L. Mee is an American playwright, historian and author known for his collage-like style of playwriting, which makes use of radical reconstructions of found texts.-Early Life and Early Career:...
adapted The Trojan Women to have a more modern, updated outlook on war. He included original interviews with Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
and Hiroshima
Hiroshima
is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture, and the largest city in the Chūgoku region of western Honshu, the largest island of Japan. It became best known as the first city in history to be destroyed by a nuclear weapon when the United States Army Air Forces dropped an atomic bomb on it at 8:15 A.M...
survivors. His play is called The Trojan Women 2.0.
The Women of Troy, directed by Katie Mitchell
Katie Mitchell
Katrina Jane Mitchell OBE is an English theatre director. She is an Associate of the Royal National Theatre.-Life and career:Mitchell was raised in Hermitage, Berkshire and educated at Oakham School. Upon leaving Oakham she went up to Magdalen College, Oxford to read English...
, was performed at the National Theatre
Royal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...
in London in 2007/08. The cast included Kate Duchêne
Kate Duchêne
Kate Duchêne , born Catherine Anne Purves Duchêne , is a British actress. She moved to France 3 weeks after her birth but moved back to England permanently in 1962, to the seaside town of Brighton. Kate started to act at the age of 14. In the 1980s however, Kate briefly went to Spain to teach...
as Hecuba, Sinead Matthews as Cassandra and Anastasia Hille
Anastasia Hille
Anastasia Hille is an English actress active in British television, theatre, and film.Hille was a student at Drama Centre . She was nominated for the Ian Charleson Awards in 1994.-Television:...
as Andromache.
The Trojan Women, directed by Marti Maraden
Marti Maraden
Marti Maraden is a Canadian actor and director.She emigrated to Canada in 1968, and became a leading actor at the Stratford Festival in the 1970s....
, was performed at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival at the Tom Patterson Theatre in Stratford, Ontario
Stratford, Ontario
Stratford is a city on the Avon River in Perth County in southwestern Ontario, Canada with a population of 32,000.When the area was first settled by Europeans in 1832, the townsite and the river were named after Stratford-upon-Avon, England. It is the seat of Perth County. Stratford was...
, Canada, from May 14 to October 5, 2008 with Canadian actress Martha Henry
Martha Henry
Martha Henry, is a Canadian stage, film, and television actress, who is best known for her appearances at the Stratford Festival.-Background:...
as Hecuba.
The Women of Troy, directed by Barrie Kosky
Barrie Kosky
Barrie KoskyBarrie Kosky's name is sometimes misspelled as Barry Kosky, Barrie Koski, Barrie Koskie. is an Australian theatre and opera director.Kosky also plays the piano, as he did in his production of Monteverdi's Poppea...
and adapted by Kosky and Tom Wright, is a heavily adapted version of the play with Narek Armaganian, Nicholas Bakopoulos-Cooke, Patricia Cotter, Arthur Dignam, Natalie Gamsu, Melita Jurisic, Robyn Nevin
Robyn Nevin
Robyn Anne Nevin AM , is an Australian stage and screen actress, and is considered by some as a doyenne of Australian theatre.- Early life :...
, Kyle Rowling, Queenie van de Zandt, and Jennifer Vuletic.
"Trojan Women," directed by Kathy Welch, was performed by Green T Productions at the Old Arizona Theater in Minneapolis, MN in October 2011. The production used the choral techniques of Balinese kecak
Kecak
Kecak is a form of Balinese dance and music drama, originated in the 1930s Bali and is performed primarily by men, although a few women's kecak groups exist as of 2006....
to underscore the themes of communal suffering during war. The cast included Natalie Rae Wass as Hecuba , Heidi Berg as Talthybius, July Vang as Cassandra, Heather Brady as Andromache and David Schneider as Menelaus.
Translations
| Translator | Year | Style | Full text |
|---|---|---|---|
| Edward Philip Coleridge | 1891 | Prose Prose Prose is the most typical form of written language, applying ordinary grammatical structure and natural flow of speech rather than rhythmic structure... |
Wikisource, http://classics.mit.edu/Euripides/troj_women.html |
| Gilbert Murray Gilbert Murray George Gilbert Aimé Murray, OM was an Australian born British classical scholar and public intellectual, with connections in many spheres. He was an outstanding scholar of the language and culture of Ancient Greece, perhaps the leading authority in the first half of the twentieth century... |
1911 | Verse Verse (poetry) A verse is formally a single line in a metrical composition, e.g. poetry. However, the word has come to represent any division or grouping of words in such a composition, which traditionally had been referred to as a stanza.... |
http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/eurip/trojan.htm |
| Edith Hamilton Edith Hamilton Edith Hamilton was an American educator and author who was "recognized as the greatest woman Classicist". She was sixty-two years old when The Greek Way, her first book, was published in 1930... |
1937 | Verse | |
| Richmond Lattimore Richmond Lattimore Richmond Alexander Lattimore was an American poet and translator known for his translations of the Greek classics, especially his versions of the Iliad and Odyssey, which are generally considered as among the best English translations available.Born to David and Margaret Barnes Lattimore in... |
1947 | Verse | |
| Isabelle K. Raubitschek and Anthony E. Raubitschek | 1954 | Prose | |
| Philip Vellacott | 1954 | Prose and verse | |
| Nicholas Rudall Nicholas Rudall D. Nicholas Rudall is Professor of Classical Languages and Literatures, a member of on General Studies in the Humanities and Ancient Mediterranean World, and the College at the University of Chicago, where he has taught since 1966. He specializes in Greek drama, and has translated numerous works... |
1999 | Prose | |
| David Kovacs Dávid Kovács Dávid Kovács is a Hungarian politician, former founding member of the Movement for a Better Hungary. He served as chairman of the party since the beginnings until 2006... |
1999 | Prose | |
| James Morwood James Morwood James Morwood is an emeritus Grocyn Lecturer in Classics and Fellow of Wadham College at Oxford University. He has translated four volumes of Euripides' plays for Oxford World's Classics... |
2000 | Prose | |
| Howard Rubenstein Howard Rubenstein (physician) Howard Rubenstein is an American physician, playwright and translator of classical Greek drama.- Life and works :Rubenstein was born in Chicago and attended Lake View High School. He was a magna cum laude graduate of Carleton College, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Xi and won the... |
2002 | Verse | |
| George Theodoridis | 2008 | Prose | http://bacchicstage.wordpress.com/ |
Additional resources
- Mortal Women of the Trojan War, information on each of the Trojan women