The Trojan Women (Rep)

[Jonathan Granger]

The Trojan Women
Shanachie Repertory Company
May 17th - May 29th

Cast

Hecuba - Mataya De Luca
Cassandra - Kiri Calderon-Spencer
Andromache - Helen Payne
Talthybius - Marcus Spencer
Menelaus - Hugo Durant
Helen - Leah Fuller
Athena - Jessica Houston
Poseidon - Eregor Túr Gairdín

[Jonathan Granger]

((OOC WARNING: The following deals with mature subject matter. Though the play is a classic Greek tragedy, some may find its contents upsetting.))

Synopsis

The play begins with the god Poseidon lamenting the fall of Troy. He is joined by the goddess Athena, who is incensed by the Greek’s exoneration of Ajax the Lesser’s actions in dragging away the Trojan princess Cassandra from Athena’s temple. Together, the two gods discuss ways to punish the Greeks, and conspire to destroy the home-going Greek ships in revenge.

As the dawn comes, the dethroned Trojan queen Hecuba awakens in the Greek camp to mourn her tragic fate and curse Helen as the cause, and the Chorus of captive Trojan women echoes her cries. The Greek herald Talthybius arrives to tell Hecuba what will befall her and her children: Hecuba herself is to be taken away as a slave of the hated Greek general Odysseus, and her daughter Cassandra is to become the conquering general Agamemnon‘s concubine.

Cassandra (who has been driven partially mad due to a curse under which she can see the future but will never be believed when she warns others), appears morbidly pleased with this news as she foresees that, when they arrive in Argos, her new master’s embittered wife Clytemnestra will kill both her and Agamemnon, although because of the curse no-one understands this response, and Cassandra is carried away to her fate.

Hecuba‘s daughter-in-law Andromache arrives with her baby son, Astyanax and confirms the news, hinted at earlier by Talthybius, that Hecuba‘s youngest daughter, Polyxena, has been killed as a sacrifice at the tomb of the Greek warrior Achilles. Andromache‘s own lot is to become the concubine of Achilles‘ son, Neoptolemus, and Hecuba counsels her to honour her new lord in the hope that she may be permitted to rear Astyanax as a future saviour of Troy.

However, as though to crush these pitiful hopes, Talthybius arrives and reluctantly informs her that Astyanax has been condemned to be thrown from the battlements of Troy to his death, rather than risk the boy growing up to avenge his father, Hector. He warns further that if Andromache tries to cast a curse on the Greek ships, then the baby will be allowed no burial. Andromache, cursing Helen for causing the war in the first place, is taken away to the Greek ships, while a soldier bears the child away to his death.

The Spartan king Menelaus enters and protests to the women that he came to Troy to revenge himself on Paris and not to take back Helen, but Helen is nevertheless to return to Greece where a death sentence awaits her. Helen is brought before him, still beautiful and alluring after all that has happened, and she begs Menelaus to spare her life, claiming that she was bewitched by the goddess Cypris and that she did attempt to return to Menelaus after the spell was broken. Hecuba scorns her unlikely story, and warns Menelaus that she will betray him again if she is allowed to live, but he remains implacable, merely ensuring that she travel back on a ship other than his own.

Towards the end of the play, Talthybius returns, bearing with him the body of little Astyanax on Hector‘s great bronze shield. Andromache had wished to bury her child herself, performing the proper rituals according to Trojan ways, but her ship has already departed, and it falls to Hecuba to prepare the body of her grandson for burial.

As the play closes and flames rise from the ruins of Troy, Hecuba makes a last desperate attempt to kill herself in the fire, but is restrained by the soldiers. She and the remaining Trojan women are taken off to the ships of their Greek conquerors.

((Feel free to post for your characters - cast, crew, & audience members - below, if you so desire.))