The Trojan Women. The formality of the play lent itself beautifully to Anne Bogart’s Vision of Euripides.

Akiko Aizawa, Ellen Lauren, Makela Spielman

Photo: Craig Schwerz

On the afternoon of April 15, the Siti Company was en route to Boston to enact The Trojan Women (After Euripides) when they heard the news of the bombing at the finishing line of the Marathon. Despite their horror and ambivalence about playing under the circumstances, they decided that as actors, their responsibility was to perform. And indeed, the convergence between the devastation of the city of Troy onstage and the explosions at Copley Square in the city of Boston brought a deeper and more personal meaning to the play, certainly to this member of the audience.

The Trojan Women is often described as an actionless play that displays the plight of women as helpless victims of testosterone-driven enemy warriors. It begins after the defeat of Troy, its men dead and its women awaiting their lot as slaves and concubines. Trojan Queen Hecuba (Ellen Lauren) is to be given to “wily” Odysseus, conceptualizer of the Trojan horse; Kassandra (Akiko Aizawa) to Agamemnon, the Greek commander; and Andromache (Makela Spielman) to Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles who killed her husband Hector in battle. Helen (Katherine Crockett), the cause of the war, is to be returned to her husband, Menelaus (J. Ed Araiza) and possible death. Adapter Jocelyn Clarke and director Anne Bogart have modified the play’s thrust, largely by giving more complexity, anger, and agency to the female characters.

Hecuba, her sole remaining daughter, Kassandra, and daughters-in-law, Andromache and Helen take ownership of their fate. This Hecuba is not led away to follow her new master Odysseus. Instead, the production’s final image is of Hecuba downstage awaiting her death by immolation as her beloved city burns, a death she has chosen. Andromache, faced with the murder of her beloved infant son, whom she carries close to her body in a yellow sling, kills him herself in an offstage scene. Actress and script portray it as her final act of love. Kassandra’s madness often takes the form of physical joy, as she darts about the stage prophesying Agamemnon’s end.

The chorus of Trojan women is replaced by a eunuch priest, which is both problematic and effective. Problematic, since Euripides wrote it as a story of women’s suffering, and effective, because, through the rites the priest performs, he epitomizes the ancient culture of Troy.

Other changes include the elimination of Athena, who normally shares the prologue with Poseidon. A uniformed, bemedalled Odysseus (Gian-Murray Gianino) is introduced in a short scene, which makes sense given his role in the war and Hecuba’s hatred of him. The part of Helen was expanded. Her longer time onstage adds saliency to her relationship with her mother-in-law, Hecuba, and her sisters-in-law, Kassandra and Andromache.

The simple set consists of four chairs and a bench. Center stage is a large dark mat composed of coarsely textured material that represents both the soil and ashes of Troy. Numerous lighting instruments are placed next to the brick wall on stage right. Composer-violinist Christian Frederickson stands near the wall throughout the performance, playing intermittently.

The opening moments set the heartrending, but generally restrained mood of the performance. Poseidon (Brent Wezner) enters from stage left, moving slowly and gracefully toward the audience, a golden apple in his hand. He wears a light blue singlet and pants of the same color, a costume strangely reminiscent of the operating room, but perhaps meant to emphasize that he is god of the sea. Like the set, his movement is spare. His rare gestures are formal and classical in style. He plays his beautiful voice like an instrument. As he sorrowfully recounts the events of the Trojan War, Hecuba comes on, unaware of the god, and slowly sinks to the ground, her face in the dirt. Before exiting, Poseidon crouches above her, almost tenderly, and then gradually withdraws still facing the audience.

The women are dressed in floor-length white dresses. Hecuba’s is long sleeved, befitting her age; the others’ were sleeveless. All the dresses, except Helen’s, are sullied with black streaks at the hem from walking across the mat of dirt. Helen, tall and fashion model beautiful, wears a low-cut backless number that looks as if she is ready for a night on the town. Befittingly, Menelaus, her weak and sleazy husband, is decked out in a tuxedo, giving him the appearance of a croupier. Seeing Menelaus and Helen together made it clear, despite his words to the contrary, that Helen would not be punished and the two would take up their lives together once more.

The formality of the play lent itself beautifully to Anne Bogart’s Viewpoints, her movement and spatial techniques. Bogart took advantage of Greek tragedy’s history as a sung, danced, and spoken performance. The movement is highly stylized, at times becoming dance. Katherine Crockett, a lead dancer with the Martha Graham Company, is a particularly lithe Helen. In keeping with the restraint of her production, Bogart made use of tableaux. Occasionally, the performers look frozen in time, archetypes of pain and resistance.

While the quality of the acting is for the most part quite high, Ellen Lauren is outstanding. Not only is her physical and vocal technique close to flawless, she is emotionally truthful as the larger than life Hecuba. Her performance walks a tightrope between restrained grief and full-out anguish. In one of the production’s most powerful moments, her keening, which begins as a throaty moan, evolves into an almost musical sound – a timeless and universal lament.

Akiko Aizawa’s Japanese accent, whether natural or assumed, works well for Kassandra, doomed to prophesy without being understood or believed. Makela Spielman’s Andromache is touching. Although Katherine Crockett captures the narcissism of Helen, she is more dancer than actress. Barney O’Hanlen got off to a slow start as the chorus/priest, but became more involved and more interesting to watch as the evening progressed. Leon Ingulsrud plays the Greek envoy, charged with killing Andromache’s child, with depth as a man caught between his duty as a soldier and his feelings of humanity.

This updated exploration of Euripides’ tragedy is well worth seeing for a number of reasons. But what I found most compelling and contemporary is the emphasis on the strength of the female characters.

Trojan Women (After Euripides)

CREATED AND PERFORMED BY SITI COMPANY

ADAPTED BY JOCELYN CLARKE

DIRECTED BY ANNE BOGART

MUSIC COMPOSED AND PERFORMED BY CHRISTIAN FREDERICKSON

STAGE MANAGER LIGHTING DESIGNER COSTUME DESIGNER

EMILY HAYES* BRIAN H SCOTT** MELISSA TRN

CAST

Andromache—Makela Spielman* Helen—Katherine Crockett

Chorus—Barney O’Hanlon* Kassandra—Akiko Aizawa*

Envoy—Leon Ingulsrud* Menelaus—J. Ed Araiza*

Hecuba—Ellen Lauren* Odysseus—Gian-Murray Gianino*

Poseidon—Brent Werzner*