Original adaptation of TROJAN WOMEN

My adaptation of Trojan Women confronts the effects of war and trauma not just in the immediate aftermath of the Trojan War, but after war more generally, across time and space. This adaptation breaks out each woman of Troy from Euripides’ script and gives her a chance to tell her story by herself, and to relate her experiences to other moments of conflict. In order to create a complex tapestry of viewpoints, each monologue of this adaptation was collaboratively written by me, the actor performing that character, and a faculty advisor from another discipline whose research relates to this creative investigation of conflict and violence. Survivors of war are often scattered; therefore, the women of Troy are positioned around the Arts Quad of the campus and, like victims of violence, they tell their stories again and again, hoping for different endings or witnesses willing to help them.

As a production focused on war, we swapped out Poseidon for Ares, the God of War, who welcomes the audience into the theater and addresses the ways in which they are complicit in perpetuating war. At the conclusion of his monologue, audiences are divided into five groups and ushered around the Arts Quad to hear the monologues of the Trojan women. Once this journey is complete, the audience returns to the theater for a final monologue by Clytemnestra, who addresses conditions on the homefront in times of war, and the ways in which furious and wronged women might turn to Ares and his violence for recompense.

Hecuba in Trojan Women asks you what you feel as you hear these stories, and Ares tries to tell you your answer. You have to decide for yourself if Ares speaks for you, or what you want to do about the many miscarriages of justice proliferating around our communities–local, national, global.