Modern Productions of Euripides' Trojan Women
Michael
Cacoyannis (1971)
Filmography
Trojan
Women
CAST & CREW
Katharine Hepburn as Hecuba, Vanessa Redgrave as Andromache, Irene Papas as Helen, Genevieve Bujold as Cassandra
Directed by Michael Cacoyannis
SYNOPSIS
Euripides' classic tragedy brought to the screen by a star-studded cast of actresses. Hecuba, queen of fallen Troy, leads this ensemble of women in their passionate, proto-feminist condemnation of war and its atrocities.
MPAA RATING
G
RUNTIME
1 hour, 45 minutes
RELEASE DATES
Video: Nov 01, 1991
Version
by Brendan Kennelly (1993)
The production aims at an ensemble style, in which most
of the eleven performers are continuously involved. Fionnuala Murphy has to
deliver most of her part as Cassandra from on top of the piano, and her flat
delivery suggested understandable anxiety about either falling off or setting
fire to her bridal veil with her candelabra. Pauline McLynn's Andromache says
farewell to Astyanax as if he were going away to boarding-school rather than to
be thrown to his death from the walls of Troy. Ali White is an appropriately
sexy and self-possessed Helen, Martin Murphy (who studied Greek at Trinity
College) a stolid Talthybius. Tina Kellegher as the Chorus does most of the
singing, helped out by the other women. Instrumental accompaniment is provided
by Helene Montague's regal Pallas Athena, who remains on-stage to play the
piano, and Carole Nelson, who wanders around in black tail-coat and dark glasses
playing the saxophone.
Williams
College Production 1999
The
Program
This particular production of Euripides' classic tragedy,
guest-directed by the Suzuki-trained actor James Bond (yup... his risky projects
generally shake and stir), is a collaboration in the purest sense. The actors,
along with the set, lighting and sound designers, use the text of The Trojan
Women as a springboard for the more personal expressions of distant memory,
womanhood, childhood and sex. The "final" product (a collaboration
such as this, during which the nature of rehearsal may change from one night to
the next, will always, in one way or another, play like a work in progress) is a
feverish 75-minute poem of dance, text and color-a gutsy experiment, especially
for a Williams audience. (from review by John Magary)
The
Trojan Women: A Love Story by Charles Mee (1996)
David Stuttart's Production 2002
Stuttard's adaptation, apparently written after the attacks
on the US last autumn, harps a little too insistently on possible parallels,
with its descriptions of a devastated Troy with its "towers exploding in a
holocaust of flame". It would be smarter to let audiences make their own
connections. (from Lyn Gardner's review)
This material has been published on the web by Prof. Tom Sienkewicz for his students
at Monmouth College. If you have any questions, you can contact him at toms@monm.edu.
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