CAST 

CREATIVE TEAM 

Olympia Dukakis

Hecuba/Praxithea /Lysistrata/chorus

Carey Perloff

Director

Lydia Koniordou

Klytemnestra/Elektra/
Kreusa/Lysistrata/chorus

Helene Foley

Classical Consultant, dramaturge

Gareth Saxe

Odysseus/Agamemnon chorus/Kreon/Orestes
/Agamemnon/Apollo

Oliver Taplin

Translation from Ancient Greek

Claire Brownell

Antigone/Lysistrata/Chorus

Bonfire Madigan Shive

Composer, performer

Robert Wierzel

Lighting designer

Wendall Harrington

Projection designer

Nathan Baynard

Assistant director

PROGRAM 

PART 1

Women try to make their own case in a world where they are often dismissed or silenced.

Euripides, Medea, 410-30

The female chorus responds to a male-dominated poetic tradition that has deprived them of a voice.

Euripides, Hecuba, 218-331

The enslaved Trojan Queen Hecuba tries to persuade Odysseus of the injustice of her daughter Polyxena's sacrifice by the Greek army to the ghost of Achilles.

Translated by Timberlake Wertenbaker 

Euripides, Medea, 1081-1115

A choral voice wonders whether having children makes sense in an unjust and uncertain world.

Aeschylus, Agamemnon, 1401-1425

Klytemnestra defends her killing of Agamemnon and Kassandra to the play's chorus of outraged old men, on the grounds of Iphigenia's sacrifice.

PART 2

Unmarried daughters in tragedy often fiercely defend their natal families, especially their fathers and brothers. Lament was a form of resistance in a society that tried to control the expression of grief by women.

Sophocles, Elektra, 86-120, 251-309

Elektra risks being imprisoned because she continuously laments the murder of her father and resists the tyrannical rule of Klytemnestra and Aegisthus.

Sophocles, Antigone, 441-525, 806-816

Antigone justifies defying King Creon's public edict in order to bury her brother, and she goes to her death to pay for her crime.

Sophocles, Elektra, 1117-1170

Elektra laments over the urn that supposedly contains the ashes of her dead brother, who, ironically, stands alive before her.

In the tragedy, the divine wolrd often demands violent acts and suffering from humanity before larger goals can be achieved. Tragic women (or, in one case, their female representatives) assertively confront these mysterious demands, sometimes accepting and sometimes rejecting them as unjust.

Euripides, Erectheus, fragment 360, 30-55

Divine prophecies often demand a daughter's sacrifice to save family or city or to inaugurate a war. In a patriotic speech, the Athenian Queen Praxithea explains why she is willing to sacrifice a daughter as well as sons to save Athens.

Euripides, Iphigenia in Aulis, 1115-1208

By contrast, Klytemnestra attempts to persuade Agamemnon not to sacrifice Iphigenia sa that the Greek army can go to war with Troy for a dubious cause

Aeschylus, Eumenides, 614-666

In Orestes' trial at Athens, Apollo, who defends Orestes for obeying his divine command, and the Furies, who represent his dead mother Klytemnestra, argue over whether Orestes should escape from being hounded to death by the Furies for commiting matricide. Apollo argues for Orestes' acquittal by claiming that the father is the only true parent of the child and that the mother is no relative but simply a vessel to carry the father's seed. The Furies disagree and continue to demand justice for Klytemnest.

Euripides, Ion, 859-922

Greek gods frequently treat women as mere vessels to produce illustrious sons. Here the childless Athenian Princess Kreusa angrily laments her rape by Apollo and her unwilling exposure of their baby, Ion. (Apollo has in fact rescued and raised the child, but failed to inform the unhappy Kreusa).

Aristophanes, Lysistrata, 565-613

In a comedic action that also represents a positive effort on behalf of women, Lysistrata explains her sex strike for peace to an outraged Attic magistrate.