The Lost Women of Troy
Based on Euripides's "The Trojan Women"
Women, women, the sweet, suffocating moisture,
from which grow all the poisonous mushrooms of our soul.
Translated by: Naaman Tammuz
Premiere:
1984
Directed by:
Hanoch Levin
Theatre:
The Cameri Theatre
Number of characters: 10
Subjects:
Greek Mythology Adaptation
Costume and stage design: Roni Toren
Original music: Foldi Shatzman
Light: Brian Harris
Participants: Yossef Carmon - Agamemnon; Yonatan Cherchi - Odysseus; Yitshak Hizkia - Menelaus; Dov Glikman - Neoptolemus; Albert Cohen - Talthybius; Zaharira Harifai - Hecuba; Rivka Noyman - Cassandra; Geta Munte - Andromache; Yehudit Yanay - Astyanax; Fabiana Meyuhas - Helena; Ronit Ofir - Prisoner A; Hanni Nachmias - Prisoner B; Hanna Pick
The city of Troy is in flames. After a ten-year siege, the Greek army has defeated Troy, whose men are killed and whose women are taken prisoner.
In a square at the city's outskirts stand the traumatised women of Troy, facing the victorious Greek generals and awaiting their fate. Talthybius, representative of the generals, reveals to each what fate awaits her. Hecuba, Queen of Troy, will be Odysseus's servant. She objects, and curses her new master who mercilessly beats her into submission. Her daughter Cassandra, a young, day-dreaming girl, is condemned to be Agamemnon's mistress. A gloomy Agamemnon, nerve-racked by war, immediately rapes her in front of her mother. Hecuba's second daughter, Polyxana, has already been executed without her mother's knowledge; only after hours of begging and humiliation before Odysseus does she hear of her daughter's demise.
Hecuba's daughter in law, Andromache, is declared concubine to Neoptalamus while her young son Astyanax is ripped from her arms and thrown to his death from the city walls.
One possible source of satisfaction remains for the prisoners: witnessing the execution of the casus belli, the beautiful Helena by her husband, Menelaus. Alas the betrayed husband forgives her, again gripped by his wife's charms. Denied the opportunity to watch Helena die, Hecuba enters into the service of her children's assassin, a wrecked and empty shell of the person she once was.
The dawn rises, the sleepless night ends, and the column of generals and prisoners makes its way to the docks where they will board the ships to Greece.