The Women of Troy

The Women of Troy is an emotional and visually dazzling treatise on the inevitability of war and the strength of women. The Greek myth, as in antiquity, is told through song and dance, accompanied by contemporary, moving music performed live. Although fate is cruel to the heroines, we are left with the hope that the power of female unity will eventually bring change and put an end to war.

The heroines of The Women of Troy, although described two and a half millennia ago, remain close to us because they are united by a power we recognize: the power of intuition, love and dignity. Sisterhood becomes their path to survival and to coming to terms with the decrees of fate. United, they stand in opposition to the male need for conquest and destruction.

Euripides’ The Women of Troy is a drama rooted in the widely known myth of the Trojan War. After the fall of Troy and the victory of the Greeks, the women of the royal family, taken into captivity, wait for news of their future fate. Queen Hecuba, her daughters Cassandra and Polyxena, and her daughter-in-law Andromache, for them the war is not yet over. Each of them will experience further cruelty at the hands of the victors, but each will accept her fate with dignity. They will not be broken by the greatest humiliations or the cruellest tortures, perhaps because Athena, the goddess of wisdom, watches over them.

In Aleksandra Bielewicz’s production, scenes from the Greek drama are interwoven with fragments of other works, which also reveal the male perspective: war, above all, is about war. The Greek commanders, Agamemnon, Menelaus and Odysseus, reveal that even the recovery of the beautiful Helen would not put an end to their aggression. Priam, the King of Troy, together with his sons Hector and Paris, are no less cruel towards their wives, lovers and daughters. War is their whim, the decree of the gods, a necessity; any explanation will do, if they do not have to leave the battlefield.

Between the women and the men stands Helen, the nominal cause of the Trojan War. Was her role in bringing about this devastating conflict a fact, or merely an excuse used by Greeks hungry for blood and spoils? Would Troy have been burned without her involvement?

Euripides says: “Foolish is the man who destroys cities, temples, tombs and sacred places of the dead, for he himself must later perish.” War destroys everyone it touches. It humiliates the souls of both victors and the defeated. The fall of Troy marks the beginning of the fall of us all, because war does not end with the pain of battle. It remains within us as an eternal struggle, reproducing trauma and infecting the world and the community with it.

When Euripides writes The Women of Troy, the Greeks are carrying out the massacre of the neutral island of Melos, killing the men and selling the women and children into slavery. When we read and watch The Women of Troy today, similar massacres are taking place in many parts of the world. Capricious state leaders search for excuses to attack other countries. The Women of Troy is therefore not a story about the past. It unfolds in a permanent “now”, where violence is the rule of the world and the question of whether life without war is possible remains unanswered.

To cleanse ourselves of the nightmare of war, we need lament, hair torn from the head, anger and mourning. We also need to reject the ethos of heroism, reclaim agency and step out of the role of victim.

The creators of the production use a range of contemporary means to bring the ancient drama closer to today’s audience. The costumes reveal inspirations drawn from haute couture. Contemporary dance techniques and therapeutic TRE practices were used to build an anxious, trembling choreography. Tense singing and movement redefine the ancien chorus.

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The performance contains strobe lights and smoke. 

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W adaptacji użyto tekstów:

• "Trojanki" Eurypidesa (tłum. Jerzy Łanowski)
• "Trojanki" Seneki (tłum. Tomasz Sapota i Iwona Słomak)
• "Wojny trojańskiej nie będzie" Jean Giraudoux (tłum. Roman Kołoniecki)
• "Hekabe" Eurypidesa (tłum. Jerzy Łanowski)
• wierszy: "Szukam słowa" i "Małe dziewczynki" Wisławy Szymborskiej; „Gdy wyjdę na spacer" Rity Boumi Papa (tłum. Nikosa Chadzinikolau)