HECUBA. To 25 November.

Tour

HECUBA
by Euripides Translated by John Harrison

Foursight Theatre Tour to 25 November 2004
Runs 1hr 50min No interval
Review: Timothy Ramsden 10 November at The Old Town Hall Arts Centre Hemel Hempstead

Too-relevant tragedy too unvaryingly produced.Interest in Greek tragedies grimly reflects modern times. It's no longer the individual fate of Oedipus or the political assertion of Antigone compelling attention, but the grim women war-victims of Sophocles and Euripides. In this play Hecuba, wife of Trojan king Priam is forced to see her children assassinated following a regime change, as she and her fellow-women are transported to Greece.

This is one of three Hecubas in the 2004/5 theatre season, and the only one outside London. There have been other recent productions of Sophocles' different account of the same events.

Director Naomi Cooke uses a fine casting structure. Apart from Corinna Marlowe's Hecuba, a mother and fittingly the most mature character on stage, all parts are doubled from within the chorus of Trojan women, giving a sense of structure, as one by one outsiders, male or female, hostile or sympathetic, emerge from the tight-knit group.

Tragic inevitability gets mirrored in an awareness the story can't be over till each chorus member has played their solo part. Contrast between group and individual's increased by seeing actors re-costuming as their character, often while that character's being described approaching.

Hecuba's son is represented by a model figure, passed between characters as if for protection, then left bloodied on the floor in front of the action. Children are mute victims in war, and when the clean model-children of traitor Polymestor share the same fate, Hecuba becomes the terrorist engendered by war. War itself is an act of revenge, its cause reaching back to Helen who treacherously made a hell of heavenly Troy as a one of the pithier lines in John Harrison's musty translation says.

Horrific events are offset by beautiful singing, intensifying both the women's humanity and suffering. It's possible to believe casting was based on musicality. For the serious downside is inflexible speech patterns in a production that soon becomes wearisomely generalised through undifferentiated Woe alas' cadences and rhythms which no performer is strong enough to overcome. The only alternative is an off-the-shelf anger. It's a serious flaw that, sadly, undermines the production's positive elements.

Hecuba: Corinna Marlowe
Polyxena/Chorus: Jennifer Lim
Odysseus/Chorus: Nikki Brown
Talthybius/Chorus: Frances Land
An Old Servant/Chorus: Maeve Rutten
Agamemnon/Chorus: Alison Carney
Polymestor/Chorus: Adi Lerer

Director: Naomi Cooke
Designer: Purvin
Sound: Duncan Chave
Composer/Musical Director: Mary Keith
Movement: Lucy Tuck
Dramaturg: Dorinda Hulton

2004-11-15 07:04:30