NEW YORK – Known to modern audiences mainly as names h
eard during classes in
literature and history, the characters of the great dra
matist Euripides once again came
alive and worked their magic on Manhattan audiences thi
s summer thanks to the 7th
annual New York Euripides Summer Festival of the America
n Thymele Theater.
Hecuba, named for the intelligent and stately queen of
Troy who finds herself a slave to
the Greeks in the aftermath of the Trojan War, is set
in the camp of the victorious
Agamemnon.
The play is one of a number by Euripides that focus on th
e character and struggles of
women – they often appear stronger and more noble tha
n the men – marking him as
one of the first advocates of women’s rights.
Hecuba was presented in traditional form for free with
out intermission, outdoors and in
daylight as in ancient Athens.
The passionate and well-turned performances of the acto
rs were guided by Jonghee
Quispe, the Company Managing Director.
The acting, combined with choreography and original mu
sic is designed to evoke the
powerful emotions and frame the intellectual themes a
ddressed by the playwright
whose work has deeply impacted audiences and later artists a
like for more than two
millennia.
Over that length of time, subject matter is bound to re
appear in “real life” and indeed
Stephen Diacrussi, ATT Founder and Producing and Arti
stic Director, notes that today,
Greece in crisis “can be compared to Hecuba, a former Q
ueen who is now a slave…just
as Hellas used to be in our life time…a prosperous and d
ignified nation,” he said, it is
now “at the mercy of foreigners.”
Hecuba’s words speak loudly not only to the weak and recentl
y impoverished, but to the
powerful whose greed and indifference shatter lives: “
Politicians do not care what harm
they cause, providing they can please a crowd,” she declare
d.
While Euripides’ plays explore themes like self-sacrifice an
d forgiveness in ways that
prepared the Greek mind to receive the messages of the
Christian gospels 500 years
later, in Hecuba the playwright shows that the cruel blo
ws of fate – most of Hecuba’s
loved ones and almost all her children were destroyed by t
he time the play begins – can
sometimes be assuaged by sweet revenge.
Elizabeth Carian as Hecuba is shattered when she learn
ed that her son Polydorus –
played by Diacrussi, who delighted his fans with his ATT
debut – was killed in cold
blood by family friend Polymestor, the King of Thrace.
Cooly, she lays a trap for the King, played with oily ar
rogance by Samuel Muniz. Luring
him to her tent by the prospect of gaining more treasur
e – he killed Polydorus for his
gold – he was savagely attacked (hell hath no fury…) by Hecu
ba’s attendants, who
blinded the king and killed his own son.
The theme of the conflicts between official duty and t
he obligations of people to their
friends and benefactors is also examined in the scene wher
e Marc Osian, who plays
Odysseus, whose life was spared by Hecuba when he was capture
d during a pre-war
spying expedition, has come to take away Hecuba’s beautifu
l and youngest daughter
Polyxena. Odysseus is deaf to the pleas of his victim’s mothe
r and the admonitions of
his savior.
Polyxena, to be sacrificed to the gods and played with g
race and quiet fire by Yaprak
Unver, brings honor to the defeated Trojan royal famil
y – and shames the Greeks – by
willingly accepting her death and displaying great coura
ge.
Diacrussi would love to perform more, but due to the mu
ltifaceted responsibilities he
undertakes for each production, and because “it is not e
asy to both appear onstage and
coordinate things offstage,” he has not been able to do
so until now. “Seven years after
the festival began is was a pleasure to be among the acto
rs and feeling like an actor
myself,” he told TNH.
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