The SITI Company’s production (adapted with breathtaking lyricism by Jocelyn Clarke) of Euripides’s The Trojan Women made a stop in Ann Arbor as the final offering of the University Music Society’s 2012-2013 season. Having actually opened the production in September 2011 at the Getty Villa in Los Angeles, this production was re-mounted in Connecticut only days after Hurricane Sandy, performed at BAM the following week, and was even performed in the days immediately following the bombing at the Boston Marathon. In the face of such devastation, Bogart told us in a pre-show talk before the April 28th matinee, Hecuba’s words as she looks out over the ruins of a city she no longer recognizes took on a significance for which they never could have planned. Performed with no intermission on a nearly bare stage, with only a few chairs, a divan and a sacred circle of charred earth, the tragedy of the fallen city of Troy is unrelenting. The play actually begins before the audience is truly aware of it, with a low rumble growing until the audience is silenced, at which point Poseidon (Brent Werzner) strides fluidly on stage to deliver the exposition. Muscles quivering with raw energy, the light fabric of his simple costume ripples like a troubled tide. And as much as he seems to glide above the stage as he enters, when Hecuba (Ellen Lauren) enters, she finds a way to somehow glide and sink in the same motion – trudging through the soil on the stage until she finally plunges herself face and fists first into the earth. From here begins the onslaught of personal tragedies made public by position and war.
Lauren is exquisite as Hecuba, a crumbling pillar of the once great city. She leads the audience through loss after loss, navigating the thin line between forbearance and despair until she can teeter no longer, and the wail that escapes as she mourns the death of her infant grandson is nothing short of devastating. Akiko Aizawa as Hecuba's mad, visionary daughter Kassandra has a wild vulnerability, and the simultaneous girlish sweetness and pitiful damage she embodies is crushing. Makela Spielman's Andromache is every bit the mother, drawing her strength from the infant strapped to her chest. And when Andromache is forced to make the ultimate sacrifice, Spielman plays her inner turmoil with exceptional delicacy. Statuesque may be too weak a word to describe Katherine Crockett's glamorous Helen. Almost inhuman in her quest for self-preservation, she wraps the weak-willed Menelaus (J. Ed Araiza plays the ego-wounded warrior with admirable dexterity, and his eventual surrender to Helen's charms is all too believable.) around her fingers with cold, clear calculation and sexuality that she wields like a weapon. Gian-Murry Gianino is awful in all the right ways as the brash, self-important Odysseus. What he lacks in sympathy he makes up for in ego. His cruel and self-aggrandizing attacks on Hecuba are acted with razor-like focus and the charm of a man with the utmost confidence in himself and ultimate disdain for those beneath him. Barney O'Hanlon grounds the tragic circumstances of the play with his gentle portrayal of Hecuba's loyal servant (who also serves as the chorus). And even Leon Ingulsrud's thankless role of the Envoy is played with precision and truthful stoicism. And his excellent revelation of the fate of Andromache's infant son beautifully communicated the dumbfoundedness that too often accompanies such a death.
Director (and SITI Company Artistic Director) Anne Bogart's retelling of this centuries-old piece is delicate, insightful and immeasurably human. She resists the melodrama of the already devastated that so often haunts performances of this piece, preferring to tell a story of women who are clinging to the vestiges of their former strength - refusing to let go until they just can't hold on any longer. There is fight in these characters yet, which makes their eventual end all the more tragic. The score - composed and performed by Christian Frederickson - is evocative and effective, seeming to express in music what Hecuba can barely bring herself to express in words. Melissa Trn's costumes provide a compelling image of the decadent world of the Trojan women that is now lost forever. James Schuette's lighting is as spare and powerful as the set, painting the bleak, post-war landscape with stark shadows and too much truth.
Trojan Women (After Euripides) is gone as quickly as it came, as there were only two performances. And the impression it left was one of astonishing beauty and heartache. And the plea for human feeling in the face of so much destruction is a cry that I sincerely hope echoes beyond the walls of each theatre to which they tour.
For more information on the UMS 2013-2014 International Theater Series, visit http://ums.org/tickets/2013-2014-season-listing.
Lauren is exquisite as Hecuba, a crumbling pillar of the once great city. She leads the audience through loss after loss, navigating the thin line between forbearance and despair until she can teeter no longer, and the wail that escapes as she mourns the death of her infant grandson is nothing short of devastating. Akiko Aizawa as Hecuba's mad, visionary daughter Kassandra has a wild vulnerability, and the simultaneous girlish sweetness and pitiful damage she embodies is crushing. Makela Spielman's Andromache is every bit the mother, drawing her strength from the infant strapped to her chest. And when Andromache is forced to make the ultimate sacrifice, Spielman plays her inner turmoil with exceptional delicacy. Statuesque may be too weak a word to describe Katherine Crockett's glamorous Helen. Almost inhuman in her quest for self-preservation, she wraps the weak-willed Menelaus (J. Ed Araiza plays the ego-wounded warrior with admirable dexterity, and his eventual surrender to Helen's charms is all too believable.) around her fingers with cold, clear calculation and sexuality that she wields like a weapon. Gian-Murry Gianino is awful in all the right ways as the brash, self-important Odysseus. What he lacks in sympathy he makes up for in ego. His cruel and self-aggrandizing attacks on Hecuba are acted with razor-like focus and the charm of a man with the utmost confidence in himself and ultimate disdain for those beneath him. Barney O'Hanlon grounds the tragic circumstances of the play with his gentle portrayal of Hecuba's loyal servant (who also serves as the chorus). And even Leon Ingulsrud's thankless role of the Envoy is played with precision and truthful stoicism. And his excellent revelation of the fate of Andromache's infant son beautifully communicated the dumbfoundedness that too often accompanies such a death.
Director (and SITI Company Artistic Director) Anne Bogart's retelling of this centuries-old piece is delicate, insightful and immeasurably human. She resists the melodrama of the already devastated that so often haunts performances of this piece, preferring to tell a story of women who are clinging to the vestiges of their former strength - refusing to let go until they just can't hold on any longer. There is fight in these characters yet, which makes their eventual end all the more tragic. The score - composed and performed by Christian Frederickson - is evocative and effective, seeming to express in music what Hecuba can barely bring herself to express in words. Melissa Trn's costumes provide a compelling image of the decadent world of the Trojan women that is now lost forever. James Schuette's lighting is as spare and powerful as the set, painting the bleak, post-war landscape with stark shadows and too much truth.
Trojan Women (After Euripides) is gone as quickly as it came, as there were only two performances. And the impression it left was one of astonishing beauty and heartache. And the plea for human feeling in the face of so much destruction is a cry that I sincerely hope echoes beyond the walls of each theatre to which they tour.
For more information on the UMS 2013-2014 International Theater Series, visit http://ums.org/tickets/2013-2014-season-listing.