Spring Break
Hill's tragic 'Hecuba' tugs at audience's heartstrings
by William-Bernard Reid-Varley
Staff Writer
Arts | 4/7/09
Posted online at 1:49 AM EST on 4/7/09
The final production of the Brandeis Theater Company's 2008 to 2009 season, Hecuba, adapted by Prof. Eirene Visvardi (CLAS) and Eric Hill (THA) and directed by Hill, closes the year on a remarkably dark and depressing note. For some, theater is an escape from reality, a cloistered space within which you can briefly explore a world not your own; it is said that Marie Antoinette would enjoy afternoons of "playing peasant" in a cottage built especially for her. Like the late queen of France, some theatergoers find joy in a contrived fantasy without noticing its status as an imposter of reality through the blissfulness of their detached naiveté.
For many of us, however, true theater must be an interrogation of the world and of the inhumanity of those who would call themselves human. It must respond to injustice and breached ethics, though doing so may be dark and depressing rather than carefree and uplifting.
In his director's note, Hill recounts his seemingly ill-timed productions of Greek tragedy. His adaptations of Helen, Orestes and Iphigenia at Taurus premiered during the first Gulf War and his production of The Trojan Women "came brutally hard on the heels of 9/11." However, he admits that he can "only rue the timing up to a point simply because I revel in the resonances that have been built into doing any of Euripides' plays." In line with that sentiment, The Trojan Women "didn't shy away from its coincidental scheduling." Though 2,433 years old this year, Hecuba too is still as salient as ever to Western civilization and to America in particular, as its plot includes multiple imperialistic overseas wars.
Set in Thrace (near Troy in Asia Minor) in the immediate aftermath of Troy's destruction, Euripides' Hecuba tells the tale of the title character's (Prof. Elizabeth Terry [THA]) tragic turn of fate from a queen blessed with many children to a dejected and childless slave of the victors of an arduous war. Sculpted in the most beautiful and brilliant ancient Greek verse, it is on the surface a funeral dirge for a woman locked in a living tomb. However, the true tragedy of the drama lies in war's ability to thrust its "winners" and "losers" into a state of desperation and greed, blinding them to the suffering of those with whom they share sacred bonds.
For many of us, however, true theater must be an interrogation of the world and of the inhumanity of those who would call themselves human. It must respond to injustice and breached ethics, though doing so may be dark and depressing rather than carefree and uplifting.
In his director's note, Hill recounts his seemingly ill-timed productions of Greek tragedy. His adaptations of Helen, Orestes and Iphigenia at Taurus premiered during the first Gulf War and his production of The Trojan Women "came brutally hard on the heels of 9/11." However, he admits that he can "only rue the timing up to a point simply because I revel in the resonances that have been built into doing any of Euripides' plays." In line with that sentiment, The Trojan Women "didn't shy away from its coincidental scheduling." Though 2,433 years old this year, Hecuba too is still as salient as ever to Western civilization and to America in particular, as its plot includes multiple imperialistic overseas wars.
Set in Thrace (near Troy in Asia Minor) in the immediate aftermath of Troy's destruction, Euripides' Hecuba tells the tale of the title character's (Prof. Elizabeth Terry [THA]) tragic turn of fate from a queen blessed with many children to a dejected and childless slave of the victors of an arduous war. Sculpted in the most beautiful and brilliant ancient Greek verse, it is on the surface a funeral dirge for a woman locked in a living tomb. However, the true tragedy of the drama lies in war's ability to thrust its "winners" and "losers" into a state of desperation and greed, blinding them to the suffering of those with whom they share sacred bonds.
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