The Women of Troy

Review for the Sydney Theatre Company's latest production, 'The Women of Troy', below. Standing in front of a wall of empty, disused lockers that stand for the ravaged, destroyed and plundered city of Troy, we find Hecuba (Robyn Nevin), the former Queen of Troy. An anonymous, masked prison guard (Kyle Rowling) takes photos of her with his mobile phone. He seems indifferent, detached and cold, almost casually abusing his power to rape and kill. The allusion to American torture and abuse of Iraqi prisoners is clear, yet the play does so much more than just decry the atrocities of this one war: It shows the senseless cruelty of any war and the devastation they wreak on their victims. Robyn Nevin is riveting and powerful as Hecuba, reduced to a broken, bruised and battered old woman who has nothing left but her anger, her desperation and her pride. Melita Jurisic is playing Cassandra, Andromache and Helen in turn, brilliantly capturing these three very different characters. At the end of each incarnation, she is carried away in a box, only to reappear as another victim, another destroyed woman, symbolising the individuality of the victims of war as much as the endless repetition of destruction and pain that wars have wrought through the millennia. Barrie Kosky's The Women of Troy is what Hollywood euphemistically calls 'based on' (and usually means "has not a lot to do with") Euripides' play which premiered in 415 BC. It's as if Kosky and Wright have ripped apart the original play, discarded most of its pieces and then put the rest together in an almost completely different form. Some characters are missing, such as Talthybios, a messenger and bringer of bad tidings who gives a human face to the endless news of destruction and death. He's been replaced by an anonymous speaker hanging from the ceiling, conveying the indifference of the system under which these women suffer, but also creating a distance that takes away from the raw emotion and human interplay of the original. he chorus has been replaced with music ranging from Mozart to contemporary. Most of the dialogue has been re-written and is only very loosely based on the original. The bad news is that not all of it works. The good news is that when it works, it works overwhelmingly well. Stripping away the layers of antiquity, Kosky unearths the pure, unadulterated grief at the core of this play. The devastation of these women who haven't started or wanted this war, who have seen their husbands and sons kill and be killed for an ultimately pointless cause, who have lost everything and face an uncertain future is palpable and overwhelming. They've watched debased soldiers commit unspeakable cruelties, they've been raped and beaten, they've seen other women tortured, abused and killed. They are at the mercy of the enemy, and they have nothing left. They stand for women ravaged by war everywhere. Your heart will still be beating fast and your legs will still be unsteady from the power of their grief as you leave the theatre. Written by Elisabeth Meister Posted on www.artshub.com.au Venue: Sydney Theatre Company, Wharf 1, Pier 4/5, Hickson Road, Walsh Bay Sep 22 - Oct 26, Tue-Sat 8pm Mon 6.30pm, Wed Matinees 1pm