Greek Tragedies through Dan's Eyes

Below is the breakdown of 5 Greek tragedies which Dan Stone is adapting into a two hour play to be put on in May, 2012.

It will be based set “60 years in the post-apocalyptic future, in a society that needs rebuilding.”  In this “retelling of the Trojan War and the tragedies of war, reverting to old ways and religion,” Stone is “trying to produce Greek theater like it was in ancient times but with relevance to today’s audience.”

This Greek tragedy is a real whodunit, with a lot of whys and a large host of characters.

This family was full of treachery and murder.  

Tantalus started the family curse by cooking his father Pelops and serving him to the gods.  But Zeus resurrected Pelops, who then fathered Atreus and Thyestes.  However, the Furies, goddesses, who are older than the Olympian gods, led by Zeus, punish the sin of shedding kindred blood.  The offender will be tormented until he is himself killed.

Atreus, father of Agamemnon and Menelaus, fought with his brother because Thyestes had made love to Arteus’ wife.  Arteus then cooked Thyestes’ children and served them to him at a banquet.  Finally, Arteus exiled Thyestes from Argos for the rest of life.

The family curse continues……

Paris, son of Priam and Hecuba, King and Queen of Troy,  was chosen to be the judge of a beauty contest between the goddesses Aphrodite, Athena and Hera, Zeus’s wife.  Paris declares Aphrodite the winner and, as a reward, she promised him that Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world, would be his wife even though she was already married to Menelaus, younger brother of Agamemnon.

Helen of Troy was kidnapped, while a guest in Paris’s home, Menelaus asked his brother Agamemnon to help rescue his wife, starting the Trojan War.   Agamemnon  sacrificed his eldest daughter, Iphigenia, to the goddess Artemis, enraging his wife, Clytaemnestra, and she was determined that he would die for this.

Calchas, Prophet of Apollo, was a messenger for the Gods and tells Agamemnon that he must sacrifice his daughter, because a rabbit, a pet, loved by Artemis, Greek goddess of hunting, was slain by the Greeks.  Agamemnon tricked his wife and daughter to come to the temple by saying their daughter would be marrying Achilles, a Greek warrior so that he would be granted good sailing winds.

While Agamemnon and Menelaus were off fighting the Trojan War, Clytaemnestra had ruled the land like a man and had taken a lover, Aegisthus, with whom she plots to kill her husband.  Aegisthus, son of Thyestes, wanted to avenge the exile of his father and the death of his siblings.  Clytaemnestra exiled her son so that she could rule until her husband returned.

Agamemnon returned with a lover, Cassandra, who had been granted the power of prophesy by the God Apollo, whom Cassandra had spurned.  So Apollo let her have the powers of prophesy but declared that no one would believe her.

When Agamemnon returned home alone, having lost his brother at sea, Clytaemnestra insisted he walk on this beautiful red carpet, like a god, to show that he had been victorious.  This act caused Agamemnon to lose the god’s protection and his wife was able to carry off her revenge.
"The major women involved in the stories about the Trojan War were Helen of Troy, who started it all, Iphigenia, who was sacrificed, Cassandra, who was not believed, Clytemnestra, who was betrayed, Andromache, widowed by the major Trojan hero, Hecuba, who gave birth to Paris, Briseis, who created tension in the Greek ranks, and Polyxena, who may have revealed Achilles' heel." (http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/troyilium/tp/TrojanWarWomen.htm)

Throughout this tragedy, there is a chorus of elders, who are passive observers, refusing to help.  Their role was one of complaints about everything and doing nothing about anything.  Cassandra tried to get the chorus to help Agamemnon and herself but they did not listen to her.  The chorus complained and called Helen disgusting names for causing the death of so many men.

"Electra is the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, the king and queen of Mycenae. She is absent from Homer's epics, but appears in theOresteia and in later Athenian plays.

In Electra by Euripides, she is depicted as more jealous and hateful (as are most of Euripides' female characters) and actually helps Orestes kill their mother."(http://www.ancient-mythology.com/greek/electra.php)