Trojan Women

PRELIMINARY PRACTICAL WORK BEFORE TACKLING THE TEXT

This play has been a popular one to do in this century to show the horrors and results of war. It has been many times a tool, then, of political propaganda. There are certainly enough wars occurring at present, or in the last few years, to make this play as pertinent today as it has ever been.

1. The most obvious preliminary work is research. Where are there places in the world where similar things to the events of the play are happening? This research may take the form of watching news or news related programmes, or searching the internet, where footage of survivors, and the results of war, are shown. If possible, collect photographs, or make notes of the behaviour of survivors. I know this sounds grim, but the accuracy of such behaviour will help the power of a final production. Watching footage of survivors of natural disasters may also help. Those who survived the tsunami, but who were rendered homeless by it, with the loss of members of their families, are not so different from the women portrayed by Euripides in this play.

Come up with group 'still photographs'/ tableaux, at least three to begin with, displaying the despair of displaced people.

Now try to string these group tableaux together with appropriate movement and sound. Keep this stylised. In other words, aim for the minimum movement to take you from one still tableaux to the next. Make the sound that accompanies this economical movement a condensation of despair.

2. What I notice most about people who are in a state of shock is a kind of suspended animation about them. There is a vacancy, an apathy, a stillness. Their eyes are blank. In a sense, the human brain goes into shut-down mode, to cope with the horrors that are happening to them. It is not that these people are feeling less, but that the brain and body has to come up with ways of surviving.
This is what we see with Hecuba and the Chorus of women. They have seen so much and suffered so dreadfully that they have reached this condition I have described. But every now and again during the play, something gets through the coping barriers they have erected and stirs them to new frenzies of grief. You could make this into a kind of pattern: relapsing into despair, dull waiting and then as they receive fresh news, or witness something else that breaks through the apathy, a return to raw grief.
Try exploring the apathetic state first. How do people in this state walk? Feed themselves? Dress themselves? Wash? How much of this, indeed, can they even be bothered with?

Dymphna Callery, in her book Through the Body reports how a group of her students came up with the movement for famine victims in a production of Perifcles. They balanced bamboo canes on their heads, the front ends facing forwards. [These canes need to be a minimum of 7° by the way.] With the eyes focused on the tip of their cane, the students in a group must walk from one end of a long room to another. To keep the cane perfectly still requires a strange super-slow very smooth action, rolling the foot from heel to toe and barely lifting it from the floor - a movement of ultimate economy, in fact. As soon as the students have completed the length of the room, have them remove the canes from their heads and, whilst the body still retains the memory of the movement, repeat the movement, minus the canes, back along the length of the room.

It is a good idea actually to split your group in half for this, one half observing the other to watch the effect of this movement. It is extra-ordinary. It is a movement involving the minimum amount of energy, painfully slow.
One to file away as a possibility - perhaps to bring on the chorus the first time - or to end the play as they leave for the Greek ships, or both.

3. Having tried out this movement, try out other apathetic ways of walking, sitting, eating. Do this solo first.

4. Then work in pairs or small groups. Help each other; support each other; have one member in each small group [maximum three]or pair who is a comforter, a soother, who finds her own comfort in helping others. Explore the shapes of `soothing' of comfort - rounded movements of the arms, the neck, the head; curved shapes of the body; long, slow caresses.
Now try the shapes of those who cannot be comforted, who are sunk in despair: head rolling - mouths open - hands, arms shielding heads - hands pushing away memories of horror.
Do both of these last exercises in extreme slow motion, to deconstruct the movements.
Spend a little time on just the faces of both comforters and despairers.

5. Now add sound to the above. Since we are working in extreme slow motion at the moment, try drawing the sounds out in slow motion too. Explore as many sounds as you can create along the lines of: sighing, sobbing, weeping, wailing.Add these, as appropriate to the small group l pair work done above. Are the sounds of sympathy different? Try overlaying the long-drawn-out sounds of despair with the quiet cooing sounds associated with sympathy and listen to the effect.

6. What happens to people in this situation who have somebody to care for? What if you have a child, a younger sister, a mother, a sick relative to care for? Does this give you a reason for carrying on? Is this another way of alleviating your own despair?

Add to the work above a number of people who have children. Perhaps some of the soothers are looking after a relative. Give each person a character now, and a relationship with their partner or with another member
of their small group. Some people will still be alone, having lost everyone, but everyone will now know each other - as friends, neighbours, relatives - whatever. Some will have babes in arms.
Now go back to your original still tableaux, altering them to accommodate the relationships decided upon. What difference does this make?
Revisit some of the other work you have done - ways of moving, walking and so on - with these new relationships and `characters'. How will this alter the previous work?

7. Create improvisations to further the work above. The improvisations are set in the refugee camp, where everyone is waiting news of what will happen to them next. Keep the characters you have just decided upon, and the relationships. Work in groups - slightly larger than so far. Explore the limitations of different parts of a day: food set down for them - is it sufficient? Do quarrels break out or are people [it is early days] good about sharing? Do mothers keep up the strength of their children by sacrificing their own portions? and so on. How is the time passed otherwise? By remembering good times? By theorising about the future? Remember you could be sent anywhere in Greece; you may not be kept with your loved ones; there may be further griefs in store.

High or low status, the refugee camp affects everyone. These exercises will help you with work on the Chorus of women as well as with work on the high-born. They have suffered and are suffering the same fate.

At some point you will need to make a decision about how to present the Chorus. Do you go for a unified `Physical Theatre' approach, where the focus of the chorus movements is on a more condensed expression of grief observed, the effects of shock shown in single powerful repeated movements, say. Or are you going to go for a Chorus of `real' people? Individuals with different ages and different backgrounds? Your decision will affect the whole style of what you do. As we work through the play, I will try to give exercises that cover both ends of the spectrum.
If I were doing the piece, I think I would end up with a mixture of the two. There are times when the focus of attention needs to be more on, say, Hecuba, where unified movements from the Chorus might be appropriate; other times, where setting the scene more realistically for an audience might be effective, and where the Chorus as a set of individuals might be more appropriate. I don't feel one style precludes the other, though to go too far down the naturalistic route might make physical theatre unified expressions of , say, grief, look rather odd. Keeping in the middle, where suggestions of relationships, babes in arms etc. can be given, but are still expressions of the universal plight of the dispossessed, can allow both more naturalistic groupings at times and physical theatre expressions of certain moments at other times.

All the way through the play there are decisions to be made and directorial slants that could be taken. These angles affect the interpretation of characters throughout, certain moments or speeches, as well as the possibility of using the whole play as a vehicle for a particular message. The potential angles I shall try to suggest and explore throughout. The uses of the play as a whole to convey messages I will deal with in the final section on the play as a whole.

WORKING THROUGH THE TEXT IN A PRACTICAL WAY

In the following pages you will find a welter of suggestions, often contradictory, in an attempt to cover a number of approaches and angles. Students need to experiment to find their own way and this work will I hope open up a number of ideas for them. Gradually, they will start to see ways of presenting the play in a modern context that illuminates either the past or the present state of the world.

THE OPENING STAGE DIRECTIONS

There are a number of ways in which the play could begin. Let us start with the setting, which will be the same throughout the whole play and must therefore give enough interest to sustain an audience.
In the background are the walls and main gates of Troy. These can be already partly demolished, though there must be enough left to accomplish the final destruction written into the end of the play. A suggestion of its grandeur needs to still be there; perhaps the two towers either side of the gate are mostly intact. Elsewhere, large blocks of wall could be littering the stage, splintered planks of wood, broken statuary, piles of rubble. This gives plenty of opportunity for levels. It will also involve decisions, once you have started deciding on what you want to convey through the medium of the play.
Is this play going to be an indictment of all war? Is it going to be specifically this Trojan War? Is it going to be set in Iraq? Israel I Palestine? The debris you litter the stage with will alter, of course, according to your decision. There could be sandbags, part of a blown-up tank, etc. if you are setting it in a modern time. Or you could make the message clearer still, with definite Americanisms, such as a tattered flag planted amongst the debris. This is the first message which the audience will receive so a lot of decisions here.
Amongst this debris are set the tents of the women's camp. They are captives, so the area needs to be fenced - barbed wire or whatever. Whatever the period, the tents should have that makeshift look familiar to us from so many photographs and video footage of modern areas in war zones - or in the aftermath of earthquakes and tsunamis. Pieces of cloth, draped over debris pulled together to form rough shelters_ To one side, clearly different from the start could be the `royal' tent, in the shelter of which the four main women take some rest. Perhaps rich fabrics - these women's own clothes - have been used to create this tent. Perhaps you'd rather differentiate this main tent by size alone, making it blacker, with the others in a variety of greys, so as not to spoil the uniformity of colour of the whole design. Perhaps you will want to create, even further off maybe, disappearing into the wings, a suggestion of another tent still. In this scenario, the royal women cannot bear to share with Helen, and she has had to establish her own shelter away from everyone else. This could have as part of its `design' a blood-red cloth - or stark white - [depending on whether you are going for her guilt or her innocence.] So many decisions to make - some of which you will not be able to decide until the end of the play. I put them down here - but revisit the set at the end.

1. For the moment, stick to the `war in general' idea, leaving your `particular message' ideas till later. Using such things as you can find littered around your own studio or drama room, create a debris filled landscape, a suggestion of tottering structures in the background. Make sure there is plenty of room at the front for action. Amongst the debris, make a few shelters, using the debris, pieces of cloth lying around or pieces of your own clothing. Decide which shelters will represent where Andromache and her child will be, with Cassandra. Where Helen will be - separate or not.
This is fun! Much like playing houses as a child. Once they have created something of a set, ask them to stand back from it and check it out for space and use-ability. Make any adjustments necessary and then record the decisions onto paper. This `model' will be used to work with until the time comes to refine and make those final decisions, only possible with an intimate understanding of the play. I am not suggesting that they make this set every time they do any practical work - but if they have a large groundplan of their decisions, they could at least be aware of it. Perhaps they could make the rough shelters each time, if practical.

2. The next decision is about how to bring on the cast. Are they all going to be on from the beginning? Does the light come up on the camp and groups of silent or quietly mourning refugees, perhaps aided by drifts of smoke from a smoke machine, like ash across the stage?
Or, since it is such a short play, would you want to set the scene more clearly by showing the cluster of dispossed women pushed and shouted on, amidst abuse and wailing, in the brutal and mocking hands of the male victors? Do some of the women get manhandled by the men - is there potential for suggestions of their helplessness against rape and abuse of all kinds? This would be so for the women of low status, not the royal family. Once left alone in their temporary home, we could see them set up shelters, establish their places. Some of the work we did as preliminary exercises could be used here.
This latter would allow a more intimate understanding of their trials and allow an audience to see the chorus as human beings. The former might be more appropriate for a clearer focus on just the great ones of the piece.

If possible, try both openings.

3. Whatever opening you decide, the sounds settle into a background of near silence, punctuated perhaps by the odd sigh, groan or sudden burst of weeping, quickly soothed by another. Try this soundscape out.
Could this be carried through the first part of Poseidon's speech, to remind us of their presence, their continual suffering?

'Hecuba lies on the ground.' Unless you have a playing space with raked seating down to an arena style stage, as the Greeks had, Hecuba laying on the ground [from where she is supposed to address her first speeches too] is not very practical. She could be raised somewhat, lying on some debris perhaps.

POSEIDON AND ATHENA

The first paragraph of Poseidon's speech mainly uses him as a narrator. We are told that Poseidon, because he had a hand in building the city, has been on the Trojan side, whilst Athena has been on the side of the Greeks. He reminds the audience of the wooden horse and how Troy fell by this trick. He tells us that we are now at that moment when the Greeks are loading up their ships with the spoil they have won, preparatory to returning home.
The second paragraph tells us that he is now abandoning Troy because people in times of defeat neglect to honour the gods as they ought. Then he goes back to narration mode: relating how the women, like the other spoils of war, are being
divided up amongst the conquerors. Most have already been allocated a master and will be scattered all over Greece; only the higher borne women have yet to learn of their fate. This brings us right up to the `present' place and time - clearly telling the audience where we are, at what precise moment, and who are in these tents.
Still narrating, Poseidon points Hecuba out, as she lies grieving. He tells us that another daughter of hers, Polyxena, has been killed as a sacrifice on the tomb of the Greek hero Achilles; Hecuba, he says, does not yet know of this. Moving forward in
time, he tells how Cassandra will be raped by Agamemnon, despite being a virgin sacred to the god Apollo himself.
The speech finishes with the statement that Troy would still be standing if powerful Athena had not been on the side of the Greeks.

1. Hidden within this speech, there are many clues as to attitude and tone. Look carefully first at each of these lines:
'I am Poseidon.'
Try saying this:
very slowly and with great dignity
aggressively, as if to an audience full of enemies - Greeks perhaps.
coldly
friendly and warm
'The sacred groves are desolate and the sanctuaries of the gods are awash with blood.'

Try saying this:
coldly, with little emotion
emotionally, full of pity with anger
indignantly - this is as if someone has levelled a personal insult at you.
'And Priam has fallen in death near the steps below the altar of Zeus the Protector of the Hearth.'

Try saying this:
angrily
bitterly - Zeus should have protected him - why didn't he?
with little real emotion - but with a note of irony `How ironic and mildly interesting that he should die in his own home, where Zeus should most have protected him.'

`They are waiting for a fair wind to blow ... so that after ten long years they can have the joy of looking upon their wives and children - the Greeks who made war upon this city.'

Try this:
with a heart full of anger and hatred of the Greeks
bitterly - stressing words such as `they' to emphasise the contrast between the Greeks who can return to their families and the Trojans who have lost their loved ones.
coldly and factually
`I am abandoning famous Ilium...'

Say this:
matter-of-factly - little emotion, just stating facts aggrieved - he is taking the whole thing very personally with enormous sorrow and regret