THE HECABE PROJECT
Euripides wrote Hecabe in around 424BC. The play features typical elements of Greek tragedy: a formal prologue, a rhetorical debate, a messenger-speech, a chorus that has a stake in the action. It tests the irresolvable balance between the diktats of fate and the consequences of personal actions.
It opens with the appearance as a ghost of Hecabe's murdered son, moves to the sacrifice of her daughter to appease the ghost of the ruling power's warlord, then focuses on Hecabe's grief at the violent loss of her children. It features a chorus of enslaved women, a debate about the rights and wrongs of trust and retribution and concludes with a brutal revenge on the murderer of Hecabe's son. Plays come in and out of resonance. This seems a most powerful play for our moment.
We are interested in exploring ways of adapting characteristics of Greek tragedy by way of contemporary technology. Greek tragic theatre used three actors in masks and a chorus of around 15 singer-dancers, in a riff between public statements and private emotions. We would like to explore the use of a large chorus, a virtual environment (continual presence) and contemporary ways of 'doubling' (perhaps through video/sonic interfaces).
We're particularly interested in exploring telematic performance - where a performer or group of performers in one location is linked to one or more groups elsewhere by way of live video feeds through the Internet, to create an event in simultaneous time. This may suggest nice solutions for the two ghosts of the piece, or perhaps for the chorus.
We want to translate sticomythia (one-line exchanges) and iambics and trochaics so that the verse has contemporary resonance without losing its poetic immediacy. We are also interested in exploring the audience's spatial relationship to the piece. The amphitheatre at Epidaurus was great for the public theatre of ancient Greece. What is the best viewing configuration for contemporary tragedy, where the private-made-public is more readily played out on the television screen?