The Play

Ellen McLaughlin’s adaptation of Euripides's play follows the fates of the women of Troy after the city has been sacked, and their husbands and most of their families have been killed. Near the seashore they wait to board the Greek ships that will take them away to slavery. They lament the loss of “the most beautiful city in the world,” which reared them and where they lived. Hecuba, who has had to witness the destruction of her beloved Troy, and the death of her husband, her children and her grandchildren, will be taken to Greece as a slave to Odysseus.

Hecuba’s daughter Cassandra, who can see the future, arrives; she sees that on her arrival in Argos with her new master Agamemnon, his embittered wife Clytemnestra will kill both her and him.

When Helen appears, a fierce argument with Hecuba turns violent, when Hecuba incites the women to take their revenge on her: “Take her and defile her!”

The widowed princess Andromache arrives; her lot is to be the concubine of the son of Achilles, the son of the man who killed her husband Hector in battle. More horrible news for the royal family is yet to come: Talthybius and another Greek soldier reluctantly inform Andromache that the Greek council has decreed that her son must die. The Greek leaders are afraid that the boy will grow up to avenge his father Hector, and therefore have resolved to throw him to his death from the battlements of Troy.

In the end, the Greek soldiers return, carrying with him the dead boy. Hecuba and the women prepare his body for burial before they finally have to leave for the ships.

(adapted from Wikipedia)

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