‘The Trojan Women’ addresses atrocities of war then and now

Screaming. Chaos. Darkness.

Brutalization and enslavement of women, pounding their fists into the dirt at center stage, wailing, gasping to breathe as heaving sobs leave their bodies quivering.

Nope. Not a musical.

"Don't call any women happy," declares Hecuba, Queen of Troy, "until the day they die."

Short of prescribing sedatives and triple-dose Prozac, there's little anyone can do to alleviate the suffering of these women of Greek mythology, their tragedy the awful aftermath of war inflicted by cruel occupiers in Euripides' "The Trojan Women."

The intense drama will be staged by Nevada Conservatory Theatre at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Cheer down, everybody.

"I'm fine if the audience sits in that," says director Rayme Cornell about the hybrid ancient/contemporary treatment of the classic with thematic tentacles that echo through 9/11 and into America's engagements in Afghanistan and, perhaps, Libya. "There are people over there who are uncomfortable every single day. But we're desensitized because it's not here."

Produced during the Peloponnesian War in 415 B.C., "Trojan Women" takes us to a war between Troy and Sparta and the fate of Troy's women after their city is destroyed, their husbands are killed, what's left of their families are about to be taken as slaves and they are forced into becoming their captors' concubines.

"You're going to your master's bed," Queen Hecuba tells them. "Beaten if you get pregnant, you'll have the occasional bastard. Remember that they are the animals, not you."

Using a wide dirt pit, Cornell re-creates the beach where the women await ships to transport them to slavery, to be parceled out to their occupiers. Designed as theater-in-the-round (audience on all sides), it's surrounded by panels of chain-link fencing to create the sense of imprisonment.

"The physical set I wanted to be traditionally Greek in its simplicity," Cornell says.

Multiple versions of the play have taken liberties to contemporize it -- one, Charles Mee's "The Trojan Women 2.0," incorporated interviews with Holocaust/Hiroshima survivors for the women's soliloquies.

Translated by Marianne McDonald, this interpretation retains the ancient Greek framework and mythological characters -- among them, Hecuba, her daughter, Cassandra (possessing the gift/curse of prophecy, she tried to warn everyone that soldiers lurked in that enormous horse), conflicted soldier/bearer of bad news Talthybius, narrator Poseidon and the legendary Helen of Troy -- but laces it with modern connections, such as Hecuba sarcastically referring to high TV ratings for war coverage.

"(McDonald), she's a pioneer in Greek mythology and she wrote this in 2000, almost a year before 9/11, which was foreshadowing and a little eerie," Cornell says. "We've been at war for 10 years and this is about the casualties of what war is. I thought this version was a little bit more than a traditional classical version."

Searing screams and the whirring of helicopters open the play in blackout conditions, women cowering in fear, one clutching her little daughter in a wordless, powerful sequence accompanied by the music of ... Jay-Z.

"I don't know if people get it, but I think hip-hop is epic," Cornell says. "And within the last 10 years, hard-core rap has infused a lyrical part of the music, there's a woman's voice that softened it, and for me that was a metaphor."

Women's suffering at the hands of men suffuses this play. As Hecuba puts it: "Once my life had been my own. Now I am someone else's property. ... Men decide they want something so they attack. Any excuse will do."

Brutal as they are, the soldiers are also afforded a measure of conscience and doubt, such as when Talthybius remarks: "I try not to question our leaders, they know best. ... For national security, this war is worth it. But I wonder if it's worth my nightmares."

Actors often employ personal experiences and memories to fuel their performances, but they are usually tangential to a play's specific plot. However, Melissa Ritz's Hecuba is partially crafted out of a more direct experience -- the actress spent a year in Turkey while serving in the Air Force.

"I can bring that experience with me," Ritz says. "I know how the women hold themselves, the way they pray. I never saw battle, but I also saw a lot of GIs coming back, so I identify with that kind of loss. Doing research, I also found international news channels that interviewed women."

Portraying Hecuba, Ritz adds, is a challenge given that she has to embody both strength and suffering. "Hecuba is such a great character because she's trying to give hope to her people but she's also lost her family and she's affected also -- she's going to have to break down too," Ritz says, noting that "The Trojan Women," ancient as it is, remains timely for 21st-century America at war.

"You get desensitized watching it on TV. We've been at war almost 10 years now and people forget. This should show you, behind the camera lens, what it's like for women who do survive," Ritz says. "This should jolt you awake."

Prepare for screams in the darkness.

And a tap on the conscience.

Contact reporter Steve Bornfeld at sbornfeld@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0256.