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Melita Jurisic and Robin Nevin in Women of Troy ... confronting, unsettling, and disturbing.

Women of Troy

(Sydney Theatre Company, Walsh Bay, Sydney, until 26 October)

Euripides’ tragedy, The Women of Troy, is set in the aftermath of a battle of annihilation motivated by revenge, and deals with the horrendous outcomes of war for the women and children of the losing side. This Sydney Theatre Company production, directed by Barrie Kosky, is confronting, unsettling, and disturbing — just as it should be for such a subject.

The stage is bare, the backdrop hard — industrial, metal, unrelenting. Same as the drama.

Hecuba the Queen (Robin Nevin), her daughter Cassandra, daughter-in-law Andromache, semi-goddess the divine Helen (all three played by Melita Jurisic), and the women of Troy (Natalie Gamsu, Queenie Van de Zandt, and Jennifer Vuletic) have already suffered by the time the play begins.

Their city has been rapaciously plundered, their men have been brutally slaughtered, they have been used like animals. They are bloody, bruised, and stripped to their underwear. They are humiliated and demeaned by the victors and the guards, who wear dehumanising pig-like facial masks as the torture continues. Things are grim.

There is no hope for them, yet they retain a dignity — that of the human spirit. It comes through in the disconsolate singing of the women, the keening harmonies that buoy them, shape their resilience, and keep them somehow sane.

It is also seen when, despite all threats and in the surety of more pain and/or death, the women seek to protect the boy Astyanax (Narek Armaganian), Hecuba’s grandson, from the guards. They know where he is being taken and why but their maternal instinct – their humanity – prevails, regardless of personal fear and desperation.

The audience is held captive, the result of outstanding performances by all the cast. The dramatic portrayal of Cassandra by Melita Jurisic — her abuse and her madness — is especially memorable.

Images of black-shrouded Palestinian widows wailing at coffin-sides, mothers and daughters of Srebrenican genocide victims, Abu Ghraib prisoners, Holocaust survivors and other memories of human misery caused by the folly of war edge into mind. 

More people should go to see this play — especially any who think the savagery of war could possibly be a solution for anything at all.