The Women of Troy
It's been forever since I've posted anything anywhere to be completely honest. Work, school, life has basically over taken me and kicked me in the ass. I'm getting close to opening my second show at Purdue and I'm absolutely terrified. This has been and continues to be the most difficult, thought provoking, painful, exciting, intimidating, vomit inducing show I've ever had the pleasure (I guess you could say that) to be a part of. This is the sort of theatre that I feel like I want, no need to do in my career. The theatre that shoves what it's saying in the audiences faces. The good, the bad, and the incredibly ugly, all laid out to pull up strong emotional responses, and make people question what they're seeing.
The story itself is rather simple. This is the story of what happens to the female inhabitants of Troy after Athena helps the Greeks to build the Trojan Horse, conquer Troy, and end the war. This is not a happy tale. The men and young boys are slaughtered so there can be no revenge. The important women, Hecuba the queen, and her daughters are given as slaves to the important warriors. The rest are distributed by lot to other less important soliders. These women will become common house slaves if they're lucky...if not...concubines for the soldiers until they are too old or the soldiers get bored. The women are imprisoned after having being raped repeatedly by many soldiers, and live in constant fear of another rape. Everytime the door to the prison opens fear consumes them, until they hear the terrible news that enters in the form of Talthybius, messenger for the Greeks, which sink them further and further into despair until there is nothing left but to give up, abandon everything they know, and leave resigned to their fate for the Greek ships. The show is physically, emotionally, and mentally draining and leaves a sour feeling in my stomach whenever I think about it. My only hope is that we do this show as it deserves to be done. To make the audience truly feel for the victims on the other side of a war, to question what happens, and feel compelled to do something to stop these things happening to women in our own time in other parts of the world. Things that happen every day and are happening right now.
The story itself is rather simple. This is the story of what happens to the female inhabitants of Troy after Athena helps the Greeks to build the Trojan Horse, conquer Troy, and end the war. This is not a happy tale. The men and young boys are slaughtered so there can be no revenge. The important women, Hecuba the queen, and her daughters are given as slaves to the important warriors. The rest are distributed by lot to other less important soliders. These women will become common house slaves if they're lucky...if not...concubines for the soldiers until they are too old or the soldiers get bored. The women are imprisoned after having being raped repeatedly by many soldiers, and live in constant fear of another rape. Everytime the door to the prison opens fear consumes them, until they hear the terrible news that enters in the form of Talthybius, messenger for the Greeks, which sink them further and further into despair until there is nothing left but to give up, abandon everything they know, and leave resigned to their fate for the Greek ships. The show is physically, emotionally, and mentally draining and leaves a sour feeling in my stomach whenever I think about it. My only hope is that we do this show as it deserves to be done. To make the audience truly feel for the victims on the other side of a war, to question what happens, and feel compelled to do something to stop these things happening to women in our own time in other parts of the world. Things that happen every day and are happening right now.