AustLit

'Troy is in ruin. The men, slaughtered. The women, prisoners, recoil behind wire, fearing their fate, longing for death. Memories and prophecies haunt their Queen, Hecuba: hallucinogenic visions of her daughter Cassandra; her grieving daughter-in-law Andromache, and the one mighty woman behind the whole bloody catastrophe, Helen.

'Euripides’ timeless play is a brutal tale of Athens’ invasion and enslavement of the people of Melos. In a radical twist for Western theatre it was told not from the perspective of the conquerors, but that of the survivors. Giving voice to the vanquished was a revolution: seizing centre stage from Gods, heroes and Royalty, and claiming it for the displaced.

'Archipelago’s fierce new production of Women of Troy, adapted by Tom Wright and Barrie Kosky, with a stellar cast that includes Sarah Peirse, Jane Johnson, Marta Dusseldorp, Angela Mahlatjie and Guy Hooper, directed by Ben Winspear and features a new score by Katie Noonan, libretto by Behrouz Boochani, and community chorus of women and children led by Amanda Hodder.

'With displaced people now at record numbers globally, Women of Troy interrogates what we have learned and lost and how, in war, it is the women and children who suffer the most.' (Production summary)

'The Lost Echo' is based on the mythological stories in Ovid's Metamorphoses. It is 'a kaleidoscope of music, text, dance, and image using the music of Cole Porter, John Dowland and Franz Schubert.'

The twelve stories told are those of :
1. Phaethon: A boy whose search for his father leads him to incineration.
2. Callisto: A virgin girl who is seduced by a god, changed into a bear and transformed into a star.
3. Actaeon: A boy who is transformed into a stag as punishment for voyeurism and is eventually ripped apart by his own dogs.
4. Mestra: A girl whose father eats himself to death.
5. Myrrha: A girl whose incestuous lust for her father leads her to misery and transformation into a tree
6. Arachne: A girl whose pride, arrogance and insight leads her to be changed into a spider
7. Salmacis: A woman whose obsession for a younger man leads them both to be transformed into water.
8. Philomela: A girl who enacts devastating revenge on her rapist by feeding him his own child.
9. Semele: A girl who sleeps with a god and is obliterated by the gods.
10. Pentheus: A boy whose inner torment results in him being ripped into pieces by his own mother.
11. Narcissus and Echo :A boy who falls in love with his own reflection and a girl who vanishes into her own voice.
12. Orpheus and Euridice: A man who loses the woman he loves - twice.