Women flee from violence in a story written and staged 2,500 years ago
And now for something completely different. A group of women fleeing male aggression look for refuge across a foreign border.
Although this sounds like a current news story, Aeschylus wrote and staged The Suppliant Women nearly 2,500 years ago. It hasn’t been quite that long since a classical Greek play was performed in Vancouver outside a university, but it’s been a while.
The entire pre-modern repertory beyond Shakespeare has been scarce in our theatres. Stepping in where others fear to tread, feisty semi-professional United Players staged 18th-century in each of its previous two seasons. This choice is even bolder.
Though Aeschylus was one of the three great Greek tragedians, his Suppliant Women is a lesser work and not technically a tragedy. Yet its recent revival in the U.K. has been acclaimed by The Guardian as “an epic, feminist protest song.”
Except for CS Fergusson-Vaux’s handsomely stylized modern costumes — wedding dresses for the women, suits and ties for some of the men — Adam Henderson’s production feels a little like an academic re-creation. It refuses to call attention to contemporary parallels but they make themselves felt anyway.
John R. Taylor’s set cleverly approximates an ancient Athenian amphitheatre as the female chorus in Kimira Bhikum’s masks chant and sing their dialogue, moving formally around the stage. Eleven actresses represent the 50 daughters of Danaus (Douglas Abel), fleeing from Egypt to Argos to escape their 50 male cousins.
Seeking safety from the “rabid dogs, maddened by lust,” who “would marry their cousins against all law,” they implore Argos’ King Pelasgus (Jeremy Burtenshaw) to grant them sanctuary: “Recognize rape when you hear of it. Stand up for justice!”
Afraid that protecting the women will bring war with Egypt, Pelasgus puts the matter to a vote of his people. When the Egyptian Herald (Isidro Rodriguez) and his warriors come to drag the terrified women back to their lustful cousins, he and Pelasgus butt heads, bellowing like bulls at mating time.
And when the men of Argos come sniffing around the women, talking about fertility and “the dark earth yearning for penetration,” the women’s cry to Zeus for “ownership over our lives, equal power” becomes even more acute.
In this adaptation of George Theodoridis translation by Henderson and playwright Sally Clark (who also performs in the chorus), the women direct many prayers to their grandmother Io, a mortal woman loved and raped by Zeus.
Lacking the dramatic intensity and masterful characters of the great tragedies, The Suppliant Women relies heavily on the massed voice of the chorus. Henderson distributes the dialogue, sometimes accompanied by Tim Gerwing ’s sophisticated musical compositions, but the vocal work is uneven.
Still, there are moments when the haunting footsteps of Central American migrants marching towards the U.S. echo through the millennia.