Trojan Women
Zimmerman originally planned to use her slot in the Goodman’s small Owen Theatre to remount (for the fourth time) The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci. Her decision to substitute Seneca is a good one. For one thing the play isn’t nearly as well known as Euripides’ tragedy of the same name, and though Seneca greatly influenced many Elizabethan playwrights, his work is seldom performed. But the academic interest of the play–translated here by David Slavitt, who also translated Ovid’s Metamorphoses for Zimmerman’s Tony-winning production last year–is superseded by its resonance with current events. As the war on Iraq seemingly winds down, leaving piles of rubble and unknown numbers of dead Iraqi civilians and soldiers, Zimmerman provides a bold, heartbreaking take on the aftermath of war–the fate of the widowed and enslaved women of Troy.
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For the Trojans, religious faith has become a cheat and a lie. The three women in the chorus (Laura T. Fisher, Amy Warren, and Cheryl Lynn Bruce) speak of the afterlife in terms of utter void. “Where will you be when you are dead? Where the unborn are.” The achievements of a human life are compared to a smudge of smoke, a dispersing cloud. This somber meditation conveys the ravages of chaos and the unspeakable grief of outliving all that makes life worthwhile. Even the grim solace of one another’s company–a solace underscored by Zimmerman’s decision to keep the women of Troy together onstage practically throughout the play’s 85 minutes–is denied them in the end, when the women are parceled out as slaves to the Greeks.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Liz Lauren.
