Hecuba by Marina Carr
Swan Theatre, 19th
September 2015
Hecuba had
18 children. She wasn’t reduced by this;
in fact her power as Queen of Troy was much enhanced by being the matriarch of
a swelling dynasty. I think about this
as I wedge my belly into my high seat in the gallery. It’s comfortable enough if I don’t move. But unfortunately I have left my phone
switched on in my handbag on the floor below my dangling feet. I flip up my seat and climb onto the bars in
front and wonder how to get down to my bag without putting my head in the lap
of the lady next to me. I manage to hook
it up to me with my foot somehow but then, when I try and pull down my seat to
sit on again, I do actually get wedged.
My mother shoves and pulls a bit and I am soon winched back up onto my
seat. Where I must remain for an hour
and fifty minutes because there is to be no interval in this performance. I think this is a modern parable about being
pregnant. I am a modern day Euripides!
The action
begins. Or rather, Hecuba, seated in her
throne, the only piece of scenery on the stage throughout, begins to recount
her version of events. This is how the
play is structured throughout. Even
though characters are on stage together, they are all recounting what happened
as if separated by their own ‘stories’.
You might think the constant “he said”/”she said” would become annoying
but in fact it gives a wonderful restraint to the play which could so quickly
become an unfathomable blood bath. Only
in certain scenes do we seem to catch up with the drama and the recounting is
replaced with direct drama, as when Polyxena is sacrificed.
The drama of
this scene is almost overwhelming. Carr’s
script ensures that we understand the awfulness of Hecuba’s torture; she can
endure but only just. Over and over she
asks how she can be living through such brutality and inhumanity. Although death has existed from the moment
the play opened, Polyxena is the first character to die on stage. Agamemnon has to slit her throat twice and
still she doesn’t die. We are told she
is finished off by a final stab into the heart.
It’s unbearable to watch. Carr’s
great challenge in re-working Euripides’ drama was to make a shocking and
blood-thirsty play both shocking and blood-thirsty. It is all too easy for audiences to switch
off their emotions when assaulted with so much carnage and brutality,
especially in an age where our contemporary dramas are comparatively so subtle. Carr ensures that her play is relevant
throughout. Little Polydorus, played by
the beguiling Luca Saraceni-Gunner, whose end is near tells Agamemnon that killing
for the sake of killing is inhumane; even animals don’t do that. And Hecuba herself states that this is not
war, for war has rules; they are trying to wipe us out, this is genocide. Contemporary echoes cannot be ignored. By the end, everyone is mad and blind to the
point of any of it. The throne gets dragged
round the stage, no one sure whose its rightful owner is.
The Greeks are played by black actors. This contrast of white women versus black men is tribal and effective. As their king, Ray Fearon as Agamemnon, is incredibly powerful. His
voice is
rich and authoritative but Derbhle Crotty and her Irish venom is an ample match
for him. Their repartee is compelling
and sexually charged. In fact, I can’t
tell you how good it is. If Carr’s
script gives words an extraordinary power then Erica Whyman, as director, has
had unbelievable vision in bringing these actors together in the way she does. Who would think that a subtle black humour
could work in such a play? And yet, with
madness comes laughter. The relief for
the audience in those moments of humour was palpable; a light shone in the
darkness. When Agamemnon has been forced
to sacrifice Polyxena in order to appease his men, who believe that a sacrifice
will bring them the wind they need to sail home, he looks to the sky and notes
in exasperation, “of course there is no fucking wind!”
At the end
of the play Polymestor stumbles on stage and tells Hecuba how a gang of
Agamemnon’s men has gouged out his eyes and killed his two young sons. Of course, in Euripides’ version, it is
Hecuba herself who is responsible for these atrocities in revenge for
Polymestor’s part in Polydorus’s murder.
Carr is quite right to give an alternative view. Euripides wrote his drama some 700 years
after the fall of Troy. It seems certain
that someone like Hecuba existed but the rest is myth. I am happy to have been introduced to this
particular Greek classic through a twentieth century lens. Authenticity is not lost; arguably, it is
gained.
