From the bombed-out gray concrete set to the shaved heads of the female chorus and their ululating cries, the production of Euripides' "The Trojan Women" at Washington's Shakespeare Theatre is theater at its most brutal and raw.
Riveting and terrifying at the same time, director JoAnne Akalaitis' interpretation of this prototypical anti-war play is the stuff of nightmares -- and that's a major compliment.
The director has actually found a way to take the play's most harrowing scene and make it even more so. The scene is the one in which Andromache (Socorro Santiago) is ordered to hand over her young son, Astyanax, to be slaughtered.
Akalaitis has Astyanax played by a beautiful 7-year-old boy, Garrett Martin Schiponi, wearing a child's sailor suit. When the moment comes for him to be turned over to the soldiers -- who are dressed in modern riot gear -- Schiponi breaks free. A frightening melee ensues, culminating in a chilling tableau in which a half-dozen soldiers hold him over their heads while the chorus members cower on the floor, their arms futilely reaching for the doomed child.
But it isn't just terror that Akalaitis has mastered. She also adeptly conveys changes in tone, the clearest example of which is the considerably lighter feel of the trial of Helen, presided over by her husband, Jonathan Fried's weak-willed Menelaus.
In contrast to the stark prison garb worn by the chorus, or even the luxurious but dark garments of the royal Trojan captives, costume designer Doey Luthi dresses Elizabeth Long's Helen in a sexy, red cocktail suit and black high heels.
Selfish and determined to blame everyone but herself, Long's Helen would be right at home among the superficial socialites in Clare Boothe Luce's "The Women." She is the polar opposite of her prosecutor, Hecuba. Petronia Paley's ardent, majestic portrayal of this imprisoned Trojan queen is the compelling linchpin of the production.
The language in the trial scene exemplifies the clarity and tautness of D. Nicholas Rudall's new translation, which is receiving its world premiere. Rudall's words receive their full due from Akalaitis' six-woman chorus. Under the tutelage of voice coach Kate Wilson, the chorus members speak with crispness and precision, and they bring the same discipline to composer Lisa Bielawa's haunting music and choreographer Dana Tai Soon Burgess' synchronized movement.
The sole weak spot is the production's opening scene. The exposition-laden preface, delivered by the gods Poseidon and Athena, is awkward under the best of circumstances, but Jack Willis' mincing portrayal of Poseidon makes this powerful deity seem far from the "shaker of the earth" he claims to be.
"The Trojan Women" is the Shakespeare Theatre's first Greek tragedy, and it's a gut-wrenching success, mining the play's emotional as well as political content. It doesn't take designer Paul Steinberg's harsh updated sets or Luthi's costumes for Euripides' indictment of the horrors of war and genocide to seem ripped out of today's headlines; this production makes that comparison as inescapable as it is ghastly.
'The Trojan Women'
Where: Shakespeare Theatre, 450 7th St., N.W., Washington
When: 7: 30 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Sundays; 8 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays; matinees at 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, noon May 5 and 6. Through May 8
Tickets: $14-$56
Call: 202-547-1122
Pub Date: 3/31/99