Playwright: Glyn Maxwell
Genre: Dark comedy
Era: Contemporary
Setting: A cave and its surroundings
"After Troy" was made from fragments of two Greek tragedies: "Hecuba" and "The Trojan Women".
Troy is in ruins. Its men are dead. Its women are captives and the victorious Greeks are camped in the ashes preparing to sail home. We find, among others, four quarrelling women drawn together by grief and four exhausted soldiers who hate each other's guts.
The play has four male characters and four female characters. The female characters are Cassandra (Hecuba's older daughter), Hecuba (Queen of Troy), Polyxena (Hecuba's daughter, who is in love) and Andromache (Hecuba's daughter-in-law). The male characters are Kratos, Talthybius (a compassionate scribe), Agamemnon and Mestor.
As "After Troy" is based around a war, this play can easily be set in the modern day (as there are wars still happening today). The bottom photograph is from a University showcase in California. Judging by the motorbikes in the background, I assume this version is a modern adaption of the play. By looking through pictures online, it has opened my eyes as to how we can perform this play - we do not have to perform it wearing togas!
