LIMINAL SPACES | Women of Troy
Posted 6 March 2023
LIMINAL Spaces' latest design collaboration, Women of Troy, opens 8 March.
Euripides’ timeless play (adapted by Tom Wright) is a brutal tale of Athens’ invasion and enslavement of the people of Melos. Troy is in ruin. The men slaughtered. The women, prisoners, recoil behind wire fearing their fate and longing for death. In a radical twist for Western theatre it was told not from the perspective of the conquerors, but that of the survivors. Giving voice to the vanquished was a revolution: seizing centre stage from Gods, heroes and Royalty and claiming it for the displaced.
With displaced people now at record numbers globally, Women of Troy interrogates what we have learned and lost and how, in war, it is the women and children who suffer the most. It is the 2500-year-old play that we need right now.
LIMINAL Spaces' design process began, as always, in conversation with the director and creative team to tease out approaches, themes, visual transitions and mapping the emotional experience intended for the audience. LIMINAL Spaces' design provides a visual language for these themes, amplifying a sense of entrapment, oppression and containment.
For LIMINAL, the intent is to distil meaning through the use of minimal forms, while creating multilayered, manipulable design elements that can support and heighten the theatrical experience. We encourage creative interaction in the development of the work from both the Artistic Director and the performers. We are always asking, what is the most minimalist physical form that can heighten the emotional landscape of the themes being explored.
Archipelago’s latest production sees acclaimed director Ben Winspear join a stellar cast with an original score by celebrated composer Katie Noonan.
Women of Troy 8 – 12 March 2023
Presented by Archipelago Productions and Ten Days on the Island, in association with the Theatre Royal, Hobart.
Purchase tickets and learn more about the production here
'I'm a museum piece. A war trophy. A relic. Who will own me now?'.
'I was the prize. I should be wearing a crown. Not chains'.
'Your enemies, my enemies. We'll marrying and we'll obliterating them'.
