Reviews: The Trojan Women at Lake Braddock SS
Written by Genevieve Lacey of Oakton High School
Clawing at the sand beneath their fingertips, wailing in anguish and loss, lit in red of the flames within the walls the women weep, "The horse is not a gift!" and this is the tragedy of The Trojan Women.
The Trojan Women, written in 415 BCE by Euripides, was reimagined in a world premiere of Jessie Holder Tourtellotte's adaptation at Lake Braddock Secondary, casting a modern light on a Greek tragedy. With Troy fallen and its men slaughtered by Odysseus's ruse, only the women, children, and infants remain. Among them are Queen Hecuba, Princess Cassandra, Andromache, and Helen of Sparta, who gather amid the ruins to mourn and confront the horrors of war, pillaging, rape, and devastation.
The Greek Chorus was a haunting presence, moving in unison to echo the terrors unfolding onstage. Their synchronized lines and ritualistic movements, including cleansing themselves with bowls of water and crawling across the sand in despair, created a visceral sense of shared trauma. In their sand dance, they joined hands and created a ring, their motions both beautiful and harrowing. Together their voices sang in notes of despair. Rocking together in mourning or flying across the stage in anguish, the Chorus fully embodied collective grief, throwing themselves into every moment with a raw, unsettling intensity.
A regal and poised walk slowly broken into a soulless lumber, the widowed Princess Andromache portrayed by Murphy Finnegan metamorphosed into a hollow shell of her previous self. Finnegan cradled and comforted her baby, rocking him slowly and tenderly and when he was ripped from her arms, her pleading turned into wrenching, chilling screams. Full of anguish, her collapse was heartbreaking. As she numbly requested a knife that she might end her own life, Finnegan's eyes lay empty and devastated.
The outcast Helen of Troy or Helen of Sparta, Holland Hasle, shed light on the convoluted nature of blame in war. Touted as the reason for the tragedy by the women who surrounded her, Helen's grief lay evident for Paris in her mournful singing and reluctant return to Menelaus. Hasle almost taunted Hecuba in anger, leaning into her villainous image with spiteful tone yet with an obvious sense of loneliness in the tragedy as she looked upon her loved ones.
Cassandra's curse, to see the future but never be believed, was chillingly realized in Ashley Kennedy's haunting and crazed portrayal. Her wild, wandering eyes and precisely timed twitches conveyed a disturbing madness, heightened by her eerie singing. Opposite her, Roman Ricks as Agamemnon brought a menacing, predatory energy, exuding a sinister glee as he claimed Cassandra as his prize of war. Their interactions were deeply unsettling, with Ricks's controlling presence clashing against Kennedy's detached, almost out-of-body acceptance, creating a powerfully disturbed dynamic.
Special Effects led by Bella Molino completed the devastating picture of war with latex burns and bloody injuries. As Agamemnon hit, Cassandra’s blood strategically spilled from her mouth as she smiled. Additionally, fog was strategically spread to highlight the Greek Chorus especially in combination with lighting designed by Rebecca Weingast. With crackling red fires among the soldiers, and eerie blue lighting on the chorus, the perfectly timed lighting accentuated every moment.
The remarkable set designed by Kinsey Lin drew upon a true Greek arena theater, but with sand over the circular surface. The walls of Troy stood with a gaping hole and stained with the blood and dirt of the war creating the perfect unsettling atmosphere.
Lake Braddock Secondary astounded in crafting a visionary production of The Trojan Women "Where men make war and women weep."
Written by Austen Locke of Chantilly High School
Gunfire. An explosion. Soldiers pour onto the ravaged ruins, a once majestic metropolis now charred and cracked as the bones of the city are soaked in its people's blood. Here we meet the last survivors of the siege of Troy. The women on the stage of Lake Braddock Secondary School cry out their torment, at last able to share and condemn the brutality they have suffered.
As one of the few remaining writings of Euripedes and the only of its cycle, The Trojan Women is a tragedy emphasizing the devastation of conquest. At the time of its first performance in 5th century BCE Athens, the Peloppensian War was well under way. Though the story of the Trojan War was well known, here it is a vehicle to tell the stories of those whose suffering went, and continues to be, ignored. Set directly after the siege of Troy, the play centers around the women of the city, who mourn not only their fallen families but the future that awaits them as prizes for the Greeks.
Lake Braddock’s production is the world premiere of a new adaptation by Jessie Holder Tourtellotte, uniting an ancient piece with its relevance to our modern day by adding character and plot development, expanding on the original work. The play weaves together the perspectives of women suffering from the savagery of war and the men that fight them, juxtaposing the traditional narrative of Homeric heroism.
One such figure is Andromache (Murphy Finnegan), who began the show with a silent rage in her constrained motions that seemed to maintain the last bits of her composure. However, as tragedy mounts upon her shoulders, she cracks. Finnegan's depiction of raw, powerful fury allowed the grief that lay beneath to shine through, her screams and convulsions devastating to witness. Offering futile comfort was Hecuba (Sofia Terpak), the picture of an aggrieved mother. Terpak, too, was able to keep some composure in her movements, fit for a queen, yet became more fluid and vengeful as each scene progressed. Her power emanated in each delivery, emotion growing with each injustice suffered.
The face that launched a thousand ships, Helen (Holland Hasle) encompassed a range of grieving lover to conniving victim that allowed her to be both sympathetic and manipulative; the epitome of a woman simply trying to survive. A different idea of a survivor, cursed with prophetic vision, Cassandra's (Ashely Kennedy) madness radiated from every anguished vocal shift, movement, and expression, painting a convincingly tragic picture of crazed despair.
Each character was adorned in richly colored, hand-sewn garments that distinguished the characters yet had color palettes to place them in the context of the story and setting. The costumes by Nathaniel Howard allowed for the intense movement of the characters, and the tatters coupled beautifully with attention to detail from Hair and Makeup by Lila Halleran. Feet were spattered in blood and dirt, hair curled for period-accurate looks, and realistic blood and burns marred many characters. The lighting from Rebecca Weingast kept each scene distinct, the flashbacks and times of day, even tension leading up to key moments in the plot. This execution of cues was carried out by stage manager Ila Cox, calling 255 in total for a seamless and suspenseful show.
A final spotlight goes black, and the eerie harmonies of a haunting song bring the heart-wrenching story of The Trojan Women to a close. Through the exploration of women's stories and narratives of genocide, so often pushed into the dark, Lake Braddock's production of a brand-new adaptation breathes life, yet again, into a tale of tragedy as old as time.