Deep, dark tales of hidden lives, romance and injustice and are being uncovered in the dimly lit basement performance space at the Yale Summer Cabaret in New Haven. If you feel that summer theater offerings can be too light, too sweet, too tuneful, then come here. (The food’s good, too.)
The Yale Summer Cabaret is perfectly capable of being upbeat. I’ve been attending shows there since the mid-’80s and have witnessed much mirth. But its 2017 summer season is distinctive because it consists of four tragedies, all of which deal strongly with issues of gender and dominance.
“The Trojan Women” is one of many revisions or updates the performer/playwright Ellen McLaughlin has done of Greek plays. She clearly changes how some aspects of this sad tale of oppression are emphasized, but remains true to the plot and spirit of Euripides’ original. McLaughlin apparently consulted a bit on this production, and will appear in person at a talkback following the 7 p.m. Saturday, July 1, performance. (McLaughlin will also appear in Connecticut this fall as the keynote speaker for a “21st Century Women and Ancient Greek Tragedy” program at Fairfield University.)
Euripides’ “The Trojan Women” is a play I’ve known well all my life. I played the non-speaking role of Astyanax, doomed son of Andromache three times before I was 10 years old.
Shadi Ghaheri’s production uses a plastic doll wrapped in swaddling clothes as Astyanax. (Perhaps they didn’t know I was available.) That’s a convenient choice, but a questionable one, since there’s a big difference dramatically between slaying a baby and an older child. This production’s bigger staging decision is to remove any overt adult stereotypical male presence. Unlike most other productions of “The Trojan Women” — except for that doll — there are no male performers.
McLaughlin’s version — which she fashioned in the late 1990s — is pretty malleable, its publishers suggesting that it can accommodate anywhere from 12 to 40 actors, of which two to 10 are male. A celebrated off-off-Broadway production last year at the Flea Theater in New York City had 10 women and two men in its cast. Yale Summer Cabaret uses an all-female cast of six. They serve as the chorus of captive women following the war in Troy, then break from the pack one at a time to become Hecuba, her daughter Cassandra and daughter-in-law Andromache, the god Poseidon, a soldier and others. Last month’s Yale Summer Cabaret production of “Antony and Cleopatra” had men in drag for the female roles. This time, gender differences are downplayed.
What really matters, in any production of “The Trojan Women,” is the anguish. The wailing, weeping and other expressions of despair speak as grandly as any of the fine anti-war speeches. Intimate, human vulnerability is what guides this show. The performers are clothed in loose, ragged dresses and huddle near piles of rubble.
The sense of incalculable loss and destruction worsens when much of their hope for the future is removed. The cast, especially Sohina Sidhu as Helen and Antoinette Crowe-Legacy as Hecuba, convincingly convey how beaten-down they have become. When I saw the late-show performance Saturday night, the final moments were so powerful that nobody clapped, and there was no sound at all, for a couple of minutes. Then there was a wild ovation and a collective exhalation.
Phew! The Greeks are still schooling us on how to live through turmoil and conquest. And the Yale Summer Cabaret is showing us that it’s OK to be challenged emotionally on your summer vacation.
THE TROJAN WOMEN, adapted by Ellen McLaughlin from the play by Euripides, directed by Shadi Ghaheri, continues through Sunday, July 2, at the Yale Summer Cabaret, 217 Park St., New Haven. Tickets are $30, $15 for students. 203-432-1567, summercabaret17.org.
