Who would have believed this double bill? The Women of Troy by Euripedes and The Dumb Waiter by Harold Pinter, 2 one act plays on the same evening.
The Women were first, well played, well cast, a set that worked well, with modern quotes about the miseries of war interspersed. A perfect play to see 2 days after our modern Greek destroyer announces his personal plan to send more troops to Iraq, to create more Trojan women all these centuries later. Egregious cruelty on the part of the Greeks, but no worse than Abu Ghraib. The despair of these ancient women mirrors ours, as does the voice of the prophet Cassandra.
Then the Pinter, spare and simple, in a play that begins with a dark logic and watches the two assassin characters become lost as the situation loses its logic.
I had not seen either play before, and found them to be the perfect January bleakness after the over-the-top-ness of the holidays, which included the Shakes’ The Importance of Being Earnest. That was a great play for the holidays – these 2 are perfect for January!