DANAIDS

DANAIDS

The Suppliant Women opens a cycle of four plays by Aeschylus, first performed in Athens in 463 BC. It’s one of the earliest Greek plays to have survived. Sadly, the other three plays, Egyptians, Danaids and the satyr play Amymone, have been lost. In December 2016, director Ramin Gray and composer John Browne staged a new production of The Suppliant Women at Konzerttheater Bern in Switzerland with a community chorus of 28 local women.

Following the Swiss production, The Suppliant Women was staged in the UK during 2016 and 2017 at the Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh and the Young Vic, London. Renowned Scottish playwright David Greig created a new version of the play, following a literal translation to ensure maximum fidelity to the original.ie.

For the UK tour two professional actors, one chorus leader and two musicians worked with newly created community choruses at each venue. The music comprised percussion and the haunting sound of the aulos, the twin pipes on which all classical theatre was accompanied. This was the first Greek production to be heard with the aulos since antiquity. The production then toured to Dublin Theatre Festival and Hong Kong Arts Festival.

Wild Yak Productions, in association with the Royal Lyceum and the Institute of Cultural and Creative Industries at the University of Kent, have now teamed up with the original creative team, and are in the process of reconstructing the final three plays in The Danaid Tetralogy. Since only fragments remain, the plays are being reconstructed through a workshop process supported by some of the world’s leading classical scholars, arts organisations and practitioners.

In November 2021 The Suppliant Women was revived with the original cast and creative team, and a new community chorus, at the Gulbenkian Theatre in Canterbury. This was followed by workshops in the UK and Egypt and the premiere of the sequel, Egyptians in Kent in February 2023. Work on the third play, Danaids, is already underway, with workshops having taken place in Greece in 2023. We will continue development work throughout 2024, with performances of the entire cycle from 2025 in Canterbury, followed by the Edinburgh International Festival in partnership with the Royal Lyceum, before a UK and international tour.