Greek Master Class II

The God Apollo has tricked the Fates into sparing King Admetus when it is his time to die. Yet in exchange, Admetus has to find another mortal to take his place in the Underworld. After his aged parents refuse to step in to save him it is Admetus’ noble wife, Alcestis, who agrees to give her life, hoping to spare her children from growing up without a father. She dies leaving her husband alive, yet alone. Into this royal house in mourning stumbles the hero Heracles who is oblivious to the sad event that has come to pass. He will use his remarkable strength to assure that the Fates will not have the final word.

In the aftermath of the Trojan War, the royal-born Andromache finds herself in far-off Greece enslaved by the family of the man who killed her husband and forced her into the role of concubine. She is not only forced to share her bed with her captor, Neoptolemus, but also bears him a son. This draws the ire of his wife, Hermione, who is convinced that Andromache’s presence and actions have kept her husband far from their marriage bed and left her childless. When Neoptolemus is away, Hermione sees an opportunity to rid herself of a romantic rival and her husband’s illegitimate son. This sets off events that will result in violence and further loss.

As Odysseus begins to journey home to Ithaca following the Trojan War, he and his companions are blown off course to the mysterious Mount Etna. There, they find a tribe of displaced satyrs who are enslaved by the violent and dangerous Cyclops. Odysseus will need the cunning and bravery that served him so effectively during the war to avoid being served himself to the hungry Cyclops. CYCLOPS, the only satyr play to survive antiquity, allows the master tragedian Euripides to display his skills at writing comedy in this broad and bawdy short play adapted from a sequence in Homer’s The Odyssey.

Following his triumphs during the Trojan War, the great Greek warrior Agamemnon is slaughtered by his crafty wife, Clytemnestra, and her lover, Aegisthus. Many years later, his surviving children, Orestes and Electra, live far from the royal halls that are rightfully theirs and have long been separated: Orestes has escaped and lives in exile, while Electra languishes in an arranged marriage to a peasant. Upon reuniting, the brother and sister face each other for the first time as adults. They decide to execute a plan that will demonstrate to Clytemnestra and Aegisthus that the example set for them as children was not forgotten.

As the fires that burned Troy smolder, the once-proud and regal Queen Hecuba finds herself homeless, widowed, and enslaved by the Greek conquerors. In the hours before she is to sail to Greece in chains, she discovers that two of her surviving children will pay the blood debt of war with their lives. Left with nothing to lose but a hopeless life that is no longer her own, she commits an act of vengeance that is shocking in its violence, yet asserts all that remains of her humanity.

Hippolytus, the illegitimate son of King Theseus of Athens, has invoked the scorn of the goddess Aphrodite by vowing to live a life of chastity and refusing to revere her, while giving the goddess Artemis constant devotion. Aphrodite swears vengeance and plots to make Hippolytus’ young stepmother, Phaedra, fall madly in love with him, setting off a series of events that will prove the undoing of them both. King Theseus finds himself caught in a whirlwind of madness and deceit, torn between his wife and son. He will find his mortal emotions helpless against the machinations of a goddess and responds in an impulsive and destructive manner that will bring tragedy upon his house.

Queen Creusa of Athens has long harbored a dark secret: As a girl, she was sexually assaulted by the god Apollo, and the encounter left her pregnant. In desperation, she kept the pregnancy and birth of a son concealed and left him exposed and meant to die in the very cave where she was violated. Many years later, Creusa and her husband have traveled to Apollo’s temple at Delphi to seek council with his oracle. There she meets a young priest who was brought to the temple as a baby under mysterious circumstances and seems to have a connection to the god. Creusa and the young priest find themselves at odds and in danger of harming each other, unaware that they share a deep connection.

On the eve of the Trojan War, the Greek leader Agamemnon is at the port of Aulis and finds himself at odds with the goddess Artemis. She is holding back the wind that will allow his army to sail to Troy and demands the sacrifice of his beloved daughter, Iphigenia, to release it. As tensions mount, Agamemnon finds himself not only confronted by an impatient army but also by his wife, Clytemnestra, and his brother, Menelaus, as he considers his duties to his country and family. As his actions lead to sacrifice and further sacrifices, he sets his family on a bloody, violent path that will carry on through generations.

Many years after the events that led to the destruction of Agamemnon’s family during the Trojan War, his daughter Iphigenia, long thought dead, lives among the Taurians as a priestess in the Temple of Artemis. Her duty to prepare any foreigner who arrives in Tauris for ritual sacrifice introduces her to a young Greek prisoner, who she will soon discover is none other than her long-lost brother, Orestes. Though they have been separated for many years and are far from home, the siblings devise a plan to ensure a safe escape and put an end to the curse of bloodshed that has plagued the House of Atreus for generations.

Medea has abandoned her family and homeland of Colchis for the love of the great hero Jason, and her loyalty, cunning and talents in witchcraft have repeatedly rescued him. Now, after bearing him two fine sons and settling in Corinth, Jason announces that Medea is to be cast aside, freeing him to marry royalty. Finding herself not only abandoned but banished from Corinth and driven beyond madness, a desperate Medea commits an unspeakable act of vengeance against her former husband.

After avenging his father Agamemnon’s death by slaughtering his mother Clytemnestra, Orestes finds himself tormented by The Furies and pursued by the Argive people who seek to put him to death along with his sister Electra. Seemingly ignored by the god Apollo whose oracle led Orestes to matricide; his only hope lies with his father’s brother Menelaus who is recently reunited with his wife, the infamous Helen. As Menelaus refuses to intervene, Orestes and Electra find themselves once again pushed into a desperate, violent act.