‘If you stop speaking, you disappear.’
The Euripides tragedy is given a fresh spin by Polish-Palestinian writer Klara Hammudeh…
Two teenagers are caught up in a brutal war: a modern girl (Katarzyna Wincza) in an unnamed country, and ancient heroine Iphigenia (Hammudeh) hiding amid her almond and olive groves from her inevitable sacrifice. They both wait for the arrival of soldiers with orders to take them away, and describe their experiences that begin radically differently, then collide and converge.
The stage is simply set, with a blue-rag sea backdrop and rough, sandy ground. Both girls alternate their accounts, which are full of brilliant details; Klara noticing her mother’s shaking hands still covered in flour from making bread, and Katarzyna hiding her precious notebook from the army in her pillow, for example. It’s striking in both stories that the girls are treated like animals to be herded and owned; sharp commands are barked at them, and personal space is invade. The army are claiming more than just the country as theirs.
There were some first performance nerves- the odd stumble over each other’s cues and needing a prompt from the tech- but the actors handled it well. Not much has changed with ordinary people caught up in conflicts, and Iphigenia Variations illustrates this effectively. Once the Fringe nerves dissipate, this will be one to watch.
***
Iphigenia Variations is at Greenside Riddle’s Court from Aug 12-15 at 13:55
I saw this play live. A powerful, beautifully written piece with a message that feels ever so relevant in today’s world. A story about the importance of cultural identity, the meaning of resistance, innocence lost and the complicity of silence. Congratulations to the author and the cast of very talented young women.