Iphigenia Quartet
Agamemnon must sacrifice his daughter, Clytemnestra must try to stop him, Iphigenia must accept her fate, the Chorus must watch.
Ships lie dormant in harbours, and thousands of troops sit on the shore, growing restless and unruly. Helen is gone, and pursuit of her has been stalled by windless seas. To raise the winds to send his fleet to Troy, Agamemnon is commanded by the gods to sacrifice his daughter, Iphigenia. But his deceit of his wife, Clytemnestra and the killing of his child, will end up tearing him and everything around him to pieces.
Euripides’ story of a father moved to murder his daughter, Iphigenia at Aulis, is one that has been reinvented and retold anew throughout history. The Iphigenia Quartet sees four of the UK’s most exciting and radical playwrights - Caroline Bird, Suhayla El Bushra, Lulu Raczka, and Chris Thorpe – create explosive responses to this classical tragedy. Each play is a reimagining this story of familial catastrophe from the differing perspectives of the key characters in the play: Agamemnon, Clytemnestra, Iphigenia and the Chorus.
Caroline Bird’s new stage version of The Wizard of Oz will be Northern Stage’s Christmas show for 2015. She is currently under commission to the Old Vic, writing the book and lyrics for a musical version of Dennis the Menace. Previous work includes: Sixty-Six Books, (Bush Theatre); The Trojan Women, (Gate Theatre); Chamber Piece (Lyric Hammersmith). Caroline is an award-winning poet and the author of four poetry collections. She was an official poet of the London 2012 Olympics.
Suhayla El-Bushra is a Brighton-based screenwriter and playwright. Previous plays include Pigeons (Royal Court), Cuckoo (Unicorn), The Kilburn Passion (The Tricycle) and Fingertips (Latitude). Her adaptation of Nikolai Erdman’s The Suicide will be staged at the National Theatre in spring 2016. She is currently writer in residence at the NT Studio and is under commission from Out Of Joint.
Lulu Raczka is an award-winning young playwright. She is a Company Director of Barrel Organ Theatre, who produced her plays NOTHING and Some People Talk About Violence. Lulu is currently under commission by the Shakespeare in Shoreditch Festival, and has had work produced at the Sheffield Crucible, and Soho Theatre.
Chris Thorpe is a founder member of Unlimited Theatre and an Associate at the Royal Exchange, Manchester. His play There Has Possibly Been An Incident was selected by Simon Stephens for the Stuckemarkt in Berlin, 2014. He has an ongoing collaboration with The TEAM’s Rachel Chavkin has produced the play Confirmation, currently touring internationally. Chris has also collaborated with Hannah Jane Walker (The Oh Fuck Moment and I Wish I Was Lonely), and is working on Victory Condition a new piece for the Royal Court.