THE IPHIGENIA PROJECT

Bachelor of Performance and Theatre Production, University of Wollongong

IPHIGENIA Written by

Suhayla El-Bushra*

CLYTEMNESTRA Written by

Lulu Raczka

Synopsis'

What would you do for love in catastrophic times?

The Iphigenia Project is a contemporary retelling of the classic Greek myth ‘Iphigenia at Aulis’.

Iphigenia, Scourge Of Troy (AKA Why Should I Die Cheap?) unfolds the story of Iphigenia, the daughter of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon, king of Mycenae and warlord of the Greek army during the Trojan war. Agamemnon faces a choice in a time of extreme political fervour; to sacrifice his beloved daughter to appease the gods and win the war. The play investigates the psychological complexity that lies within Iphigenia as she wrestles between freedom and the oppression of her parents and her socially constrained position as a princess.

Clytemnestra is a poetic and non-narrative imagining of a mother’s raw grief over the loss of her daughter Iphigenia. In times of deep grief and heartbreak we endlessly ruminate over the moment before the act and the nightmare moments after the act and how these tiny moments can transform a person into someone they should never be.

In the creative process with director, cast and creative students we researched and imagined ourselves as part of today’s Ukrainian war. We imagined being the invaders (the Greeks/ Russians) and being invaded (the Trojans/ Ukranians). We asked ourselves what sacrifices would we make in times of desperation and fear? We tried to imagine being responsible for a whole population as well as that of people in positions of power with megalomaniacal egos. In our world today, with global conflict and political instability, the tale of Iphigenia speaks to us now more than ever.