Hippolytus: Tragedy & Misogyny Resurrected

Amongst the various epithets that have been used against women over the years, ‘counterfeit evil’ has to rank as one of the most damning. This and other misogynistic rantings of Hippolytus, the eponymous victim of Euripides’s tragedy, are quite on a par with Othello’s most viridescent outbursts, and his presentation in a new translation and production in London provides much food for thought.

Greek tragedy is attractive for many reasons, and the stories, in their depictions of mortals and gods, virtue and fallibility, free will and determinism, still continue to be relevant, and can make good theatre. However, bearing the weight of millenia, the plays are so steeped in heritage, literary and historical, that dealing with them is like handling an antique, and it is sometimes hard to escape the image of philosophers clad in chlamyses (aka: bed sheets).

A new translation by Timberlake Wertenbaker and a production by the Temple Theatre Group attempt to knock the cobwebs off this tragedy by streamlining and modernising certain aspects. There are some nice touches, with a dynamic musical chorus that helps to break up the stark weight of dialogue, and some of the original Greek is retained, keeping the production grounded and allowing the audience a feel of the language.

Some changes work better than others, however (’embryo’ sits much better than the knowingly contemporaneous ‘weapons of mass destruction’) and sometimes the tone is lightened too much; addressing a god in any age surely demands more than the clumsily informal: ‘If you wanted to keep the human race going you should have found a way to do it without women’).

The play has found its way onto an exam-board syllabus, and this is a mixed blessing, ensuring a certain level of attendance, but also threatening the production’s control of the play. On the occasion that we visited, moments of the play were lost to inappropriate sniggers and young students making highly disruptive exits, but there is little to be done about this. Audience laughter, however, is slightly different, and although it is not entirely controllable, in this case the director holds some responsibility for the imbalance in tone, encouraging laughter by throwing out some early comic foolery (cross dressing), which is unnecessary and confusing.

All in all, the cast make a good go of it, especially David Burke as Theseus, the father of Hippolytus, a man driven to distraction by his actions. In fits of rage and despair he gives the play some much-needed gravitas, and leaves us with a picture of humanity in the lap of the gods, at the mercy of their caprice; human emotions never grow old.

Hippolytus is showing until Saturday 7 March
Greenwich Playhouse
Crooms Hill
Greenwich
SE10 8ES

Box office: 020 8858 7755