Euripides was born near Athens between 485 and 480 BC. His first play was presented in 455 BC and he wrote some hundred altogether of which nineteen survive – a greater number than those of Aeschylus and Sophocles combined – and which include Alkestis, Medea, Bacchae, Hippolytos, Ion and Iphigenia at Aulis. He died in 406 BC.Don Taylor (1936-2003) was a playwright and poet, and a director of theatre, television and radio plays. He worked as drama director at the BBC, and between 1960 and 1990, he directed nearly a hundred television plays. He translated and directed for BBC Television the Theban plays of Sophocles – Oedipus the King, Antigone and Oedipus at Colonus. He followed this with translations of three Euripides war plays – Iphigenia at Aulis, The Women of Troy and Helen. He was co-director of Compass Theatre for while and set up First Writes Radio with Ellen Dryden. Don Taylor’s many stage plays include The Roses of Eyam, The Exorcism, Daughters of Venice, Brotherhood, When the Actors Come, Retreat from Moscow, When the Barbarians Came and his last play The Road to the Sea. Emma Cole is Senior Lecturer at the University of Queensland, Australia. She is a classicist and a theatre and performance studies scholar. Her area of expertise lies in the performance of Greek tragedy in contemporary theatre and she has published extensively on this topic, as well as having worked in collaboration with various theatre companies and practitioners on related creative outputs.

The play itself is an astonishing document. Written shortly after the Athenians had butchered the men and enslaved the women of the Sparta-aligned island of Melos, it was filled with a subversive topicality. Euripides focuses on the sufferings of the Trojan Hecuba, Cassandra and Andromache in the aftermath of their city's fall. But the play was clearly intended as a conscience-provoking metaphor about the arrogance of power and the hideous aftermath of war, and it doesn't take much imagination to see it as directly applicable to our own times.

• ChronologyCommentary1. Synopsis of the Trojan War: a) timeline and key peopleb) representation in ancient Greek literature c) myth versus history debate2. Introduction to Euripides, the play and the City Dionysia theatre festival where Euripides' plays were first performed: a) his relation to Aeschylus and Sophoclesb) his status and success in antiquityc) trademark dramaturgical qualities of Euripides’ playsd) transmission history of Euripides’ plays3. Original performance context including:a) the institution of the City Dionysia and the physical space of the Theatre of Dionysusb) performance conventions of Greek tragedy, including the mask and chorusc) the individuals involved in producing and staging Greek drama in the C5th 4. Socio-political context including:a) an introduction to the Peloponnesian War b) an overview of the Sack of Melos in 416 BCEc) an overview of debates regarding whether Euripides may have had time to be influenced by the Sack of Melos, and how this backdrop may have informed the audience’s reading of the play5. Modern reception history of the play including:a) trends in the written translation and adaptationb) modern performance history, including 6 key productions across a range of geographical locations and on a variety of scales. Focuses on contribution of directors, designers and performersc) Don Taylor's translation in performance (Katie Mitchell's production at the Royal National Theatre, 2007)PLAY TEXTFurther readingNotes