The Iphigenia Quartet: Agamemnon / Clytemnestra / Iphigenia / Chorus (Oberon Modern Plays) - Softcover

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. Approx running time: 80 minutes per part.

Caroline Bird: Caroline's new stage version of The Wizard of Oz will be Northern Stage's Christmas production. 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, The Bush Theatre, 2011; The Trojan Women, Gate Theatre, 2012; Chamber Piece, Show 3 of the Lyric Hammersmith's Secret Theatre season, 2013 & UK tour 2013/2014. Caroline was one of ten finalists for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize in 2014. She was shortlisted for Most Promising New Playwright at the Off-West-End Awards in 2013 and for the Shell Woman of the Future Awards in 2011. Caroline is an award-winning poet with four poetry collections published by Carcanet Press. She was named one of the five official poets at London Olympics 2012. Suhayla El Bushra: Suhayla is a Brighton based screenwriter and playwright. Previous plays include Pigeons at The Royal Court, Cuckoo at The Unicorn, The Kilburn Passion at The Tricycle and Fingertips for Clean Break at 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. Suhayla was a core writer on TV soap Hollyoaks and has various film and TV projects in development Lulu Raczka: Lulu is an award-winning young playwright. She is a Company Director of Barrel Organ Theatre, who she worked with on her play NOTHING, which has toured the UK. Barrel Organ's next piece Some People Talk About Violence was performed at the Edinburgh Festival 2015, and went on to be performed at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Warwick Arts Centre and Camden People's Theatre through-out winter. Lulu has also had her work performed at the Sheffield Crucible, and the Soho Theatre. She is currently working on a piece for the Shakespeare in Shoreditch Festival. Chris Thorpe: Chris was a founder member of Unlimited Theatre and still works and tours with the company. He is also an Artistic Associate of live art/theatre company Third Angel. He has worked with, among others, Forest Fringe, Slung Low, Chris Goode, RashDash, Belarus Free Theatre and Portuguese experimental company mala voadora - his fourth piece for the company, Your Best Guess opened at Lisbon's Almada festival in 2015. He also plays guitar in Lucy Ellinson's political noise project #TORYCORE and works with the National Student Drama Festival. Chris is an Associate at the Royal Exchange, Manchester. His play for the Exchange, There Has Possibly Been An Incident was selected by Simon Stephens for the Stuckemarkt in Berlin, 2014. It has been produced in Denmark and Sweden, on German radio, and is about to open in Saarbrucken and Vienna. He has an ongoing collaboration with director Rachel Chavkin from New York's TEAM. Their first piece Confirmation, is currently touring internationally and they are starting to develop their next. His other main collaborator is poet Hannah Jane Walker with whom he made The Oh Fuck Moment and I Wish I Was Lonely. Currently Chris is touring Confirmation and Unlimited's Am I Dead Yet? He is writing a new version of Beowulf for the Unicorn Theatre, and a new piece, Victory Condition for the Royal Court. He is also working on Truck for the Royal Exchange with Sam Pritchard, who directed There Has Possibly Been An Incident. The texts for There Has Possibly Been An Incident and Confirmation, as well as work with Hannah Jane Walker, are published by Oberon Books. His work with mala voadora is published in English and Portuguese.