The Greek Plays 2 - by Ellen McLaughlin (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

"If art is a public service, then McLaughlin has served her public well." --The Hollywood Reporter

Ellen McLaughlin returns with a new collection of adaptations and modern reimaginings of classic Greek tragedies. Drawing on works by Sophocles, Homer, Aeschylus, and more, these plays breathe fresh life into timeless questions and conflicts that still feel startlingly relevant today: Can civilization survive humanity's basest instincts? What do we do about the human compulsion toward violence? Are we irreversibly transformed by the trauma of war and political strife, or is there a chance we can recover a part of our former selves?

This collection includes the plays: Ajax in Iraq (from Sophocles), Kissing the Floor (Sophocles), Penelope (Homer), Mercury's Footpath (Euripides), and The Oresteia (based on Aeschylus' trilogy Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, and The Eumenides).

Review Quotes

"Ellen McLaughlin is a dramatist of courage, intelligence, wit, and lyricism."

--Tony Kushner

"Ellen McLaughlin's body of work is breathtaking and astonishing. She ought to be a dame of American theater at this point, if we had dames. Brilliantly incisive and insightful as both dramatist and actor, she brings the Greeks to us with her own contemporary, political, poetic edge, finding the universal and the particular in (unfortunately) timeless themes like war. We need her wisdom now more than ever."

--Sarah Ruhl

"The language in these plays is vividly contemporary, with the precision, stillness, and limpidity of great poetry. Ellen's adaptations allow us to inspect deep questions with a clarity that feels fresh and ancient all at once. Nobody adapts the Greeks like Ellen McLaughlin."

--Drew Lichtenberg, Associate Director, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Washington, D.C.

"Powerfully urgent...Ms. McLaughlin has adapted many Greek dramas--but perhaps 'adaptation' isn't the right word for her Oresteia, which feels so new. Though it is faithful in many ways to the Aeschylus trilogy, it slowly reveals itself to be purpose-built for our moment, addressing eternal issues from a radically different perspective."

--Jesse Green, New York Times

"Ellen McLaughlin's deep engagement with justice, war and return from war, the female perspective, and compassion for fragile human communities play a central and moving role in these accessible and teachable plays."

--Helene Foley, Claire Tow Professor of Classics, Emerita at Barnard College, Columbia University

About the Author

Ellen McLaughlin's plays have received numerous national and international productions. They include Days and Nights Within, A Narrow Bed, Infinity's House, Iphigenia and Other Daughters, Tongue of a Bird, The Trojan Women, Helen, The Persians, Oedipus, Ajax in Iraq, Kissing the Floor, Septimus and Clarissa, and Penelope. Producers include: The Public Theater; The National Actors Theatre and New York Theatre Workshop in NYC; Actors Theatre of Louisville; The Actors' Gang L.A.; Classic Stage Company, NYC; The Intiman Theater, Seattle; Almeida Theater, London; The Mark Taper Forum, L.A.; The Oregon Shakespeare Festival; The Getty Villa, California; and The Guthrie Theater, Minnesota; among other venues.

Grants and awards include: Helen Merrill Award for Playwriting, Great American Play Contest, Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, the NEA, the Writer's Award from the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund, and the Berilla Kerr Award for playwriting. She received a TCG/Fox Residency Grant for Ajax in Iraq, written for the A.R.T. Institute.

She has taught playwriting at Barnard College since 1995. Other teaching posts include Breadloaf School of English, Yale School of Drama, and Princeton University, among others.

Ms. McLaughlin is also an actor. She is most well-known for having originated the part of the Angel in Tony Kushner's Angels in America, appearing in every U.S. production from its earliest workshops through its original Broadway run.