King's College London Greek Play: Euripides' Helen February 9, 2011

The 2011 Greek Play will be performed from Wednesday 9th - Friday 11th February 2011.

At 6.00 pm on Wednesday 9 February, before the evening performance, there will be a lecture and discussion of Euripides' Helen, with contributions from Bettany Hughes and Michael Trapp of King's College London.
This talk is free and open to the public.
Introduction
Years have passed since the end of the Trojan War and Menelaus, King of Sparta and husband to Helen, is making his slow and painful way home. When his ship is wrecked on the coast of Egypt he stumbles upon what seems to be his wife lingering outside the royal palace. But if this is the real Helen, who was the beautiful woman, stolen by Paris, for whom all Greece took up arms? In Euripides' play, Helen was never unfaithful, she never went to Troy herself - her phantom did - and she is patiently waiting for her husband in Egypt, where she had been supernaturally transported by Hera. So, here, the long struggle of the Greeks against Troy becomes an illusion. At the war's end, the only reward for the Greeks is to recapture only the phantom of what they had perceived as being the real Helen.

Official Website: http://www.kcl.ac.uk/schools/humanities/depts/classics/about/play/current.html