‘A new and harsher world’: Sharing the Spoils of Narrative in Marina Carr’s {i}Hecuba{/i}

Francesca Rayner

‘A new and harsher world’: Sharing the Spoils of Narrative in Marina Carr’s Hecuba

Francesca Rayner

From Engaging with Troy: Early Modern and Contemporary Scenes (2026), pp. 207-20, doi:10.59860/t.c49023e

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William Shakespeare (1564-1616), English playwright

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Homer (c. 850 BCE?), Greek poet

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Part of the book: Engaging with Troy

Edited by Francesca Rayner and Janice Valls-Russell

Transcript 27

Legenda

RenaissanceEnglishDramaFictionopen

Abstract. The contemporary playwright Marina Carr has adapted a number of Greek myths, sometimes transposing them to her native Ireland. Hecuba, premiered by the RSC at Stratford in 2015 and then performed in the round in Dublin in 2019, is written in a blunt, direct language, which though heightened is far from the poetry of traditional stagings of Greek drama. Its stagings forced audiences to see the Trojan War both as a genocidal, racist enterprise and also as a story riven with multiple possible perspectives.

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