The theater is dark and cavernous. Fragments of naked dolls hang from metal chains, their limbs gruesomely and vulgarly dangling above the stage. Tarps and cinder blocks line the right side of the stage, creating a makeshift camp.
"Trojan Barbie," written by Christine Evans and directed by Carmel O'Reilly, uses the bleakness and ambiguity of this setting to explore several complex and intertwined storylines.
Hecuba (played by Paula Langton), the wife of the King of Troy, mourns the loss of her husband and sons amid the cement ruins of her home. The audience watches as she slowly and agonizingly loses everything she has left: her five daughters, one by one, her grandson and her sanity. The soldiers bring back mementos from her loved ones, like a necklace from her daughter, the shattered body of her grandson and the stories of how her daughters died.
At the same time, the audience watches Lotte (Karen MacDonald), a British doll maker, prepare for a trip to Troy. As Lotte sips lemonade and writes postcards, the hysterical Andromache (Skye Noel) runs up to her, screaming, "The city has been torched!" She has blood on her legs, and her face is blotched with tears. She holds a large doll, clutching him and calling him her son's name. Lotte, shocked by the intrusion into her normal world, chatters on about her ex-husband cheating on her and ignores the woman's shaking terror. When the guards find Andromache to drag her back to the camp, they take Lotte as well, despite her insistence that "she has rights."
Lotte and Andromache return to an alternate world, a world of ugliness and misery that has gone for three years without rain. This is a world where the flags have been torn up to use as bandages and the fallen princesses of the Trojan Empire declare that cutting their veins will make oil pour out. Suddenly, despite Lotte's passport and list of embassy numbers, she must watch as Hecuba sits in her disintegrating hut and listen as the coquettish Helen (Careena Melia) flirts with the guards to get water.
The play aptly mixes past and present through history, scenes and costumes. For example, while the women wear rags, the soldiers march around in pristine uniforms. Though the play is set after the fall of Troy and follows the history of Hecuba and her daughter-in-law Andromache, modern elements filter smoothly into the setting. The soldiers who keep tabs on the women have aspirin and British accents; they use guns and tanks to terrorize the women. Hecuba's daughter Polyxena ("Polly X"), played by Kaaron Briscoe, expounds on the utility of contemporary art. Polly X is eventually kidnapped to be killed for a ritual sacrifice, and the soldiers get her drunk on beer so they can rape her first.
The play artfully reveals how women deal with tragedy. The clearly insane Cassandra (Nina Kassa) fictionalizes the story of her rape and resulting pregnancy to make the knowledge bearable. Andromache clings to her son, trying to be optimistic about the future. Polly X makes art from the garbage that surrounds her, desperately wanting to believe that there is still decency left in the world. Helen of Troy speaks to her own brand of feminism: She uses men to get what she wants, using her sexuality to fight oppression.
Ultimately, "Trojan Barbie" shows how easily history can be forgotten and the suffering of others can be brushed away. The symbols and motifs that reveal the coexistence of commercialism and oppression are numerous and clever. In the end, Polly X stands on her soapbox and announces that "history is dead" before she dies with her arms out and her head bent, suspended in Christ's pose.
Before the curtains close, Lotte, again safe in her home, repairs a doll that models Hecuba's son and describes how the media focused on her own struggle in escaping Troy. "Nobody asked about the women," she says. However, when the sobbing Hecuba returns to reclaim the boy's body, Lotte roughly pushes her away. The women are like the dolls that hang above the stage: After the shock of seeing them is over, they are easy to ignore.
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Written by Christine Evans
Directed by Carmel O'Reilly
At the Zero Arrow Theatre through Apirl 22
Tickets $39 to $52
