The Suppliant Women

“If we help, we invite trouble. If we don’t, we invite shame.”
Fifty women leave everything behind to board a boat in North Africa and flee across the Mediterranean. They are escaping forced marriage in their homeland, hoping for protection and assistance, seeking asylum in Greece.

Written 2,500 years ago by the great playwright Aeschylus, The Suppliant Women is one of the world’s oldest plays here in a new version by The Lyceum’s Artistic Director David Greig. At its heart are fifty young women in full chorus arguing for their lives, speaking to us through the ages with startling resonance for our times.

Part play, part ritual, part theatrical archaeology, it offers an electric connection to the deepest and most mysterious ideas of the humanity – who are we, where do we belong and if all goes wrong – who will take us in?

The Suppliant Women by Aeschylus
in a new version by David Greig
Directed by Ramin Gray
Composer and Musical director:John Browne
Choreographer: Sasha Milavic Davies
Forest Wolfe performed as part of the original community chorus

First performed in October 2016 in the Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh