The RSC's new 'Hecuba': A vengeful queen with a difference

This version of the Greek tragedy shows the murderous royal mother in an unlikely light, says Holly Williams

Seeking the zeitgeist: Erica Whyman

Greek drama is all over British stages currently, from the Almeida's Greeks season to versions of The Oresteia at the Globe and at Manchester's Home, to National Theatre Wales' site-specific take on the Iliad. Recent years have seen plenty of big-name production, too – Juliette Binoche as Antigone, Helen McCrory as Medea, and Kristin Scott Thomas as Electra.

So it's no surprise that the Royal Shakespeare Company is throwing its hat into the amphitheatre with a new version of Hecuba, freely adapted from Euripides by Irish playwright Marina Carr. It's directed by RSC deputy artistic director Erica Whyman, with Hecuba, the grieving Trojan queen deposed at the end of the war by the victorious Greeks, played by Derbhle Crotty.

Two things become clear when you look at that litany of Greek revivals. First, many commissions have to be more than coincidental – these myths are clearly being turned to because of what they still tell us about our own time. But second, that list also throws up a lot of female names. For both Whyman and Carr, these two facts are entirely intertwined.

"The fascinating thing is the complexity of the characters – and particularly the women," says Carr. "I don't think anyone has matched that since – certainly no modern drama, where there's this obsession with patriarchy, how men think and how men feel – and the women are making ham sandwiches and tea in the background. They weren't doing that in ancient Greece, not in the mind of the tragedians."

Whyman agrees: "There is something in our zeitgeist – at last – asking where are the stories of great, fascinating, peculiar, difficult, complicated women? Where are the stories of women in power, whether that be domestic or political? And these Greek stories do have women at the centre."

And yet their production is a radical re-casting of Hecuba. In Euripides's play, Hecuba – already mourning her husband and children – must witness the sacrifice of her daughter Polyxena and then discovers her little son Polydorous has been killed by Polymestor, a man meant to be protecting him. She enacts a gruesome revenge, blinding Polymestor – and killing his children. But in this Hecuba – spoiler alert – Carr interprets the queen rather more sympathetically: rampaging Greek soldiers, not the grief-soaked mother, are to blame for the vengeful actions.

"I love the Greek myths, but I'm not really interested in literal versions," says Carr. "What I'm interested in is putting my own slant on it. I love Euripides' work, but something about the end wasn't right, for me." She also points out that the play was first staged by the Greeks around 700 years after the Trojan War; "trashing" Hecuba, the enemy, may have been Euripides' own calculated slant on history.

This version pulls off an unlikely combination: it rewrites Hecuba as less vengeful, even as it presents her as one of Greek drama's most badass matriarchs. And even if the phrase "strong woman" is a bit of a cliché now, it's true both Carr and Whyman were only interested in presenting a strong Hecuba – a complex woman, who grieves but fights, who rages but refuses revenge, who lusts as well as laments.

"Marina really restores the idea of her as a queen – a great leader, who can be ruthless, but also astoundingly courageous," adds Whyman. "We have lots of stories of women as victims, but this is not that." Whyman has shown a marked interest in staging plays that put women front and centre since she joined the RSC in 2013, and Hecuba has been in the pipeline since day one.

Quite literally: Whyman was passed the script on her first day in the job, and knew she wanted to direct it immediately.

Each character directly addresses the audience, giving an account of the situation unfolding, and what they think and feel about it. Carr also ditches the formal Greek chorus. "I've never seen it work," she says bluntly. "In this piece, everyone becomes everyone else's chorus – they comment on the other person." This offers a multiplicity of "very distinct" perspectives on the action, says Whyman, while allowing each character "a very privileged and bold relationship with the audience."

Hecuba is written with a brisk modern idiom, unflinching in its descriptions of the horrors of war; terms like "genocide" get thrown around. Yet there's nothing that ties the play to any specific historical moment, and the production will also resist precisely locating the action.

Present-day parallels hardly need overstating, anyway. The day I speak to Whyman is the day this newspaper runs the image of little Aylan Kurdi's body washed up on the shore of a Turkish beach; discussing the murder of Polydorous, a nine-year-old thrown off a boat, feels distressingly close.

"I find so much of the play horribly relevant", says Whyman. "It is a story about another time – but it speaks about our own."

'Hecuba' is at Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, until 17 October; rsc.org.uk