THE PERSIANS
BY AESCHYLUS, ADAPTED BY ELLEN MCLAUGHLIN
A REGIONAL PREMIERE
Preview Performances May 2-3, 2024
Opening Night Saturday, May 4, 2024
In Performance May 2 – 26, 2024
Thursdays through Saturdays at 7:30 pm
Sunday Matinees at 2:00 pm
Considered the oldest surviving play in theater history, The Persians is unique among extant ancient Greek tragedies in that it dramatizes recent history rather than events from the distant age of mythical heroes. Its focus is the Battle of Salamis, won by the Greeks against an overwhelming Persian force in 480 B.C., eight years before the plays premiere in 472 B.C. and also a battle in which Aeschylus himself fought. The Persians concentrates on the demise of the Persian Empire, lamented by the Persian queen Atossa, by the folly of her son Xerxes, which caused the empire's downfall. The play also includes the appearance of the ghost of Xerxes' father, Darius, who declaims the ruin of his once-great empire. The Persians is the only surviving play in a trilogy that would otherwise be entirely lost. The trilogy won the first prize in the City Dionysia of Athens in 472 BCE and the resonance of the play for audiences from ancient times to the present remained, and remains strong in Ellen McLaughlin’s riveting adaptation.
