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For Hektor and Andromake I originally wanted a theatre like the Festival Theatre in Stratford, Ontario.
The Festival Theatre, you may know, has a nearly circular space, a large central triangular balcony (supported by pillars) pointing toward the audience, and, ahead of that, a large, dark, beautiful wooden thrust stage. Beneath the balcony and its pillars is an acting area that can be curtained off. At the rear is a fairly plain wooden back wall.
The set (designed by Tanya Moiseiwitsch) has several doors off the main acting level, and central doors in the back wall beneath the balcony. It has a trapdoor in the thrust stage, and seats almost 2000 hearers on three sides of the thrust stage, in the orchestra and in a gallery above it: all seats are within 100 feet of the actors.
However, a few alterations to such a play space now seem to me necessary.
For Hektor and Andromake, an asymmetrical set is probably needed. The balcony -- representing the entrance to Hektor's house, the house presumably being just within or set into the wall of Troy -- should probably be to the audience's right, projecting toward it on an angle. On the backwall not much above the height of the balcony, there should be a battlement and walkways. This back wall represents Troy's (usually inner) wall. Crenelations and openings should not be too prominent (we are in the Bronze Age and some things, perhaps, have not yet been invented).
In many scenes it is important strongly to suggest that Troy's walls are huge, dark, and forbidding. Perhaps the backwall could be so painted, covered, or lit in these scenes to make the appropriate suggestion. In scenes in Agamemnon's or Akilleus's tents, however, it would be better if the backwall became inconspicuous or invisible. Lighting seems the way to accomplish this. Perhaps awnings or canopies on the stage could help suggest the inside of Greek tents on the plain before Troy.
Whose fortification the backwall represents might be suggested by banners or pennons, whether for the forces of Hektor or of Agamemnon. Make your banners look weird but logical. Not, for example, typical rectangles as in modern flags — but indented isoceles triangles, or trapezoids, or other primitive, unusual shapes, elaborated and assymetric, with labyrinthine symbols. (Please take note of the flag of Nepal.) As complex, please, as Renaissance Italian city banners -- but barbaric. Barbaric is a good word to remember for the costumes, sets, props, and characters of Hektor and Andromake: both societies are, by our standards, savage, harsh, and primitive (though the text usually belies this).
Because the two barbaric societies of the play are at war, guards (seldom mentioned in the stage directions) often march on stage in formation, weapons ready, accompanying and standing on all sides of the chief characters, scrupulously protecting them. (For a vivid illustration of what I mean, closely study von Sternberg's silent film Queen Kelly.) When the backwall is the wall of Troy, armed guards stand watchful along it. Leaders in this play are seldom truly alone; they cannot afford to be: they are always accompanied by bodyguards -- visible or just out of sight. Perhaps Hektor and Aeneas are exceptions.
In the set -- in the backwall up centre -- its top probably just below the top of the wall and the walkway, is a conspicuous city gate, the focus of the set and a major character in many scenes. In a non-centered set, where Hektor's house is toward the audience's right, the gate will be on the main acting level about one-third of the way from the left side. It might be only a huge double-barred door. Probably it should be a double door, in most scenes swinging toward the audience. You may make it heavy, impressive, and reinforced, massively strong, archaic, and thick in appearance -- something like the gate of the Hur house in the 1959 MGM film Ben-Hur.
I suspect that the less it looks like a medieval or modern fortress gate -- the more like something huge, archaic and antediluvian -- even monstrous -- the closer it will be to my intent and the better it will work.
When we are looking at the city gate from within the city, it must be impressively double-barred facing us. (It probably must be double-hinged to swing both ways; sometimes we are within the city, sometimes without.)
As we look at the gate, it must be intuitively obvious whether we are inside or outside the city, i.e., whether we are seeing the inside or the outside of the gate.
In those scenes when the set does not represent the inner or the outer side of the Trojan walls, it would be good if -- by dimming the lights, placing something in front, or by draping cloth over it -- the gate could be made inconspicuous.
Perhaps the gate could be lit or dressed differently from scene to scene to seem as strong or prominent as necessary in that scene's atmosphere. It might double (with the set designer's wizardry) as the front door to Hektor's house, and, swung inward and disguised with canvas, the flap of Agamemnon's and, later, Akilleus's tents. But the strong presence of the walls and gate should be increasingly felt in the audience's subconscious. Some of this awareness will be achieved through the dialogue.
Whenever the gate is the city's main gate, it must be suitably, that is, heavily, guarded.
Remember, in whatever scenes make it possible, guards should be on post, accompanying and entering rooms ahead of the main characters to protect them from assassins — then withdrawing to discreet distances. This will create an impression of danger, war, conspiracy, vigilance.
The set gives the impression -- except at Paris's house, and occasionally when Andromake is present -- of Stygian darkness and forbidding cyclopean structures.
Often only a part of the set should be lit -- to suggest darkness, night, and conspiracy.
The outer side of the gate -- contrasting with the dark, bare set -- suggests opulence and power -- under enormous pressure.
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Hektor and Andromake can probably be staged in the costume of many periods.
For early productions, I suggest the Trojans wear dress suggestive of Anatolian dress about the time the play is set, i.e., 1247 B.C.E.
But accuracy of costume is less important than effectiveness. We must reckon with the public's unconscious expectations: they are used to plays set in the Greek costume of later centuries, e.g., Periclean Athens. Perhaps in early productions the Akhaian and Trojan costumes would distract the audience less if they were from a more familiar period.
There is a suggestion in Homer that Trojans were dissimilar culturally from Akhaians. They seem (in history) to have spoken not Greek, but an Indo-European language called Luvian, related to Hittite and Minoan. Perhaps they dressed like Minoans? Director and costume designers might consider small, non-distracting use of this possibility.
Let the costumes be simple but varied. Do not let the costumes distract attention from the words, characters, and performances, i.e., the action, but support these with costume.
Here are a few costume suggestions. (More to indicate what the characters are like than truly to insist how to costume them.)
It is important that Akhaians and Trojans wear different looking costumes so that they may be told apart instantly by the audience. Generally, young Trojan men wear light, bright, pastel tunics. As young Trojan men age, and attain more wealth, seriousness, and authority, their dress becomes longer, darker, more elaborate, and more toga-like. But the Trojan men are at war, so perhaps most of those we see wear toga-like garb only in the House of Fathers.
Akhaians, by contrast, wear dark, drab colours, dressing like peasants. They are more ragged than Trojans, even most of the kings. The kings wear capes or armor over a mixture of regal garments and raggedness.
Men, in this play, especially Akhaian men -- with the exception of Akilleus -- are generally scarred on face, chest and arms — the more so, as they are older. Hektor is scarred, perhaps heavily for his age. Odysseus and other older characters who have borne the fighting's brunt are also heavily scarred.
It is nearing the end of a bitterly cold winter; so characters wear cloaks, furs, and gauntlets on the windy battlements and plain. The Akhaians' clothing is rattier and dirtier than the Trojans', even the kings'.
Hektor's dress and corselet are more elaborate and hacked than the other Trojans'. His helmet is new. He characteristically wears a huge, masked, gleaming, terrifying bronze helmet with an immense, brilliant red or crimson crest that tails to the back of his knees, and brilliant red (or occasionally rust or crimson) long royal capes and cloaks. They look expensive. Some look new, some do not. His weapons, armor, and clothing are usually battered and bloody. He sometimes wears a grey barbaric-looking chain of office, with a pendant of a labyrinth design, for example, in the House of Fathers coup scene; a plain signet ring and armlets. His face and chest are impressively scarred. He is an impressive figure, not only by armor and gear he wears, but by his bearing and commanding manner. He is of average height or slightly shorter. He looks deadly, like a much tougher Richard Burton, or a more sensitive version of the artist John Buscema's Conan.
Priam is short and white-haired, and wears purple and white, perhaps with ermine; and an elaborate diadem. Think of him as Macbeth's Duncan, scarred.
Agamemnon wears black and red, perhaps with ermine and trim of purple; and a black or silver diadem. He is as sinisterly evil as you can suggest; carpet him with raven feathers if you want. He has a long scar on his face that crosses one eye. He carries a sinister sceptre. He is the aged Conan of Aquilonia. (See the last shot of the movie Conan the Barbarian, featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger.)
The other Argive kings (with the exception of Akilleus) wear simpler dress — peasant dress with chains or armlets of authority — and good cloaks.
Armor on the Akhaian side is for the most part old, even patched. The major exception (Agamemnon and Menelaos also have good equipment) is Akilleus's, especially at the end of Act V. Akilleus's first set of armor (which Patroklus and Hektor later wear) is gleaming black and gold, as if lacquered. He has an immense black masked helmet, the dark image of Hektor's. Its black crest tails down to the back of his knees. His second set of armor is similar to the first -- black -- but much of the gold is replaced with red. The second set is more elaborate and terrifying, perhaps covered with (red?) dragons. The second involves a larger shield covered with a grotesque Medusa's head bristling with snakes. The mask portion of the helmet of his second suit of armor might be of gleaming gold — perhaps like Mordred's in the John Boorman film Excalibur, or perhaps with a grotesque face on it in gold as on the mask of the enormous gladiator the hero fights in the film Gladiator. Perhaps the helmets of Hektor and Akilleus have horns; if so, Akilleus' second set has larger horns and, I think, dragon wings.
Perhaps during the fight scene in the last act, Akilleus might wear buskins or elevator sandals to make him seem even larger than Hektor than usual.
Helenus has a black Mephistophelean beard. He has gray at the temples. He wears dark grey trimmed with black. He might wear a spot of white in early scenes; perhaps, like Pavarotti, he conspicuously carries a handkerchief.
Trojans (exception: Hektor) wear much jewelry, even in battle. Akhaians do not.
Since Trojans were linguistically and perhaps culturally like Minoans, perhaps Trojan women were sometimes bare-breasted. (But the season is winter in a cold and windy city.)
Helen wears white or red with gold; perhaps with some zebra-stripes or large polkadots — with leopard belts. She is tanned. She is accompanied by elegant afghan dogs, doves at her wrist, or lapdogs. The other Trojan women wear white, coral, aqua, pale blue or whatever colors are left.
At the beginning of the play Andromake wears a simple white nightgown. In public she wears elaborate white gowns, perhaps with a zebra-stripe, brown, or leopard belt. But little jewelry. Perhaps a ribbon about the neck. (Her clothing is like Helen's, but more official, less sexual.) Remember that she is from another country. Something about her suggests that she is -- incongruously -- from a deeply warrior culture. When she goes to see Akilleus she is, beneath her disguise, arrayed as a queen. But, generally, her costumes remain simple as the play goes on. When she realizes Hektor intends to die, her next scene's dress is more careless and even simpler; perhaps a coarse tunic. She wears this outfit at the end of the play.
Older women wear jewellery and elaborate, layered opaque gowns; younger women (like Kassandra and Polyxena) wear semi-diaphonous and simple gowns, or tunics.
The Trojan women should be well-dressed, the richest women splendid, with jewellery. Their clothes may/should look new.
Men's clothing, armor, and weapons should (usually) look used, even hacked and bloody — especially the Akhaians'. The Fathers in the House of Fathers scene should be in almost-new, white toga-like gowns. But even Agamemnon's clothing appears, at the best of times, soiled. He is a working warrior. Warriors (exception: Paris) have dried blood or dings or dirt or patches on their equipment, and unshaved faces.
Akilleus wears black with gold trim until Act V; the more raven-like and terrible, the better.
It would be good if costumes looked practical, like something the people of the play would actually wear. This would help the costumes be less obtrusive.
Sets plain, costumes making the people look right.
By contrast, Paris and Helen look flashy; but they wear what they wear with flair.
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I have always thought of Hektor and Andromake with musical accompaniment. The following are a few tentative suggestions for this music. They're only suggestions. Don't hesitate to follow your own ideas. Perhaps I'm wrong.
When the audience enters the auditorium, selections of heroic classical music -- mostly 19th century -- should already be playing softly in the background.
Each succeeding selection (I assume there will be at least 15-20 minutes' worth) should be of slightly higher quality, a little more emphatic, a little faster. Succeeding selections need not, however, necessarily be louder. While the emphasis in each of these pieces is heroic aspiration, perhaps none of them actually concludes. Perhaps they are excerpted, cut off, or pushed together into a medley. The last, short selections may even be played simultaneously, colliding with each other like two bands in a symphony of Charles Ives.
But whatever music you use, let it play quietly in the background at first.
The selections should subliminally remind the audience of humanity's heroic aspirations. The selections should quietly establish a background of increasingly dangerous rugged heroic grandeur and greatness.
Then, as we draw within a minute of the rise of the curtain, the volume of the music should turn up. The final selection is -- abruptly -- martial, insistent, strident, loud. (Or at least, louder.) This final (20th century?) piece of music should soar, at moments, above conversation, seizing attention and making conversation in the audience momentarily or completely impossible.
At some point in this selection the audience should feel human aspiration and greatness hammered under enormous blows.
At the end of the final selection of pre-curtain music, that selection, having reached climax -- or having cut off just before one -- should leave expectation hanging in the air. (If you like, the final selection can even seem to fall apart in chaos, shattered . . .)
For this final selection, would part of Shostakovich's first movement from his Symphony #5 be appropriate?
If no score has been composed especially for the body of the production, use grim, exciting Romantic or 20th century classical music. Please consider having leitmotives for the leading characters. I see Hektor as a Beethovenian character, the Akhaians as chaotic as portions of Shostakovich's symphonies or certain themes in Richard Strauss's Ein Heldenleben tone poem.
Your music director might consider the following four pieces of music for the pre-curtain and the production proper:
Could a theme from either of these last two selections be a leitmotif, perhaps for the Akhaians?
In the main body of the production, I envision the same sort of music, in brief bursts, the grimmer and more pathetic the better. Intershot with glory and grandeur, the music should become even more grim and bleak toward the resolution of the play, Hektor's climactic fight with Akilleus.
I think the production should have one intermission. Perhaps a Beethoven overture, the Coriolan or the Egmont, should begin softly toward the end of the intermission, then (again) rise tumultuously in volume as we approach curtain rise.
During the battle scenes toward the end of the play (if it isn't too much of a cliché) please consider using part of Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries.
At or just before the play's end I tentatively suggest:
I suspect that this music should be played loudly at first, then, after less than a minute, softly.
That is -- when the play ends what music there may be should probably climax, then abruptly decline in volume until it is, again, only a kind of background of the soul.
About five to eight minutes of musical decrescendo after the end of the play seems right.
As an alternative to all this, you might simply play Andre Bocelli's Con te Partirò (Philips Records) at the end of the drama.
But let your wisdom guide all. Do not let the music become too grandiose or intrusive. It is intended, at best, merely as a strong support to the play. It should not replace the performance.
Some ancient Greek music was critically reconstructed, recorded and available on LP in the early 1980s; a Toronto production of Giraudoux's La guerre de Troie n'aura pas lieu (Tiger at the Gates) used the first cut on this record. Please consider whether some of this music -- the first cut? -- (Musique de la Grèce Antique, Atrium Musicae de Madrid) could be of use at the beginning of the play or the beginning of the cave scene.
Names ending in "-os" or "-as" should, for the purposes of this play, be pronounced as if spelled "-iss" or "-us". Thus Helenos = "HEL-en-iss".
Akilleus is usually pronounced in three syllables, i.e., "a-KILL-yus". Aeneas is usually pronounced in two syllables, i.e., "ai-NEES". Skamandrius is often three syllables, i.e., "Ska-MAN-drus".
Watch out for syncopes, that is, compressions of two syllables into one for dramatic and metrical reasons, e.g., t'will, 'sif (as if, pronounced "ZIF"), t'advance (pronounced "twad-VANCE"). These are usually signalled by apostrophes, though I have sometimes simply spelled words in ways that suggest the desired pronunciations. Look for opportunities for characters to speak in appropriate regional accents or dialects. The Trojans should speak in accents local to the site of the production, the Akhaians like foreigners. (Remember, a little goes a long way.)
Generally, speak vigorously, aggressively and swiftly.
The play begins in Troy (aka Troia, Priam's capital), The Troad, kingdom of Wilusa, 1st Watch, the 2nd Kronos, month of WinterEnd, 34th year of Priam. That is, in our time: 1 a.m., March 18, 1227 B.C.E.
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