SCRIPT

Research

*Note - I also have my BA in Classical Civilisations with a focus on Ancient Greek Literature and Drama, so I have spent 4 years learning about this topic and these stories specifically.*

Elektra by Jennifer Saint - Secondary Source

A retelling of Klytemnestra, Kassandra, and Elektra’s stories. I first read this book back in 2022, and I absolutely adored the spin Jennifer Saint put on these women’s stories. It was the first book which showed me there are more to these stories than what the old men from Ancient Greece thought to show us. When I initially began this project in 2024, I focused only on Klytemnestra, Kassandra, and Elektra because of this book and the connection it made between the three women. It would only be later that I added Helen, Khrysothemis, and Iphigenia as main characters. I also pulled a lot of inspiration from this book, such as Kassandra killing herself instead of being killed, as she is in the Oresteia.

A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes - Secondary Source

A retelling of The Iliad by Homer told only through the women’s perspectives. This book acted as my main reference for the Trojan War and the events of The Iliad as mentioned in the play. It allowed me insight into what life might have been like as a woman during war, and what the aftermath of war looks like from a woman’s perspective. I also took a lot of inspiration from her syntax and diction throughout the book. It had a distinctive ancient-Greek feel to it that I wanted to mimic in the dialogue of the play. That’s why some of the lines might feel awkward from an English standpoint, but flow from an ancient Greek one.

An Oresteia translated by Anne Carson - Primary Source

I only used one primary source for this piece. I knew I wanted to use a female translation because of my focus on womanhood in the piece as well as the subconscious misogyny often found in male translations. Anne Carson is a renowned classicist and translator, so I trusted her version of the text. The Oresteia is the only intact Greek tragic trilogy we have from ancient Greece. It tells the story of Agamemnon, Klytemnestra, and their children as they suffer from the generational blood curse their family possesses. Carson translates Agamemnon by Aeschylus, Elektra by Sophocles, and Orestes by Euripides in her version of The Oresteia. I only used Agamemnon and Elektra as I made the decision to cut Orestes almost completely out of the story, but more on that later. Agamemnon proved to be invaluable to Klytemnestra and Kassandra’s stories as it tells the end of Kassandra’s life and the pivotal moment of revenge in Klytemnestra’s. Elektra was very helpful for writing the end of the script, as I was able to pull on a lot of dialogue and moments from it as I retold the same situation in the play.

Adaptations Made

Orestes

by Alexandre Cabanel, 1846

Orestes Slaying Aegisthus and Clytemnestra

by Bernardino Mei, 1654

Orestes

Orestes is the only son and youngest child of Klytemnestra and Agamemnon. After Agamemnon is killed by Klytemnestra upon his return from Troy, Elektra (the youngest daughter of Klytemnestra and Agamemnon) sends Orestes away to grow up and return when he’s old enough to take revenge against Klytemnestra. In this version, Orestes returns and kills his mother on behalf of Elektra. I didn’t want to have any male characters in the play, and I have always hated how helpless the Greek tragedians made Elektra out to be. Elektra is fiery and determined, and has the strength to take her own revenge. So I made the decision to kill off Orestes before he can return, and force Elektra’s hand into killing her own mother.

Aegisthus

Aegisthus is Klytemnestra’s lover who she meets while Agamemnon is away for the Trojan War. He is the one who kills Agamemnon and Kassandra in the original myth on behalf of Klytemnestra. In Greek tragedy, there are instances of women killing themselves (Antigone, Jocasta), and accidentally killing others (Deineira), but very few of them murdering another person out of bloodlust. Aegisthus acts as a shield for Klytemnestra, who encourages him but doesn’t involve herself with the murder directly. Similarly with Elektra and Orestes, I felt that Aegisthus robs Klytemnestra of autonomy and action, so I cut him out of the piece entirely. There was simply not enough time to mention him and there was nothing he did that Klytemnestra could not do herself.

Concept

The Three Fates

by Giorgio Ghisi, 1558-59

The Fates

The Moirai, otherwise known as the Fates, are a trio of women from Greek mythology who weave the lives of humanity with their string. They are three sisters born from Night, and are each in charge of a specific part of life. Klotho, the Spinner, is in charge of spinning the string and thus birth/the beginning of a life. Lachesis, the Alotter, is in charge of the length of string and thus how long a life will be/the middle of a life. Atropos, the Inevitable or End, is in charge of cutting the string and thus death/the end of a life.

I knew based on audience reactions to the previous version (The Women of the House of Atreus 2024) that I needed to add a framing device to clarify role-changes and timeskips. I chose the Fates as my framing device because of their connection to string (which fit with my concept of The String connecting the performers/characters), and they were a trio of sisters (which fit with my three female performers and the theme of sisterhood throughout the play). They were a perfect narrative fit for the story I was trying to tell. Their characters added a whole new depth to the play that was very fun to explore as I fleshed out my six tragic characters.

They Weave with String that Suffocates Performers

Shot by Will Halling, 2025

The String of Fate

I came up with the idea of having the string in the show because of how intertwined the characters' lives are. What happens to one character, no matter how small, has massive effects on the other characters. It seemed like each push to one character pulled the other ones along with it, as though they were tied together. I then had the idea to literalise that connection by physically connecting the actors with long pieces of string. Once I added the Fates, the string had an even stronger significance to the play as the Fates are able to literally weave with the string.

Through the script writing process, I realised that the Fates needed a reason to tell these stories. I landed on colour being the inciting incident. I pulled the colour red from Chinese legend and implemented a rule that the Fates always spin red string. I then thought, what if they found string that wasn't red? That's when I came up with the idea of having the life strings of the six tragic characters be blue, as though they're rotting. This creates a problem for the Fates to solve by weaving their way through these six stories. Adding the colour element really elevated the story and gave higher stakes to what was going on.

Writing the Script

The Workings & Outlines

Plot & Character Workings

The top half is me working out what the various characters were going to be. I settled on the "chorus" of my Greek tragedy to be the Fates, as they frame the story and reflect on the events as they come to pass. Then I have my six tragic characters: Klytemnestra, Helen, Kassandra, Iphigenia, Khrysothemis, and Elektra. These are the women whose stories we follow as they plunge into grief, sorrow, and rage. Finally, the ensemble roles that help fill out various scenes: Visions, Enslaved Women, Servant, and Soldier.

The bottom half is my initial plot brainstorm for how I wanted the scenes to flow. Each orange highlight is the start of a new scene. Much of the structure stayed the same in the next outline, but this initial outline shows my plot before I added in the red versus blue strings idea. The ending here is also different to the ending I decided to go with later on. Here, the Fates end the show very tangled whereas in the final version I had the Fates throw off their strings entirely.

The First Outline

This is the first proper outline I created for the script. Each blue highlight is the start of a new scene, each orange box signifies a role transition, and each character/character group (i.e. the Fates) has their own highlight colour.

This is still before I added in the red versus blue strings, as evidenced by the first scene being a discussion of what story to tell rather than a discovery of the blue strings.

Much of what was in the original workings made it into this outline, however it's been fleshed out more. This outline was to really detail the specifics of what was going to happen in each scene in order to get a sense of the scale of the story I was trying to tell.

The Final Outline

This is the final outline I did before writing the script. The first scene has been changed to reflect the addition of the red versus blue strings. Most of the edits have been made in red pen to the outline that either add in details I had forgotten or cuts down some of the minutia of each scene.

The final script stayed true to the broad strokes of this outline, but not all of the specific details made it into the script. I tend to be very wordy and add in a lot of unnecessary detail, so as I wrote the script I had to be very purposeful with the details I kept.

I changed the ending from what it is here as well, since I came up with the idea of the Fates throwing the string from themselves as I was writing the script. Here, the end still reflects a tangled mess onstage.

The Drafts & Final Version

I wrote three drafts of the script over the course of about 4 months, from December 2024 to April 2025.

Each draft was essentially cutting down the script to make everything as concise as possible. I have a habit of using more words than needed, and found that I kept adding unnecessary detail. I had to walk a fine balance between wanting to share my knowledge of Classics with the audience and only using relevant and interesting information for the play.

The final version ended up running an hour and 40 minutes, which proved to me that I could have cut it down even more. Regardless, I'm still happy with the final version I created.