Her Name Means Memory is
“….mesmerizing and emotionally satisfying”
Berkshire Bright Focus
“Go see this play, and reconnect to everything that is right and good about the theater.”
Bennington Banner
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Making Theatre in Brooklyn and Vermont
A rave review from Berkshire Bright Focus!
A rave from The Bennington Banner
HER NAME MEANS MEMORY
A brand new version of Euripides’ classic Trojan Women
CAST
Hecuba, Queen of Troy / Anne Bates*
Xenia, Counselor to Hecuba / Janis Young*
Lenci, a young mother in Hecuba’s court / Susannah MacLeod*
Galyna, a new bride in Hecuba’s court / Elizah Hill
Corra, an unmarried woman in Hecuba’s court / Xingrong Chen
Talthybius, a Greek herald / Oliver Wadsworth*
Cassandra, Hecuba’s daughter, a prophetess / Valeri Mudek*
Menelaus, King of Sparta, Helen’s husband / Allen McCullough*
Helen, Queen of Sparta, Menelaus’ wife / Valeri Mudek*
Andromache, wife of Hector / Monique Vukovic*
*Member of Actors Equity
A Note from the Playwright
I fell in love with Greek tragedy when asked to stage several of them early in my career. My first assignment was Electra in 1981 for Juilliard, directed by Michael Kahn. I remember exactly where I was sitting in the Lincoln Center Library of the Performing Arts as I read through the play, wide-eyed and breathless from the writing that felt so fresh and deep. My only hesitation was that I wished the play’s references weren’t quite so opaque. Many years have passed since that afternoon. Because Russia continues its invasion in Ukraine, and the brutal femicides in Iran and India, I turned to Euripides’ play, Trojan Women to help me reckon theatrically with how women still are used as weapons of war. I think of my new version of the play as holding up an ancient mirror wherein we see reflections of our own time. While the events and characters of the original remain intact, the structure has been re-ordered a bit. I’ve added a couple new scenes, and found equivalencies for those references that audiences in 415 BC would have understood that we might not. I’ve balanced the majestic classical diction with an easy poetic vernacular for a more modern expression. Each Chorus member is named with a distinct backstory and she experiences more agency in the plot than is usual in Greek tragedy. Trojan Women is an ongoing lamentation, but in Her Name Means Memory Hecuba won’t give up hope; in every scene she fights to save herself, her women and her family until only one strategy is left to her – a strategy that has succeeded in bringing us to the theatre tonight 2,430 years later.
RANDOLYN ZINN (Playwright/Director) Randolyn's plays have been produced in New York by New Georges, BACA Downtown, The Westbank Café, Williamstown Theatre Festival, New York Theatre Workshop, and LRT where Lucy’s Wedding was nominated for Outstanding Original Play. Her published fiction has won prizes, including New School's Fiction Prize, several grants, and a travel fellowship to Spain. As an actor she has appeared on Broadway in The Rothschilds, The Knight of the Burning Pestle at Long Wharf, Frank, Frank at New Georges, The Soldier’s Tale at Lincoln Center, Portrait of Frida at Williamstown Theatre Festival, To See If I Could See Her at New York Theatre Workshop, and in two indie films. As an actor for LRT; Constellations Nora, A Doll’s House, Part 2, Masha in Three Sisters. She has directed plays by Lorca, Chekhov, Ionesco, Strindberg, and Chuck Mee. Her choreography has served productions at the Guthrie, Baltimore Center Stage, the NY Philharmonic, Juilliard, on three films coaching Harvey Keitel, and on Broadway for Sunday in the Park with George (a chapter on her work for that musical appears in the book Putting It Together). With Allen McCullough, Randolyn is the co-founder and co-artistic director of LRT. MFA: The New School. Faculty: Juilliard, Pace University, Circle in the Square. randolynzinn.com
EURIPIDES was born in Athens between 485 & 480 BC. He wrote (in a cave on Salamis) some one hundred plays, nineteen of which have survived, including Medea, Bacchae, Iphigenia at Aulis, and others). Appalled by the massacre at Melos by the Greeks, he wrote Trojan Women, using the Trojan War as a stand-in for the brutality of his countrymen — a bold choice given that his audience was primarily Greek. His originality in form and content, that he wrote many plays with female protagonists, and how he shows humans as they are, not what they ought to be, has inspired playwrights ever since. The two fixed stars of Euripides’ artistic practice were Beauty and Truth, and as one of his songs poignantly avows “When the Muses desert me, let me die; may their flower-garlands never fail me.” He died in 406 B.C.
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LRT re-energizes the intimate relationship between actors and audiences by presenting new and classic plays to elicit empathy, bring the past alive, and look to the future. Our productions are often set in real environments, driven by innovative direction, canny design and great acting. Audiences experience a unique theatrical intimacy that draws each observer into a more personal relationship with the play.
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