While reading this play, I had no idea how one would stage this tragedy in a contemporary context. With a directing background, I always try to think about how I would stage whatever play I am reading. This play stumped me though; probably because I was not quite sure what I was reading (yes, I'll admit it). After class the other day, I felt like I had a better grasp on what the play was about, and the background of Euripides definitely helped me get there. I wondered if there were any contemporary events that could parallel with the events of the play.
I knew nothing of sophism (with the exception of a Seinfeld episode, I think?) before class the other day. It reminded me a lot of Existentialism and the school of Sartre and the like. I went back to my contemporary philosophy notes to find some information that might help me out with this potential similarity. It just so happened that Sartre adapted a version of The Trojan Women. His version focused on the philosophy of Existentialism along with colonization and imperialism in Southern Asia.
I thought about Africa. After spending a month there this summer I find it hard not to do so. The countless civil wars and imperialism ran through my head as I thought about staging this Ancient Greek play in DR Congo, or Rwanda, or Sudan. I think these contemporary conflicts have a lot of similarities to the plot of The Trojan Women. The continent is overrun with the consequences of war, as is the setting in Euripide's play.
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It's really great that you've made a connection between Existentialism and Sophism, and there are many similarities between the two movements. Both of these approaches rely heavily on the centrality of man as the arbiter of truth.
The chief difference between the two approaches however, is that a Sophist did have an idea that objective truth existed, outside the realm of the observer. Existentialists (excluding maybe Kant and Kirkegaard) hold to that each individual "creates" truth for himself by rational observation(I'm over-simplifying this, I know!). While the Sophist rejected tradition as an arbiter of truth, he still believed that the truth was out there. Existentialists do not necessarily believe in an idea of objective truth.
You should watch a production of the Trojan women performed in the original Greek style. I think that many of your questions regarding stage direction would be cleared up, and perhaps you could grasp more of the power of this play by seeing it performed. Greek theatre is really fascinating to watch, and to modern Western audiences, it can seem very bizarre, almost like a religious ritual-which in essence, it was.
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