`A new version of an unfinished version of a choral version of a half-heard/half-known version of a sacrificial myth . . ." is Dublin writer Colin Teevan's throwaway description of Iph, the play that Lyric Theatre's artistic director, David Grant, is flagging up as "thrilling, muscular, containing the most extraordinarily emotional moments I have ever worked on". Iph is a reworking of Euripides's last great tragedy, Iphigeneia in Aulis, its matey, jokily abbreviated title an indication of the new, vernacular style which Teevan daringly brings to the original stately text.
The creative partnership behind its arrival on the Lyric's slate of new plays has been in serious business for almost a year. Teevan brought his three-year-old script to the Belfast company Tinderbox, who showcased it as a rehearsed reading at the April Sundays season of new writing at the Old Museum Arts Centre, and called up Grant to direct it.
The play has now become an organic element in their partnership, precipitating a welter of terrible puns, current and historic allusions, cross-references to contemporary world affairs, ideas and suggestions, which bounce between them like a game of literary ping-pong. But what was the motivation to go back to a play that is almost 2,500 years old, by a writer sometimes characterised as an arch misogynist? "I have always loved the play," declares Teevan. "I studied it at school in a Greek class, which comprised two students and an octogenarian Jesuit, who spoke and read over 15 languages and used to thrill us with tales of the 13 declensions in Finnish.
"Even in that environment, Iphigeneia's major speech had a profoundly moving effect on me. I am mystified by the accusation of misogyny against Euripides. After all, he created some of the greatest female roles in dramatic history - Medea, Electra, Hecuba, Helen, Phaedra, Clytemnestra."
And so, 12 years later, he took the remaining fragments of the original, the add-ons - the other bits and pieces tacked on after the death of Euripides - and totally reconstructed this epic tale of a man who is prepared to sacrifice his daughter in order to appease the gods, and improve the political prospects of his people. In the context of contemporary Ireland, its overtones have taken on startling, if unintentional, resonance.
"It is not about Ireland; it is not about Northern Ireland," he insists. "But when I heard it read last year, for the first time, with Northern accents, it did seem to gain a certain momentum. It is about the freedom of the individual versus the freedom of a society; about what can happen when people are inspired by a cause to do crazy things." He is immediately referred by Grant to news reports of the young Kurdish girl who set fire to herself last week at the seige of the Greek embassy in London. He agrees that this is exactly the kind of blind fervour the play addresses.
"Irish society is full of the notion of the sacrificial lamb. The rhetoric of Padraig Pearse was all about spilling blood for Ireland - Irish emigration was sacrifice on a grand political scale. I recall, during the writing of the play, suddenly thinking of the terrible story of a young girl, who gave birth to a baby in a churchyard grotto, during the abortion debate in the 1980s, and of the double standards implicit in her horrible ordeal. Here, we see a young girl pushed into an extreme situation because her father has chosen to put the interests of the country before the interests of his family." But it is not only in its hip, vernacular language, in the mischievously logical creation of an outspoken Chorus of sexy, giggling girls, in its writer's modernistic ideas of rupture and fragmentation that Iph breaks new ground.
Gary McCann's set is a breathtaking operatic structure, that makes the Lyric stage look twice its normal size and, with its metallic curves and angles, looks like an invention, caught between the Harland and Woolf shipyards and Star Wars. "We wanted to completely reinvent the space," says Grant. "Colin mentioned one day that when the ancient Greeks wanted to fantasise, they looked back. When we fantasise, we look forward to science fiction and futuristic images. Gary has created a space in which we can celebrate the musicality, the movement, the largerthan-life, tabloid characters, the stunning stage effects of ancient Greek drama. I am anticipating an evening of thrilling theatre."
Teevan is more prosaic in his summing up. "I, too, am expecting great things of David's ambitious production. It has a lot to live up to. After all, this play was the Terminator 2 of its day."
Iph opens at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast on Tuesday March 2nd and runs until March 20th. Box office, tel: 01232 381081.
