Mister Heracles
by Simon Armitage

A brilliantly inventive rendering of Euripides' most harrowing tragedy.

Euripides's Heracles is shocking and strange.

It begins in defeat and despair, soars into triumph, wavers on a razor's edge of dramatic uncertainty, then plunges into carnage and horror of the darkest kind...

What is the greatest atrocity a man can commit?

What do we mean by hero?

Who can apportion blame to the workings of the human mind, and who has the power to forgive?

These are questions thrown up by Euripides' Heracles and tackled unflinchingly by Simon Armitage in language that brings the play's contemporaneity sharply into focus, without diminishing its historical portent.

Mister Heracles was commissioned by the West Yorkshire Playhouse.

This volume includes a lengthy introduction by the author including a discussion of the translation process and commentary on the thinking behind the project.