Thyestes

Synopsis

Ancient Greece, the Kingdom of Pisa. King Pelops has declared his bastard child Chrysippus heir to the throne.

His queen Hippodamia convinces Pelops' rightful heirs, her sons Atreus and Thyestes, to kill their half-brother.

So begins the infamous story of a deposed king who eats his own children, after being served them in a feast by his brother.

In this modern version, reimagined by four young writers, the boundaries of Seneca's play have been blown out to encompass the matrix of killings in the original myth.

A series of moments between atrocities, Thyestes explores the constant that has underpinned human nature across the centuries: that man is brutal, capable of anything.

And in the spaces between the banal and the ordinary, terrifying acts occur.

Themes

• Theatre