The British theatre director Maggie Hannan is covered in red paint. There’s newspaper spread all over the floor of her Abu Dhabi villa and white, ragged costumes, which Hannan is in the process of “blood splattering” – one of many roles she has taken on since founding Resuscitation Theatre in the United Kingdom 13 years ago.
When Hannan moved to Abu Dhabi in 2008, she brought her costumes with her and reformed her theatre group here.
The costumes she is painting will be worn for Resuscitation Theatre’s latest production, Trojan Women, which Hannan has adapted from the ancient Greek Euripides play. Written in 415BC, it takes place in the aftermath of the Trojan War after the Greeks use the legendary Trojan horse to smuggle soldiers into Troy. All the city’s men are now dead and the women await their fate at the hands of their captors.
“This is our most ambitious project to date and chose this story because the timeless themes of loss in war resonate loudly today. It’s so relevant to what’s going on in this region – in Syria, Palestine and other countries with refugees.
“In Jordan, the play has been performed recently by Syrian refugees as a drama therapy for women who really have lost their husbands and their sons. They wove their own stories into the play when they performed it.
“I also chose Trojan Women because there are so many opportunities in it for movement – I visualised it as a dance drama. When the play was first performed, there would have been one actor, a monologue and a chorus.”
Hannan also designs the props and costumes, a skill she learnt growing up in a theatrical family on Broadway. “I have a huge list of things I have to do for this show,” she says. “I would love to do just one show with proper funding so we could afford prop and costume makers and a graphic designer. Our shows are good quality, but we could go beyond. I hope that with the building of the cultural district on Saadiyat, there will be attention paid to grassroots groups such as ours.”
Hannan leads a cast of 14 actors from India, Bangladesh, the United States, the UK, the Philippines and Venezuela, plus two Emirati children.
“I deliberately choose people of different nationalities because this is Abu Dhabi, so I don’t do ‘all western’.
“You learn so much about cultures during the rehearsals and that’s what makes them so interesting. Some of the cast have done professional acting work in their home countries, some are trailing spouses. We also get a few amateurs. We do three shows a year so as soon as you finish one, there’s another one up and running.”
Trojan Women runs from Wednesday until Friday at Abu Dhabi’s National Theatre. Show starts at 8pm; suggested minimum contribution is Dh75 (adults) and Dh50 (students)
