A production of Attis Theatre from Greece, "The Trojan Women" directed by Greek director Theodoros Terzopoulos, is widely recognized as one of the wisest living interpretation of the classic Greek tragedy. 

The production completed a final performance at Wuzhen's Water Theatre on Saturday at the seventh Wuzhen Theatre Festival.

A classic Greek tragedy written by playwright Euripides, "The Trojan Women" brings to stage the stories of four women in the aftermath of the Trojan War. 

With their city plundered and husbands killed, the fate of these Trojan women made one of the best anti-war plays ever written.

The fundamental idea of the play, as Theodoros Terzopoulos told CGTN in an exclusive interview,  is "to give people the message: Against the war and for the peace." 

Under natural light, actors borrowed no support from modern technology, not even microphones. They had but their body and voice.

Before coming to Wuzhen, the production had been staged outdoor in Europe a few times. Nonetheless, the Water Theatre created certain challenges with a more open space and the existence of water.

"The actors must be very considerate. Their bodies must be up, and their voice more high, to cover all the space," explained Terzopoulos.

From the perspective of direction, he said there were only small adaptations, emphasizing that classic texts ought not to be adapted at will. 

Nevertheless, the water naturally became the sea in the story where the Trojan women were brought to Greece as slaves — the set turns out to fit the story perfectly.

Another notable characteristic of "The Trojan Women" is that it features actors from divided areas in Greece, Syria, Cyprus, Croatia, and Israel. 

This multi-cultural cast fulfills the concept of the production. Their personal experiences of war enhanced the cry for peace, which, as the theme of the play, was repeatedly stressed by the director.

Teropoulos seemed confident in bringing a classic Greek tragedy to Chinese audience who share few cultural connection or familiarity with the ancient tales of the West. "We were in Japan and the audience understood everything. I think the Chinese audience is more open," he said.

It was indeed well received by Chinese audience. "This is shockingly beautiful, definitely my favorite this year by far," commented an audience member after watching the performance.

Reporter: Wei Tianyao

Copyeditor: Vanessa Gu

Chief editor: Liu Hui

Videographers: Hong Yaobin, Guo Yuanheng

Video editor: Hong Yaobin

Cover image designer: Liu Shaozhen

Executive producer: Hong Yaobin

Producer: Si Nan

Supervisor: Mei Yan