Children of Heracles

By the time Euripides wrote and staged Children of Heracles (430 BC) he had already turned 50 and was celebrating his silver jubilee as a playwright. The city of Athens had been at war with Sparta since the previous year, in a war that would last 25 years until the defeat of this city (403 BC). At the time of the Children of Heracles’s premiere, it was Pericles who ran the city’s affairs. This historical review helps to better understand why Euripides chose the myth dealt in this tragedy. Athens, precisely because of the hospitality given to Heracles’s sons, is faced with a conflict against Argos and his king Eurystheus, who was the executioner of Heracles in life – he was the one imposing onto him the legendary works – and relentless persecutor of his children after the hero’s death. Euripides starts from this argument to build the plot of the tragedy of Iolaus and Alcmene as protectors of Heracles’s helpless sons and daughters. The good and wise king of Athens, Demophon, Theseus’s son, does not put aside the use of force to fulfil the sacred duties of those who plead for protection at the altar of Zeus. The victory in the armed conflict, in which a rejuvenated Iolaus also participated, is assured by the oldest daughter of Heracles, who sacrifices herself voluntarily, to fulfil the pronouncement of an oracle. Eurystheus, defeated, eventually appears at the end of the tragedy, to submit to the execution imposed by Alcmene, the main character of this tragedy’s second half.

Stage manager: Delfim Leão, Victor Torres, Rui Henriques

Wardrobe: Luísa Ferreira, with the collaboration of Maria Valente and Delfim Leão

Make-up and props: Ana Balula, with the collaboration of Raquel Gafanha

Making of the masks: Eduardo Mendes with the collaboration of Catarina Ferreira

Sound: Isidro Alves

Technical support: Carlos Santos

Cast

Victor Torres (Iolaus)

Delfim Leão (Demophon’s herald)

José Luís Brandão (Demophon)

Alessandra Oliveira (Macaria)

Marco Terras (Hyllus’s servant)

Ana Rita Miranda (Alcmene)

Paulo Sérgio Ferreira (Messenger)

João Paulo Correia (Eurystheus)

Rui Henriques (Coryphaeus)

Chorus: Andreia, Carla Braz, Cláudia Cravo, Filipe Cravo, Jordana Costa, Liliana Pena, Manuel Santos Ramiro Costa, Sandra Costa, Sílvia Costa, Susana Bastos, Ricardo Monteiro, Isidro Alves.