1. What is the social, historical and cultural background to the text?                                                                                      The battle goes back and forth for nine years. The Trojans, led by Priam’s son, Hector, finally gain an advantage when Agamemnon kidnaps the daughter of the Trojan priest of Apollo. Achilles has warned against this, and he is justified when Apollo’s fiery arrows nearly destroy the Greek army. Calchas, a Greek prophet, convinces Agamemnon to free the girl, but Agamemnon demands a replacement in the form of Achilles’ prize female captive, Briseis. Furious, Achilles withdraws his troops from battle. Without Achilles, the Greeks seem doomed. The gods have been evenly split thus far: Aphrodite, Ares, Apollo and Artemis on the side of the Trojans; Hera, Athena, and Poseidon take the Greek side. But Thetis persuades the hitherto neutral Zeus to help the Trojans. Menelaus defeats Paris in combat, however. Aphrodite saves Paris’s life, and the armies agree to a truce. But Hera is bent on war, so she makes a Trojan named Pandarus break the truce. When the battle starts again, the great Greek warrior Diomedes nearly kills the Trojan Aeneas, whom Apollo saves. Diomedes even wounds Ares himself.The Greeks hold their own until Zeus remembers his promise to Thetis and comes down to the battlefield. The Trojans drive the Greeks back toward their ships. That night, Agamemnon agrees to return Briseis, but when Odysseus goes to ask Achilles to accept the apology, he receives a flat refusal. The next day the Greeks lose again without Achilles and are driven even closer to their ships. But then Hera decides to seduce Zeus and give the Greeks an advantage. While the two divinities are indisposed, the great Greek warrior Ajax nearly kills Hector. Discovering the deception, Zeus angrily commands Poseidon to abandon the Greeks, and the Trojans press forward. As the Greeks near defeat, Achilles’s best friend, Patroclus, can restrain himself no longer. He convinces Achilles to lend him his armor, thinking that even if Achilles refuses to fight, he himself can help the Greeks by pretending to be Achilles and thus frightening the Trojans. Leading Achilles’ men, the Myrmidons, into battle, Patroclus fights valiantly but is killed by Hector’s spear. Achilles grieves terribly and decides to return to battle to avenge this death. Thetis, seeing she can no longer hold her son back, gives him armor made by Hephaestus himself.The Trojans soon retreat inside their impenetrable walls through the huge Scaean gates. Only Hector remains outside, clad in Achilles’ own armor taken from Patroclus’s corpse. Hector and Achilles, the two greatest warriors of the Trojan War, finally face one another. When Hector sees that Athena stands by Achilles’ side while Apollo has left his own, he runs away from Achilles. They circle around and around the city of Troy until Athena disguises herself as Hector’s brother and makes him stop. Achilles catches up with Hector, who realizes the deception. They fight, and Achilles, aided by Athena, kills Hector with his spear. Achilles is still so filled with rage over Patroclus’s death that he drags Hector’s body over the ground, mutilating it. He takes it back to the Greek camp and leaves it beside Patroclus’s funeral pyre for dogs to devour. Such disrespect for a great warrior greatly displeases the gods, who convince Priam to visit Achilles and retrieve Hector’s body. Priam speaks to Achilles, who sees the error of his ways. The Iliad ends with Hector’s funeral. I got this information from: http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/mythology/section8.rhtml 
  2. What are the particular artistic features of the text, the genre, and any implied performance style?                              The genre of this play is tragedy, or to be more specific an ancient Greek tragedy. I believe that the performance style was supposed to be portrayed as the guard being anxious, nervous and cautious about revealing the news to Agamemnon, although the change of style in the performance to portray the guard as arrogant and beyond caring and Agamemnon as the more anxious character, fuming.
  3. What is the background of the playwright?                                                                                                                         Brian Woolland worked as a van driver, a farm hand, a wine merchant and a photographer; as a teacher in mainstream education and in a therapeutic community for maladjusted adolescents before becoming an Advisory Teacher for Drama. He then took up a post at the University of Reading, where he taught on BA (Ed). BA, MA degrees and on PGCE courses. On the BA he taught on a wide range of courses, specialising in educational drama, theatre production, Early Modern theatre, and modern American theatre. In 2005 he resigned his post as a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Film, Theatre & Television in order to focus on writing and working freelance. He is widely published as an author of educational and academic books, where his specialism is theatre of the early modern period.  He has also had considerable success as a playwright – with ten plays commissioned and produced by professional companies, and five published in book form. His most recent play, This Flesh Is Mine, used The Iliad as a starting point.  It previewed in Ramallah, Palestine on 8th May 2014; and opened in Battersea, London, on 19th May.  The play was co-produced by London based Border Crossings and Ashtar Theatre of Ramallah, Palestine. He regularly leads theatre workshops and teaches creative writing, but spends most of his time working as a writer, and theatre director.  His work on Ben Jonson and his publications in the field of educational drama have been highly acclaimed. My reference for this information: http://www.brianwoolland.co.uk/biography.html
  4. Why have you chosen this particular extract for performance?                                                                               Agamemnon’s headquarters are a luxury apartment, based in ‘wealthy suburbs’ with items named as an “unstable mix of domesticity and militarism” such as colourful rugs as a sign of domesticity but sub machine guns as a symbol of militarism. Agamemnon had just been informed that his strongest warrior is planning to quit, and leave alongside Briseis. I feel like this particular extract shoes desperation from the leader of an army, Agamemnon. The guard who gives this information to Agamemnon can see that his leader is losing it, “now is not the fucking time”, “What in the name of fuck does he think he’s up to? He’s quitting. Now. Just when we’re going to take the city. What if word gets out? He made me a promise. I took her back myself. I did not fuck her. I did not fucking touch her. Nobody fucking touched her. He got her back. I got her back myself.” This statement in particular just shows how much control the so called leader has left. The guards blunt responses such as “I know” suggest that he has lost much respect for Agamemnon. I have chosen this extract as it starts to bring up a flaw to Agamemnon’s personality which has not been revealed before. I think that it is also important to include the fact that Agamemnon’s power and authority is being lost, which is seen very clearly in a performance scenario.