(Charles Spencer’s article appeared in the Telegraph, 8/13.)
This is extraordinary, one of the most imaginative, powerful and haunting theatrical events of the year.
Aeschylus’s tragedy is the earliest surviving play in western literature (472BC), and the only Greek drama that deals with real events rather then mythical characters. It concerns Athens’s victory over vastly superior Persian force in the sea battle of Salamis, which took place eight years before the play was first staged and which Aeschylus himself witnessed.