Everyone is familiar with the Homeric myth of the protagonist, the woman who unleashed the most ruinous war ever to befall the Greeks. However, Euripides decides to draw on an alternative strand of the myth: the real Helen never went to Troy with Paris, but was enveloped in a cloud and taken to Egypt at the behest of Hera. Instead of the real Helen, her “double”, an eidolon, a cloud with her same appearance, was sent to Troy. The Trojan War was therefore unwittingly fought “for a cloud”: an evanescent, insubstantial cause. 

 

The drama begins when, after the death of the good king Proteus, his son Theoclymenus ascends the throne and seeks to marry Helen. At the same time, however, Menelaus is shipwrecked on the coast of Egypt. He finds himself in the unlikely situation of having to distinguish the real Helen from the fake one, giving rise to a hilarious series of misunderstandings.

 

Dramaturgical direction: Elisabetta Matelli

Stage direction: Christian Poggioni

Restaging: Eri Çakalli

Set design: Dino Serra