A MIDDLE-EASTERN TWIST TO ‘HECUBA’

“I’m not turning it into apolitical play,” said producer/director Lamis Khalaf of her newly conceptualized version of Euripides’ “Hecuba” (opening Thursday at the Powerhouse). “It’s political as it is.”

Khalaf, 28, has done nothing, in fact, to alter the text. “The only thing I’m doing is appealing to people’s imagination: telling them, ‘Suppose that the Greeks are the Israelis, the Thracians are the Lebanese and the Trojans are the Palestinians.’ When you put this play in the context of present-day parties in the Middle East--suddenly just hearing the words, it’s a very powerful thing.”

“Hecuba” centers on the embattled former Queen of Troy, who takes violent revenge when her daughter and son are killed--one as a ritual sacrifice, the other in an act of betrayal.

“The politics are all in the arguments,” Khalaf explained. “Each person has reasons, defenses for his actions. And it’s a thin line between taking revenge and terrorism: ‘Because this person was killed, let’s kill more innocent people.’ So where does it stop?”

For Khalaf (born of Syrian and Palestinian parents), the concept also includes a new identity for the capricious Greek gods. Here, they are represented--through regional music, costume, dance and ritual--by the superpowers: Europe (at the end of World War II), the United States and the Soviet Union.

“It’s a fact that the superpowers make a difference,” she said of the metaphor. “No matter how much you want to be independent and feel that you’re your own master, you’re not--because there are those in power who have their eyes on you, especially in the Middle East. Hecuba is a queen who’s lost her country, her children. I see her as a symbol of Palestine: She had everything, and she lost it. Now she’s old, aware of the game she fell into--a victim.”

It follows then that the director, who was born in Switzerland, but spent her formative years (including the 1982 Israeli invasion) in Beirut, would most closely align her sympathies with the Arabs.

“I’m not an expert on terrorism and I’m not trying to make a statement on it in general,” she said guardedly. “But I do come from Lebanon; I lived on the (edge) of a Palestinian camp. And they are the most peaceful people! But the word ‘Palestinian’ has so many negative connotations here: Palestinian; PLO; terrorist. I’m fed up with that. We need to be a bit objective and look at things in context.

i “Taking Hecuba out of context--she kills Polymestor’s two children and blinds him--you can look at those actions and easily call her a terrorist. But in the whole context of the play. . . . “I’m not advocating terrorism. Still, when people are pushed to the edge, driven to despair, have exhausted all their resources, what else can they do?”

She makes no excuses for her point of view. “Of course, you grow up being influenced by your immediate background--your family, your education. But then you become your own person, make your own decisions. Before I came here, I never really encountered Jews. Jews were Israel and Israel was the enemy. How else would you feel (in 1982), with Israeli bombs dropping and the American Navy bombarding you?

“At the time, I hated everything that had to do with America, with Israel and Jews. But look, I came here. I came and I’m willing to look at things more objectively; I am an enlightened person. If telling my side of the story makes me look prejudiced because maybe the bad guy is not the Palestinian but Israel or the United States or the Soviet Union--fine. But I’m trying to shed some light on those gaps: ‘How do the Palestinians feel, being called terrorists, day in and day out?’ They’re human beings. “

Although this particular project is obviously of great personal importance, Khalaf’s past directorial projects (mostly at UCLA, where she received her MFA in 1984) have been far less controversial: Chekhov’s “The Bear,” Kafka’s “The Trial” and Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire.”

“I’m not going to spend my life doing Arab projects,” she said. “But, yes, the kind of theater I want to do is theater that does not compromise my principles, or things that are important to me. And Greek tragedy does lend itself to those issues--to new representations and interpretations. Perhaps that’s why it’s been around for so long.”