Around 480 BC, the largest Asian army attacked the Greeks, who, outnumbered and technically inferior to them, seemed easy prey. But in the straits of Salamis, the Persians were brutally defeated by the Greeks in a surprise attack. The nearly 300,000 dead suggest that here an entire nation was robbed of its future for generations. Aeschylus captures this historical event in a dense verse language rich in imagery. His tragedy reflects the position of man who, in his presumption of ambition and hubris, drags everyone and everything to ruin: the autocrat before whom a people went down on its knees returns home without royal clothes; he is naked and defenceless like everyone else. In the end, the power of survival lies in the collective lament of the defeated. Aeschylus portrays man in his vulnerability through the experience of pain, and only from this can a modern, humane state emerge.
Ulrich Rasche stages the dense, highly musical language in an oratorio-like performance with two singers, five musicians, fifteen actors and three actresses.
Text source and more information about this event: https://www.schauspielfrankfurt.de/spielplan/die-perser/2626/
