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Curated playlist

Plays set in ancient Greece

  • Troilus and CressidaTwo 1609 printings of Troilus and Cressida disagree on whether it was ever staged.
  • Medea (play)When her husband Jason left her for a princess, Medea poisoned the princess and her father, the king of Corinth.
  • The Birds (play)Two fed-up Athenians in The Birds plan a city in the sky to blockade the gods. Aristophanes staged the comedy in 414 BC.
  • A Midsummer Night's DreamIn A Midsummer Night's Dream, Puck gives a weaver a donkey's head and a fairy queen falls for him.
  • The PersiansThe Persians, a Greek play, showed Athenians their enemy's grief.
  • The FrogsIn The Frogs, the god Dionysus disguises himself as Heracles to fetch a dead playwright from the underworld.
  • The Two Noble KinsmenTwo cousins turn from friends to rivals the moment they see one woman. This is Shakespeare's The Two Noble Kinsmen.
  • Oedipus RexIn Oedipus Rex, a king vowing to catch a murderer is the killer. Sophocles' play opens with Thebes dying of plague.
  • Antigone (Anouilh play)Anouilh's Antigone stayed vague about sides so it could get past Nazi censors.
  • Pericles, Prince of TyrePericles, Prince of Tyre was a hit play that the First Folio left out. It was reprinted five times before 1635.
  • The BacchaeIn The Bacchae, a mother carries her son's head home believing it is a mountain lion's.
  • Prometheus BoundPrometheus Bound opens with its hero chained and silent. No other surviving Greek tragedy opens with four actors.
  • The Comedy of ErrorsShakespeare doubled the twins in The Comedy of Errors. A Roman play had one pair, so he wrote two.

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