Dido, Queen of Carthage

Synopsis

In the wake of a change of regime in Troy, the Gods are busy re-establishing order among their human subjects. Concerned for the well-being of Aeneas and his men, who are shipwrecked and besieged at sea by storms after fleeing Troy, Aeneas' mother Venus persuades Jupiter to give the sufferers some respite. With his fellow survivors, Aeneas arrives on the strange African coast of Carthage. Haunted by the treachery and misery of the Trojans' defeat, he is greeted by the beautiful Queen Dido. At the contrivance of Venus and her son Cupid, Dido and Aeneas begin a passionate romance.

Our Review:

23 June 2003

The tale of Dido, Queen of Carthage and her doomed passion for Trojan Aeneas was once familiar to every schoolchild forced to navigate Virgil in Latin lessons. Dido falls for Aeneas when he takes refuge on her shores in flight from the sack of Troy. But the gods decree he must tear himself away and continue his mission to found Rome - leaving the heartbroken Dido to build her own funeral pyre.

The story has inspired many retellings, including Purcell's opera and this 1580s play which Christopher Marlowe wrote for children, actually choirboys, to perform. At Shakespeare's Globe, director Tim Carroll and the creative team have picked up on this idea and bounced it around to delightful and thought-provoking effect.

In Laura Hopkin's bold children's playground, dominated by an arcing slide, all the production elements come together to create a world where the gods are dangerously capricious children toying with mortals like the hula hoops they bend in play. Donni...

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