(l) Heather Tom as Polyxena, Kristin Linklater (r) as Hecuba with chorus

Nobody who loves theatre should miss Kristin Linklater in Hecuba , playing at 45 Bleecker until the end of the month. This production is not just powerful, it’s thrilling. Euripides’ play is not performed very often compared to Medea or even The Bacchae , but as an antiwar drama it’s as powerful as anything playing on television or on the boards. Do be on time for this one: there is no late seating, because the stairs leading down to the stage in this tiny theatre are also used by the cast for entrances and exits.

The stylish, grave tone is set at once, with moody, slightly jazzy entrance music playing softly. The folding chairs are draped in cloth. As composed and performed by Allison Leyton-Brown and Kaveh Nabatian, it is used to great effect throughout the show. Leyton-Brown also uses atmospheric sounds of waves and wind. Erik Flatmo’s set design is simple but effective; a large screen allows for colored lights (designed by Aaron Black) to heighten the shadows and alter the mood. The pillars in the space seem to add to the feeling of shabby antiquity.

“Shabby” because the play takes place in Thrace, a stopping point on the journey back to Greece after the Trojan war. It’s neither war nor victory, but a brief pause in between. The victors are returning home with their spoils—including the women of Troy and Queen Hecuba, whose fate as captive slaves is uncertain.

To recap the action, in case your knowledge of the Trojan war is rusty, is a very spooky ghost—a child, Polydorus (Lucas Blondheim). Blondheim’s speech is truly frightening, especially when he whispers that he has been “ ;three long days upon the air.” He had been sent to Thrace, to his father’s friend, King Polymestor (Christopher McCann) to keep him safe, but once Troy fell, Polymestor murdered him and kept the gold that had been sent with him. Now all that dead Polydorus wishes for is to be buried by his mother.

But Hecuba’s first great grief of the evening is not over Polydorus, whom she believes is still alive, but her anguish over the fate of her daughter Polixena (Heather Tom). The Trojan war began with a human sacrifice, as Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia to make the winds blow. Now another human sacrifice is asked to make the winds blow: Polixena is the prize fallen Greek warrior Achilles asks for company in the underworld. As the chorus of women describe the Greeks’ debate about this request, the tension and suspense are almost too much to take: what a great playwright old Euripides was. When Hecuba enters, recovering from a nightmare she had about her children, the dramatic irony--we know so much more than she does-- is exquisite. Dressed in gray robes of velvet and satin, with short white hair, Hecuba is the picture of regal sorrow. Her women wear long black skirts that suggest another time but fall short of being togas. Costume Designer Rebecca Dowd’s choices beautifully create a sense of otherness without falling into jarring anachronism.

When Hecuba hears the news, her shriek on “O my child Polixena” is chilling. Linklater, of course, is known for her seminal book, Freeing the Natural Voice . It’s a classic in actor training, and Linklater’s demonstration of her technique is enlightening. She’s a tremendous actress—she also has a reputation for being something of a scenery-chewer, but here every wild expression of emotion is justified by the appalling situation. Her vocal intonations recall some of the histrionics of the cylinders of Sarah Bernhardt, and when joined to her expressions and gestures they demonstrate beautifully why Bernhardt was considered the epitome of the dramatic art. Such luxuries of expression are easy to mock but when carried off with conviction they are powerful and altogether wonderful. Heather Tom, so put-upon in Mark Medoff’s awful Prymate last season, is passionately dignified as the doomed Polixena.

Odysseus (Curzon Dobell) has a powerful confrontation with Hecuba, who had once spared his life when he was a beggar in her country. Her pleas fall on deaf ears as he weasels out of her claims on his gratitude. Dressed in a khaki soldier’s uniform, with a crewcut, he is the picture of bureaucratic coldness. Here Director Alex Lippard uses alley staging (audience on two sides) to point up the debate, with Hecuba and her women on one end of the stage and Odysseus and his soldiers on the other. The spectator has to look from one to the other to follow the life-and-death argument, and can’t help staring at the the faces of other audience members opposite. It’s a brilliant bit of staging that underscores the all-too-public way in which the griefs of military captives unfold.

After Polixena goes proudly to her death, the chorus sings beautifully and proudly, led by the beautiful voice of Coryphaeus (Starla Benford). It’s daring, since these interludes are usually chanted, not set to music, but it is effective. Talthybius, Agamemnon’s herald (Helmar Augustus Cooper) comes to tell how Polixena died. His compassion and humanity again point up the tragedy in the situation: war is hard on everyone. Polixena was so brave at her death that she won over the army who roared “free her” when she said she did not need restraint and said “when did you ever see courage greater than that?”

The play could end right here, and be a provocative and eternal meditation on courage in the face of brutality. But when Hecuba learns of the betrayal her son has met with at the hands of his guardian, Polymestor, she isn’t content to let bad enough alone. She has a kind of ally in Agamemnon (Mike Genovese), who agrees to turn a blind eye to her revenge plot. Like Odysseus, he’s a politician—he doesn’t dare risk his position to support her openly—but unlike Odysseus, when he says he pities Hecuba, you believe her. It’s interesting that Agamemnon is more sympathetic in this play than Odysseus, when you realize that his backstory includes the murder of his own daughter… and ironic when he says he has trouble believing women could overpower men, when you consider what he has waiting for him at home in Clytemnestra. But this again is just part of Euripides’ genius, as is his ability to combine admiration for Hecuba with horror at her plot to murder Polymestor’s innocent children. The plot culminates in a criminal hearing before Agamemnon that is at least as passionate and exciting as anything you might see in one of the many legal procedurals on television. But the justice has led to more bloodshed of innocents, and the ghosts of children inhabit the stage in the final tableau.

Hecuba , which appears as part of the Hellenic Festival of the New York Public Library ( www.nypl.org/hellenic ) is an exhilarating, terrifying piece of theatre.