The Tragedy of Iphigenia by Jane, Lady Lumley

The Tragedie of Euripides called Iphigeneia translated out of Greake into Englisshe is a manuscript of a play created by Jane, Lady Lumley around 1553 survives in the British Library. It has been published a number of times in the 20th century, and staged variously. Diane Purkiss edited the text for Three Tragedies by Renaissance Women (Penguin 1998), which can still be found second hand.

In April 2023, we recorded a full cast audio adaptation of the play, directed by Sarah Blake. It was live streamed exclusively for our patrons, and then edited and mixed for the podcast, below.

Alexandra Kataigida as Clytemnestra (photo by Minna Pang)

The play adapts rather than translates Euripides original play Iphigenia at Aulis, truncating the chorus and adjusting the dialogue in various ways. Otherwise, it is a fairly faithful adaptation, preferring to cut or tweak rather than rewrite the original work.

Our production was an all female cast, and is the first step towards a full production further down the line. The director stepped in to play the chorus, who we had reframed as Lady Lumley, writing the play as it was performed. Thus the chorus commentary was also the commentary of the author, at least nominally.

Many thanks to the support of our patrons, who chose the play and helped pay for the production to occur. If you’d like to support our work, and push us to do more on this play, join today!

A walk through of the text of the play, with producer Robert Crighton

More explorations of the play can be found on our YouTube channel. And other female playwrights and discussions of these works can be found on our Dramatic Women playlist.