ADIP I: Adapting "Hecuba": Where Do Problems Begin?

For the 2001 NEH summer seminar on "Literature and Values," which Nanney attended at the University of North Carolina, one of the selected readings was Euripides' "Hecuba." As group leader for the "Hecuba" discussion, Nanney created a short script that brings the original play into focus from modern, ethical points of view. The seminar participants were all assigned character roles and read their parts as if they were at a prerehearsal meeting. In this way, the "companion" script served as a prelude to a fuller examination of the ethical issues encountered in the play. In devising the dialogue, Nanney took some liberties in considering "Hecuba" in both its own time (when staged in ancient Greece) and the present. Nanney describes how she uses the teaching script in her university class as a discussion motivator.