Drawing inspiration from Greek mythology—and more specifically from the figures of Medea and Europa, the Phoenician princess torn from her homeland—Wajdi Mouawad crafts a tragedy centred on the weight of silence and the transmission of trauma.

Seventy-five years later, Europa is confronted with the memory of a massacre committed by her own people, a massacre she both witnessed and took part in. Called upon to testify, she attempts to recount, despite the shame, pain and guilt, what she saw and what she did.

With Le Serment d’Europe, created in the ancient theatre of Epidaurus in Greece, Mouawad summons onto an almost bare stage, in the immediate present of the performance, a narrative interweaving eras, cultures and languages. Bringing together an international cast in which French, Greek, English and Russian coexist, this contemporary tragedy intimately braids archaic suffering with present-day catastrophes, ancient antagonisms with current conflicts, echoing, without ever naming them directly, the massacres inherited by our world.