A tragedy set in the aftermath of the fall of Troy. The city is burning, its men are dead, and the surviving women, among them Queen Hecuba, her daughter Cassandra and Hector's widow Andromache, wait to learn which Greek captors will take them away. There is little plot in the usual sense. Instead the play offers a sustained look at what victory costs the conquered, and at the suffering of civilians in war. It was staged soon after an Athenian atrocity, which gives it a sharp contemporary edge.