Ten new Greek plays from visionary director John Barton, this is the revised second edition of one of contemporary theatre's most ambitious and daring undertakings, a staggering new version of the Great Epic Cycle, a literary form of an oral tradition developed during the Greek Dark Ages, and the aftermath of the Homeric War.

When theatre began, two and a half millenia ago in ancient Greece, it drew from a well of even older myths, the Great Epic Cycle. These stories and characters from the beginning of our imagination inspired John Barton to write the great cycle of human life, Tantalus, an epic theatre myth for the new millenium, and one of the most ambitious theatrical ventures of our times produced by the RSC and The Denver Center for the Performing Arts, directed by Sir Peter and Edward Hall. (UK tour Jan-May 2001)