With the planned Stratford run canceled due to Redgrave’s poor health, the production opens at London’s Albery Theatre on April 7. The play follows a struggle for survival as Hecuba and the women of Troy deal with the fall-out of the Trojan War — and how victors treat the vanquished. Hardly ever performed in Britain, the RSC staging coincidentally follows a run at the Donmar Warehouse (which starred Clare Higgins) in September 2004.

Redgrave last appeared with the RSC when she played Imogen in a 1962 production of Cymbeline. The Hecuba cast also includes Charlotte Allam, Jane Arden, Rosalie Craig, Maisie Dimbleby, Alan Dobie, Matthew Douglas, Darrell D’Silva, Barbara Gellhorn, Aileen Gonsalves, Lydia Leonard, Michele Moran, Sasha Oakley, Katherine O’Shea, Judith Paris, Sarah Quist, Christopher Terry, Malcolm Tierney and Natalie Turner-Jones.

Laurence Boswell directs, in a new version of the work by Tony Harrison. Designs are by Es Devlin, lighting by Adam Silverman, sound by Fergus O’Hare, music by Mick Sands, movement by Gary Sefton and choreography by Heather Habens.

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