by Luis Alfaro
A Modern Tragedy Seeking Redemption—and a Community Finding Reflection
In The Labours, celebrated playwright Luis Alfaro—known for his powerful adaptations of Greek classics through a contemporary Latinx lens—returns with a bold reimagining of Euripides’ Herakles. This new work explores the trauma of war, the price of violence, and the long, uncertain road to redemption.
In Alfaro’s telling, the mythical Herakles becomes Era (Spanish for Was), a female soldier navigating the disorienting path from military service back to civilian life. Her labours are not the heroic feats of legend, but internal battles—grappling with guilt, loss, and the irreversible harm done to her own family. The military becomes the modern underworld, and the battlefield is now within.
This is a story rooted in both timeless myth and urgent present-day truth.
