Norma Jeane Baker de Troie

What if Helen had never been to Troy? What if her abductor had taken nothing but a cloud, an illusion, with him? What if this war waged in the name of beauty were nothing but a vast deception, the story of a sublime illusion, a destructive fascination? A usurpation of identities, a sham of military heroism? Anne Carson’s version, inspired by Euripides’ *Helen*, is based on this hypothesis and takes a dizzying hold of the myth. Helen of Troy is also Marilyn Monroe, born Norma Jeane Baker and married to Arthur, King of Sparta and New York – two icons separated by thousands of years but united by a single destiny, vying with seduction and cunning to escape the violence of men and a ruthless world order, from the ramparts of Troy to Sunset Boulevard.