As the Athenian tragedian Euripides tells the story, the united armies of the Greek kingdoms gathered at Aulis, but for months, as the soldiers complain, they have been unable to launch their 1,000 ships for Troy. The wind does not blow. So also begins Iphigenia, a dynamic new version of the tale by We Happy Few’s artistic director, playwright Kerry McGee. Iphigenia at Aulis was the last of Euripides’ plays to survive.

While hunting, Agamemnon (Matthew Sparacino), king of Argos and general of the Greek armies, killed a sacred deer of the goddess Artemis. For this, she has stilled the wind. What the soldiers do not yet know is that when Agamemnon, his brother Menelaus (Robert Pike), and fellow general Odysseus (discussed but never seen), went to ask what they may do to appease the goddess, she demanded the sacrifice of Agamemnon’s own daughter Iphigenia (Debora Crabbe). Agamemnon is hesitant, but Menelaus’ honor is at stake, the soldiers want to go to war, and the brothers fear Odysseus considers himself a better general than he does the two of them.

What follows are spoilers for a play that is more than 2,400 years old:

No sooner has Agamemnon written to his wife, Clytemnestra (Carolyn Kashner), that he has arranged a marriage between Iphigenia and his fellow general, demigod Achilles (Joshua Williams), and that the wedding must happen before they set sail, he regrets having bent to political pressure. He summons his servant Arcas (Mary Myers) to deliver another letter, telling his wife and daughter to turn back.

But the goddess wants her sacrifice and sends a wind to intercept the letter. Tragedy ensues.

For those not steeped in Greek mythology, McGee has her chorus recount the political deal making, divine pettiness, and seductions that have brought the Greeks to this point, but she is not content to merely adapt Euripides’ story. Greek mythology does not flow from a single scripture like the Bible, nor is there the strong continuity between these myths—despite what 21st-century  fans expect from media franchises. Greek myths existed as variations on a theme. One version may be the most artistically accomplished, or simply have been preserved in a more complete form, but it is never definitive: The hero of one may be a villain in another, the monster in one may be the victim in another.

So McGee has her chorus halt the action just before the climax as the soldiers remember another version of the story. In 1674, French playwright Jean Racine premiered his Iphigénie, in which he added a character, Eriphyle (Ériphil according to the French spelling). She was not a character of his own invention, but drawn from a version of the myth preserved by the 2nd-century CE geographer Pausanias. Eriphyle (Bri Houtman) is a servant and companion to Iphigenia with her own tragic backstory, including dead adoptive parents and unknown origins that link her to the other characters in the story.

At last, McGee offers her own version of the myth. What if both Iphigenia and Eriphyle were to question what they want in a society and narrative that places so much emphasis on obligation to family, nation, and what the gods declare to be fate? With each iteration of the tale the storytelling speeds up, barreling faster and faster to the demanded sacrifice and the tragedies that will follow. McGee, working with directors Emilia Pazniokas and Jennifer Hopkins, balances on the knife’s edge between the tragic experience of fate and the comedy of observing a clockwork universe. Hopkins also serves as choreographer, valuable as the chorus embodies the fickle winds, or an increasingly violent mob of soldiers threatening to turn on their own generals if a sacrifice is not made.

The show embraces minimalist design. Costumer Maria Bissex has clad the actors in tan and beige linens when they play the chorus of soldiers or the winds, then donning a cape, sash, tunic, or wrap color-coded to their character. The props, by McGee and Pike, are mostly wooden blocks and poles, but in their simplicity, they become whatever the action demands. This same pragmatism is reflected in Jon Reynolds’ set design, made of swaths of gauzy fabric that drape from the ceiling: hanging loosely they show the movement of the breeze, stretched one way they become the sails of the ships stuck at shore, at another angle they become the tent of Agamemnon. The most extraordinary piece of visual design is a puppet created by Paige O’Malley from the unstripped branches cut from a felled tree brought to life in a gorgeous sequence of puppetry.

The actors have formed a strong ensemble, but there are certain standouts as individuals: Kashner’s Clytemnestra, once she understands the deception, calls upon the rage that carries the character through other stories. Myers brings a technical precision, and dark comic edge, to her performance both in the chorus and as Arcas. Crabbe gives us an increasingly self aware Iphigenia in each iteration of the story.

McGee and We Happy Few have taken a classic tale and reminded us that there is no one definitive telling of a story. What’s important is only that it is told artfully and skillfully.

We Happy Few’s production of Kerry McGee’s Iphigenia, directed by Emilia Pazniokas and Jennifer Hopkins, runs through June 17 at Capitol Hill Arts Workshop. wehappyfewdc.com. $10–$25.