The floor of the Laurie Theater, in Spingold Theater Center, is covered in a dark yellow sand. Pillars rise from it, shrouded in eerie light. A woman appears in a pure white wedding dress. She collapses on the ground.

Her name is Lydia (Talia Bornstein ’19). She and her 49 sisters have just fled from their 50 cousins who plan to marry them. They’ve escaped on a boat from Greece to Italy looking for refuge. Soon we meet idealistic Thyona (Lynnea Harding ’19) and rageful, male-hating Olympia (Kate Kesselman ’19).

“Big Love,” written by Charles L. Mee and directed here at Brandeis by Rebecca Bradshaw, a director for major theaters in the Boston area since 2010, chronicles the triumph and tragedies of what it means to love. It deconstructs what it means to be a woman or a man and how individual sovereignty can win over groupthink mentality.

The play is based on Aechylus’s “The Suppliants,” though Mee’s version takes place in Italy instead of the ancient city of Argos. The grooms, although born in Greece, moved to America to seek their fortune, as befits a group of hyper-masculine macho men determined to conquer their women. This performance featured popular songs, such as “You Don’t Own Me” by Grace ft. G-Easy, and included modern cultural trappings, such as the grooms arriving by helicopter in an attempt to take back their escaped brides in Italy.

The brides-to-be are found by a generous Piero (Joseph Tinianow ’17) and his gay nephew, Giuliano (Joshua Rubenstein ’19). Both men want to help but, throughout the play, are confronted with the pressures of society to give into the pressures of what other people want. Piero gives into the grooms when they say they want to marry the women due to a contract signed by their families. Thyona gives into the pressure from Olympia to kill her fiance even though she laments at the end of the play that she may have loved him.

The most aggressive of the men, Constantine (Rodrigo Alfaro Garcia Granados ’18), makes a striking comment on male-dominated society: “Tomorrow will take today by force, whether you like it or not. Time itself is rape. Life is rape.” This line is not an attempt to win over his fiancée, but is in fact an attack on womanhood. His comment stems from his desire to prove his dominance. Constantine is an allegory for a man who feels the need to overcompensate.

Lines like this one make for a powerful performance, a performance that digs deep into the desires of men and women.

His fiance, Olympia, has a different philosophy on life. She is a self-sufficient and independent woman. While washed up on the shores of Italy, she proclaims that “if your father won't protect you, your country won't defend you, you flee to another country and no one there will take care of you, what is left? Nothing except to take care of yourself.”

The women plan revenge to kill their husbands on their wedding night. But, perhaps, love can conquer above all odds. So it is with Lydia and her charming, talkative fianceé, Nikos (Matt Hosich ’19). Lydia and Nikos sneak off the night that the violent murders take place and choose to stay married despite the other women’s plan.

The most striking scene in the play is the scene of the wedding night. The brides go through with their plan, with the exception of Lydia, and kill all of their grooms-to-be. Bradshaw depicted the blood of the fallen grooms with a long red ribbon that pulled from the groom’s chest or stomach, and for Constantine, from his genitalia.

“Big Love” flowed seamlessly, each scene adding a layer of complexity to the relationships between men and women and constantly begging the question, “What does it mean to love another?” Bradshaw used the space to capture the emotion, the agony and the victory that is love.