Saying “This isn’t your mother’s Euripides” may sound laughably understated, since plays like “The Trojan Women” are, of course, more than 2,400 years old; but the New York-based SITI Company, now bringing its celebrated adaptation, “Trojan Women (after Euripedes)” to Ann Arbor courtesy of the University Musical Society, has gone to great lengths to help the ancient anti-war play speak to 21st century audiences.

Those lengths include using the original text as a basic framework while jettisoning the keening, all-female chorus; having the female characters on stage together throughout the performance; bringing Odysseus into the story; and altering a key plot point.

SITI artistic director Anne Bogart, who directs “Trojan Women,” provided playwright Jocelyn Clarke with the first two changes as starting parameters.

“The primary motivation was financial,” Bogart said in an email. “We simply could not afford to hire an entire chorus of women. That said, I was interested in all of the women being the Trojan Women so that the chorus is also the principals. And I was hoping that they could all be on stage for most of the play to tap into the relationships between them.”

The play focuses on the royal women of Troy, who stand in the ruins of their burning city while mourning the loss of their husbands and sons. Facing enslavement and/or exile, four surviving women - Hecuba and her two daughters, Kassandra and Andromache, as well as the woman who launched the thousand ships from Greece, Helen - tell their stories and confront their future.

“For centuries academics have complained that ‘Trojan Women’ is a play that should never be done because … it lacks action and development,” said Bogard. “A bunch of miserable women become even more miserable. And yet, during these same centuries, this play has spoken directly and meaningfully to audiences everywhere. Audiences demand the re-enactment of this play. They respond to it as if it were cutting into their own skin.”

SITI’s production premiered on an outdoor stage at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles in 2011.

And although it’s often a challenge to get modern theatergoers to emotionally key in to ancient plays, Bogart views the works as timeless.

“Gosh, these plays feel so contemporary to me,” said Bogart. “Hecuba, when she looks out upon her wrecked city, is talking about the devastation after Hurricane Katrina or Hurricane Sandy, or a recently bombed Palestinian village. ‘Trojan Women’ is as far from a historical artifact as anything that I can imagine.”

So in spite of Clarke’s alterations to the story and text, some conventions remain wholly intact.

“Greek plays were originally sung,” said Bogart. “The chorus sang and danced. The tense moments between the main characters were broken up by song and dance. This is a traditional notion. We are following in exactly that tradition.”

Jenn McKee is an entertainment reporter for AnnArbor.com. Reach her at jennmckee@annarbor.com or 734-623-2546, and follow her on Twitter @jennmckee.