Euripides’s most famous portrait of a woman exacting revenge on the innocent, “Medea,” is terrifying because her motivation seems impossibly opaque. Though her anger at her philandering husband, Jason, is quite carefully spelled out, why does she murder her own children? When Euripides spirits her away in a dragon-drawn chariot, it’s clear that her logic isn’t necessarily our human logic. What makes his “Hecuba” a much more rarely performed drama, a real nightmare, is that when this ruined queen drags out two mangled children, dead at her hands and soaking her with their blood, we know exactly where she’s coming from.

The Tony Harrison “Hecuba” – he both translated and re-polished the staging for the American tour – has come to the BAM Howard Gilman Opera House for the next two weeks. In Mr. Harrison’s translation, any vague shudders of topicality the play might call forth get goosed into earthquakes. Hecuba’s gory child-murders are called “terrorism,” and the oppressive regime that drives her to it is, of course, a “coalition.” If the wink and the nudge don’t do it, then cast your eyes to Es Devlin’s rows of green army tents that line the stage or to the Afghan robes the women wear.

Luckily, the finely drawn Vanessa Redgrave takes the title role. Her impossibly fragile face, caught in stylized expressions of despair, actually seems to burn with grief.

When the curtain rises, Hecuba has already known her fair share of tragedy. Once queen of Troy, she has seen her city sacked, her husband hacked to pieces, her finest son dragged behind Achilles’s chariot, and a daughter become a concubine in the enemy’s bed. Now she and the other Trojan women have become slaves to the conquering Greeks. They wait – like their new masters – for the right wind to send the ships back across the Aegean.

More awfulness awaits Hecuba, however. Her daughter Polyxena (Lydia Leonard) has been chosen as a sacrifice to the Greek hero Achilles. Torn from her mother’s arms, Polyxena finds a way to meet her death with dignity. But the additional heartbreak destroys Hecuba. When a body washes up on a nearby shore, she finds fresh tragedy. Her last remaining son, Polydorus, has been killed, this time by the family friend, Polymestor (Darrell D’Silva), who was meant to keep him safe.

Suddenly Hecuba’s incessant wailing sharpens and her bent body straightens. After begging for complicity from her own captors, Hecuba turns herself and her women into weapons of revenge. All her pleas for justice have gone unanswered, and her last child lies dead. So when she gets Polymestor and his children in her power, no natural check, no law or compassion, stays her hand.

Euripides tricks us, outraging our sensibilities until we too cheer on her mad violence. But as the haze before Hecuba’s eyes clears, the heady thrill of revenge clears, too. Disgust at our approval of her actions and contempt for the generals who will not reproach her can’t wipe away the logic of her response. Backed into a corner, denied every recourse of law or mercy, Hecuba’s way looks surprisingly clear. It’s a warning to conquerors everywhere: Take too total a victory and it will turn to ashes in your mouth.

The chorus, always a problem to solve in Greek drama, here sings its lines in impressive unison. Mick Sands’s music sticks in that sickly space between faux-Middle Eastern chant and a recitative, but it doesn’t obscure Mr. Harrison’s lines. The chorus does, though, form a lovely backdrop to Ms. Redgrave – they stand rigid as she seems to collapse in slow motion, they move swiftly when she can only crawl. When her voice quavers, though, it would have been awfully nice not to have it amplified with reverb.

Mr. Harrison makes his political point unsubtly, but it remains apposite. A transition that has always given Hecubas pause – the sudden change from shattered wailer to calculating murderess – gets an answer here due to its current political resonance. Mr. Harrison juxtaposes her hatred with the dissent that springs up in countries we say we want to help. At first Hecuba, understanding the ways of war, feels tortured by its brutality and bewails her fate. But when the stroke comes from Polymestor’s smiling face, from a man who calls himself a friend, the insult is simply too much to bear.

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