Compelling and colorful, “Trojan Women: A Love Story,” opens tonight at Fort Lewis College. Written by Charles L. Mee, Jr., an American playwright with an outsized imagination for reinventing Greek classics, “TWLove,” as it is affectionately referred to by the cast of 26, promises to startle, surprise, and generally shake up what you think about theater, politics, and the battle of the sexes.

New York-based guest director Melissa Firlit has been brought in to develop one of Mee’s most compelling works of modern, political parody. The playwright acknowledges two sources of inspiration: Euripides’ 415 BCE tragedy of the same title and Hector Berlioz’ epic opera “Les Troyens.” Both sources treat the enslavement of the defeated Trojan women – but with a twist.

Before launching into what “TWLove” is, let’s rule out what it isn’t.

“TWLove” is not a solemn production of the ancient Greek classic which inspired the playwright. This is not Euripides’s fatalistic rendition of the aftermath of the Trojan War where the men are all dead and the surviving women face slavery. Written in 415 BCE, Euripides’ tragedy has no hope at all. There is no Hollywood ending“TWLove” is not a spinoff of Berlioz’ lavish opera set in Queen Dido’s Carthaginian court where the Trojan women are merely in transit with their Greek captors. Mee has taken his two sources and created a two-part structure based on those masterworks. In Act I, the playwright employs Euripides interpretation of the aftermath of the Trojan War. On stage, among jungle-gym ruins, the defeated women blatantly challenge and defy their Greek captors. Act II switches location and tone. It’s set in a pristine, fashionable contemporary spa – a modern stand-in for Berlioz’ Carthage. The enslaved Trojan women are in transit and witness the betrayal of Queen Dido by Aeneas.

Mee’s meta-theatrics caricature the classics in a contemporary idiom. They also underscore an absurdist view of the cyclical nature of war.

You don’t have to know Euripides or Berlioz to get Mee’s modern parody. But it helps to have an opinion about the perennial battle of the sexes.

“We call ourselves ‘Team TWLove,” director Firlit said last week when she brought her entire cast to the FLC Life Long Learning program. Firlit has credentials that include degrees from the University of Hartford to Rutgers with fellowships and intensive study at the Royal Shakespeare Company in England to the St. Petersburg State Theatre Arts Academy, among other global institutions.

Knowledgeable, energetic and highly persuasive, Firlit has transformed her large student cast into an organic, almost humming unit of performers. Mee’s script calls for the players to proclaim, dance, tumble, and burst into song.

Firlit and company demonstrated all of last Thursday by staging one scene and half a dozen athletic warm-up exercises known as the Droznin Method.

The FLC players enacted a scene from Act I where now captive Queen Hecuba (Jessica Fairchild) comforted Andromache (Molly Quinn) while another daughter, Cassandra (Camille Libouban-Gunderson) challenged the Greek diplomat Talthybius (Luke McCauley). Unexpectedly, the battle of the sexes erupted into a defiant modern song, sung by the chorus of women slaves. That absurdist flip-and-turn is crucial to Mee’s style.

“The Trojan Women: A Love Story” opened on Broadway in 1996. With this political parody, the playwright connects us to two great Western cultural traditions: Greek fatalism from 415 BCE and romantic opera from 1856-8. Here’s a rare chance to see a college production of a contemporary play by one of America’s most fascinating dramatists. It’s April 1, 2016 – high time to connect the dots.