The Labourers of Herakles is a 1995 play created by English poet and playwright Tony Harrison. It is partially based on remaining fragments of tragedies by ancient Greek dramatist Phrynichos, one of the earliest tragedians. Harrison's play deals with genocide and ethnic cleansing and uses Heracles's filicide as a metaphor for the unspeakable horrors of war and man's inhumanity to man. Immediately after the 23 August performance of his play at Delphi Harrison left for a frontline assignment to witness the Bosnian War and write poems for the atrocities in an assignment commissioned by The Guardian. The proximity of the theatre of war to the Delphi location of the performance of his play and his preoccupation with his war-assignment are cited as reasons the direction and execution of his play were influenced by the war and its atrocities. The 1995 performance of the play at Delphi, Greece, took place at the construction site of the new theatre for the European Cultural Centre of Delphi. The play was sponsored by the Herakles General Cement Company of Greece. It was produced in co-operation with the European Cultural Centre of Delphi and the National Theatre Studio as an entry at the Eighth International Meeting on Ancient Greek Drama which featured participants such as Tadashi Suzuki and Heiner Müller and is also known as the Delphi Drama Olympics. Source: Wikipedia (en)