On the translation by Richard Emil Braun:

Setting up this play as the story of a futile quest for knowledge, as Braun does in his introduction, begs to be reconsidered. Especially for anyone who might want to stage the play.

This is Euripides' take on Book 10 of the Iliad, from the Trojan side. The action centers on an act of ultraviolence that takes place on a night of mutual spying during the Trojan War. The closest thing we get to a protagonist is Hector. Rhesus does not actually show up until very late in the play and then has only one scene. Euripides does us a great favor by letting us meet him at all (he is asleep in Homer's gruesome telling). Another gift of the author are the two wonderfully contrasting personas of Athena and the Muse toward the end of the play

There is much to be learned from Braun's observations, particularly about the reversal of civilized norms, and the implications of Euripides' choices; however, any production that starts the play as a quest for knowledge is doomed to fail.

Hector states his goals very clearly in the first scene, and immediately runs into the obstacles — both strategic and physical — that he must overcome. The combination of his abilities or inabilities set against the grave given circumstances of the war produces a set of choices that lead to reckless destruction.

We may argue about the characters' actions and motivations. We may argue about when Euripides deliberately diverges from Homer and why. These and more arguments may bring us toward some of Braum's concerns about knowledge versus instinct, but, please, do not start there. There is much more to be mined.

I will be looking another translation of this play. This one feels jagged. I cannot tell if it is the play or the translation that I am responding to.

I will say that the arrival of the Muse at the end is a great payoff for anyone who sticks with it.