Friday Five: Light and Dark Theatre Productions

1. The 39 Steps - N.U.T.S., Ralph Wilson Theatre: Exactly what one might expect of a student production; their friends and family will love it, and everyone involved will be thoroughly pleased with themselves. For someone without connection to the participants it drags, despite some of the delivery being too shrill and fast to be intelligible, and some of the performances tip into self-indulgence. There are too many unearned pauses and lack of comedic understanding. James Seymour in the lead role of Richard Hannay is the only one who looks like they know what they are doing - basically trying to entertain an audience and further a plot - despite the lack of direction and focus-pulling from the rest of the cast. Extensive breaks for set changes between scenes are unnecessary and lose the frenetic energy the piece should have, making it instead an exercise in drama school self-satisfaction. The famous hat scene was chaotic and not in a good way. I agree with the line, 'Just get on with it'.
2. Helios - Wright and Grainger, The Courtyard: The collaboration of Alex Wright (words) and Phil Grainger (music) brings modern interpretations of Greek myth to a global audience, via Yorkshire. Helios and Selene played on alternate nights and back-to-back and, with each show calling in at about an hour, you can experience them both in an evening, which is what I did, starting with Helios. The myth, attributed to Euripides, concerns Helios, whose winged-horse chariot draws the sun across the sky each day, and his son, Phaeton, who insists he be allowed a go, only to find his abilities do not match his bravado, as he loses control of the steeds and the chariot threatens to plunge to earth. Of course, Zeus intervenes and strikes Phaeton down with a lightning bolt. Here, one man, Alexander Wright himself, commands the stage, standing in a sacred circle of lightbulbs and connecting with the audience as he tells us his story. It is as simple as that, and yet an incredibly enriching experience. He weaves a narrative of fast cars and teenagers, boasts, dares and risk, loss of concentration, and blinding sunrises on bridges. The bond between a busy father and a stroppy son is all too real and utterly heartbreaking. As he literally invites the listeners into his tale (handing out printed sheets for them to read when he needs another voice for a character), he proves that storytelling is an art and, when done well, it is absolutely spellbinding.
3. Selene - Wright and Grainger, The Courtyard: And as night follows day, we come to Selene, the sibling show. It is gloriously calm and strong, described as 'a story about the goddess and the dark side of the moon'. As in the previous show, it focuses more on the offspring than the titular god, in this case, Pandida (known in her youth as Panda), the daughter of Zeus and the moon goddess, Selene. Her coming-of-age tale involves scholastic arguments with boys, a profound interest in the moon landings, midnight moonlight swims, night clubbing raves, and the majesty of an eclipse. Megan Drury is the performer who guides and supports us through this story, with warmth and compassion in what is a deeply tender and transformative experience. 
4. Playback (Or, a Play About But Not Starring a Famous Politician) - The Street Presents (Resident Street Program), Street 2: In childhood development, 'playback' refers to how children process, practice, and replicate experiences through play. This cycle allows them to make sense of the world by reenacting real-life scenarios, testing rules, and consolidating their cognitive, linguistic and social skills. In theatre terms, playback refers to an interactive style of improvisational theatre in which audience members share real-life personal stories and watch actors enact them on the spot. This play draws on the playwright's (Tom Glassey) experience working in the Canberra press gallery and explores how media framing, editing, soundbites and deconstruction of truth shape modern politics. Blending traditional stage elements, live-video projections and screen editing, the production captures the media landscape in a totally engrossing manner. Deborah Grant who was 'aged out' of broadcast television now hosts the Proper Gander podcast and has the opportunity to interview Scott Morrison. She has painstakingly prepared and has questions she is determined he will not evade. She is assisted by a Young Man who turns up wanting to be an intern but with no apparently relevant skills and who threatens to be more hindrance than help. Casting Andrea Close as Deborah is a stroke of genius - as well as being a fantastic actor, she was also a journalist and presenter for the ABC for a decade and subsequently a media and communications manager for several high-level organisations. Her understanding of the inherent manipulations and machinations is confident and captivating, bringing both pathos and humour to the role that reveals the personal face of federal politics. Meanwhile, Tyker Jenkins is a quick-witted foil to her anguish, his improvisation skills perfectly suited to the chameleon character of the unprincipled ambitious apprentice, or the many faces of the former PM. Criag Alexander's direction is as tight and slick as the videography which highlights and supplements the on-stage action to deliver a resoundingly good play. Full disclosure: I was involved in an initial workshop of this play back in December 2024, so it is fascinating to see how far it has grown.
5. The Good Boy Game - Q the locals, The Q: An interesting play, but the production lacked any cohesion or vision with certain style elements (mainly sound) prioritised over substance (acting and theatrical unity). A young man, James (Alastair McKenzie) writes in his diary that he wishes to kill his classmates, so his parents, Mary-Beth (Giuliana Baggoley) and Sam (Bruce Hardie) lock him in the loft and try to de-radicalise his teenage urges. Meanwhile, Mary-Beth is seeing a counsellor, Judith (Elaine Noon), who suggests she try a points-based reward system - the Good Boy Game of the title - to encourage James to more acceptable behaviour. Apparently, this is a world premiere of a new work by Petrick Vermillion, so the overwhelming similarities with Bartek Bartosik and Naqqash Khalid's script for the film, Good Boy must be entirely coincidental. Baggoley and Hardie have limited rapport and barely seem to be listening to the other actors; McKenzie is suitably entitled and whiny (albeit with diction and projection issues) but lacking in strength, anger and threat, and Noon has an intelligence and commitment to the character which is in such contrast to the others that she seems to be in a different play. The set delineates the spaces well although much of the decisive action is at the back of the stage, and garage/ grunge intros to scenes are highlighted with projections of time and place. Unfortunately, it smacks of enfant-terrible-directing (Caitlin Baker); wanting to be provocative but unable to translate into a clear vision. There are too many disparate elements to make a harmonious production. Reading the play opens up many avenues of enquiry – this production doesn’t follow any of them through.

Fiday Five: Books Read in October

1. Medusa by Jessie Burton (Bloomsbury) - Supposedly a feminist retelling of the Greek myth from Medusa's perspective, this is fairly simplistic and reads as young adult fiction. Medusa meets Perseus on an island; they talk from either side of a rock, tell each other their stories and fall in love. They hold hands but never see each other, indicating that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Medusa wonders, “I thought of what it might mean to have a boy admire you, not for how you looked, but for who you were. For your thoughts and your deeds, your fears and your dreams. Was such a miracle to be my inheritance?” It’s what every young adult wants to hear, but it is not achievable. She also claims, “When beauty’s assigned you as a girl, it somehow becomes the essence of your being. It takes over everything else you might be. When you’re a boy, it never dominates who you can be.” This is true, in a world of binaries, and the pair assert agency over their own ‘myth’. Both Medusa and Perseus have been manipulated by the Fates and gods, questioning how much control does one have over one’s destiny? Medusa claims her name is Mirena, which means both duality and strength (and is also the name of the Queen of the Amazons and a contraceptive device). The novella is an introduction to telling one's own story, creating an identity, and learning that an individual can be more than one thing. Medusa revels in the new-found knowledge, “I was growing accustomed to this new sensation of uncomfortable compromises, of living in the grey areas of life, rather than the starker strips of black and white I’d believed in as a child.” It's an entertaining read of self-discovery more akin to the Percy Jackson novels than Natalie Haynes' works.
2. Frogkisser! by Garth Nix (Allen & Unwin) - This is a fantasy/ fairytale mash-up in which young Princess Anya has to go on a quest to restore the kingdom and save her sister, Morven. There is a lot of hokum about collecting ingredients such as a pint of witches' tears and three-day-old hail stones to make a Reversal Lip Balm. With this balm she can kiss the frogs that have been transformed by her evil stepstepfather (her stepmother remarried after her father died) back into their original shape, including the hapless Prince Denholm, with whom Morven has fallen in love. She sets out accompanied by a loyal dog, Ardent, who is easily distracted by food, and falls in with an apprentice thief, Shrub, who has been transformed into an orange newt, and Bert, short for Roberta, leader of the Association of Responsible Robbers who steal from the rich and give to the poor. Bert tells Anya that their ethos is about "making sure that those who have too much do some sharing with those who have too little, and it isn't always just about valuable things like money or even basic things like food. It is also about sharing power and opportunities." Anya doesn't understand this as she is a princess and has always had unrecognised privilege. This is clearly a Life Lesson, and is handled in a rather clunky fashion. As Anya completes her quest, meeting several characters and learning self-awareness, there are nods to Narnia and the Discworld novels but without the complexity of the former or the satirical light touch of the latter. It's fine, but largely forgettable. 
3. Hagitude by Sharon Blackie (September Publishing) -From the author of If Women Rose Rooted, which examined women’s connection to the natural world, comes Hagitude, a reimagining of the second half of life; menopause and how it affects women along with society’s expectations. As with the previous book, Blackie uses the archetypes of Jungian philosophy, and mythical tales to explain her theories. She begins by explaining the negative portrayal of ageing in Western culture. “Older women, when they’re not rendered completely invisible, are still trivialised and marginalised, and often actively ridiculed.” Unlike some of the legends from cultures which revere and respect elders with their gifts of wisdom, our tales of old women suggest they are something to be shunned, and the ageing process must be avoided at all costs. Much of this fear of the old woman can be ascribed to the ‘witch wound’ as many  women fear not conforming to the narrow expectations of society. Due to the witch trials and their associations, many women were culturally oppressed and modified their behaviours to escape unwanted and dangerous attention, and “to avoid being overly visible. Young women are enamoured with sparkly witches and spooky glam, but that is not the connection to nature and the earth that appeals to menopausal women. Blackie makes an interesting case for menopause being like a crucible in which the fire burns through to the heart and essence of the human, just as she quotes Michaelangelo talking of his sculpture, “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” By considering the body as a thing that carries us, rather than the totality of who we are, she raises some thoughtful propositions and encourages a refreshing outlook.
4. So Late in the Day by Claire Keegan (Faber) - A very short work (a mere 47 pages) in which Cathal, at the end of his working day, reflects on his relationship with his ex-fiancée, Sabine, a French gallery worker. The economy and efficiency of language is remarkable as it paints pictures that lodge in the brain far more than wordier works of fiction. From the opening sentence - “On Friday, July 29^th, Dublin got the weather that was forecast.” - with its hints of mundanity and brilliance, we know what to expect. Like Joyce, Proust or Woolf, the commonplace is juxtaposed with the specific in a slightly unsettling way. The construction of sentences and the use of verbs to shorten actions - “He took up the coffee, leaving before he sugared it" - gives it a lyrical lilt and an immediacy I also noticed recently in Paul Lynch’s work – it is an Irish thing? Keegan introduces feelings and emotions in the description of events. We learn that the narrator is mean and petty as he remembers an evening with Sabine in terms of value. “She took a long shower then and changed and drank a full litre of Evian over a Chinese which he’d had to order, over the phone. The restaurant charged four euros for delivery." He expects some reward for being kind – “Did I not order your dinner tonight and pay for it? Did I not buy all those cherries for your fancy tart? And haven’t I helped you here all day, moving all your stuff?” It is powerful to make the narrator so unsympathetic halfway through the novella, noting that the story was originally published in French under the title Misogynie. This is a tense tale without hyperbole or dramatic effects, but it resonates in a disturbing way as it questions what men really want from women and whether we have made any significant progress in gender equality.
5. Dark Queen Rising by Paul Doherty (Crème de la Crime) -Dark Queen Rising is billed as a murder mystery with a meticulously researched political and historical setting. In the later fifteenth century, while the House of Lancaster is in disarray (King Henry VI is locked in the Tower of London; his wife Margaret of Anjou and their son, Prince Edward are captured and imprisoned), the House of York is rampant and the three brothers Edward (later King Edward IV), George (Duke of Clarence), and Richard (Duke of Gloucester, later King Richard III) are at war amongst themselves. The novel is full of set pieces and action; double crossing and espionage; smuggling and disguises; secret passages and hidden doorways. The immediate mystery is that people are found dead in room locked and bolted from the inside with the key turned. This leads to the search for a document - the Titus Regulus - containing secret ciphers, that could change attitudes to the right of succession. The problem is that “No one really knows what the ‘Titulus Regius’ truly is, where it’s hidden, or what form it takes.” It falls to Christopher Urswick, the personal clerk of Margaret of Beaufort (married to Edmund Tudor, half-brother to Henry VI of England – due to having the same mother, Katherine of Valois) to solve the mystery. Doherty writes in his notes that, “Some people even regard Urswick as the founder of the British Secret Service", and there is plenty of chaos and suspicion as people are constantly swapping loyalties, and death is everywhere.

How Beauteous Mankind Is!: Circe

Circe by Madeline Miller

Bloomsbury

Pp. 333

The retelling of classical stories and myths from the female perspective is currently all the rage (The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood; The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker; A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes) and Madeline Miller is part of this welcome revolution. Here she tells the story of Circe, a semi-goddess often described as a witch, best known for her role in Homer’s Odyssey, where she detained Odysseus and his men, turning some of them into swine. Miller relates this tale in the first person, providing a back-story and reasons for Circe’s behaviour, like the unravelling of a fairy-tale.

Circe (1911) by Beatrice Offor

Circe is the daughter of Helios, Titan god of the sun and, from childhood, she is ridiculed for not shining brightly enough in his eyes. Her name means Hawk because of “my yellow eyes, and the strange, thin sound of my crying”. The gods think her voice is weedy and screechy, but it transpires it is simply like that of a mortal. She is fascinated by humans and shares an affinity for them with Prometheus, who shaped man out of mud. As a child, Circe asks Prometheus what a mortal was like and he tells her, “There is no single answer. They are each different. The only thing they share is death.” She questions how they bear the burden of this knowledge and he replies, “As best they can”.

Bored with the smooth symmetry of the gods, Circe loves the diversity of humans. She is fascinated by mortals, and her words are like those of Miranda in Shakespeare’s Tempest or reminiscent of Doctor Who, who admires mortals but is not one. She has no god-like powers, although she does have knowledge of herbs and potions; medicine to be used for healing and harm, the Greek word for which is pharmakis, ‘a preparer of drugs, a poisoner, a sorcerer’, from which we derive the word pharmacy, and which wisdom led her to be called ‘witch’.

The Wine of Circe (1900) by Edward Burne Jones

Just as she studies the mortals, she also philosophises about the gods. She knows that they are cruel and curious, and that they rule by fear through a hierarchical chain that recalls various political parties and governments.

The gods also “love their monsters” because it gives them something to threaten mortals with, and something for heroes to challenge. They look down upon mortals and heroes, and enjoy toying with them – the Trojan War and its consequences are all a result of their petty squabbles – and they like to see what the mortals will do next when put into impossible situations. “Gods love novelty… They are curious as cats.” These gods are equally childlike and cruel, with a unique morality. “They do not care if you are good. They barely care if you are wicked. The only thing that makes them listen is power… They take what they want and in return they give you only your own shackles.” They also punish those who help mortals; they want the mortals to be afraid because they give better offerings.

Circe (1889) by Wright Barker 

The most important thing to these gods is their reputation. They are similar to the Knights of King Arthur, who vied for quests to prove their honour, but these gods want only fame – they don’t care how they come by it. Most mortals also want fame above anything: when Odysseus travels to the underworld to consult Tiresias, the blind seer, Achilles tells him it is better to live a quiet life than die a hero’s death. He disagrees. When Telemachus turns down Athena’s offer of adventure, she is bewildered. “There will be no songs made of you. No stories. Do you understand? You will live a life of obscurity. You will be without a name in history. You will be no one.”

Miller uses the style of Homeric language and epithets about Helios, “My father’s chariot slipped into the sea and began to douse itself in the waves” but she also has an individual style as she reinterprets classic myth from a modern angle and damns the ostensible glory of the gods.

After displeasing her father, Circe is exiled to an island, Aiaia, which she cannot leave, but she can receive visitors (including Hermes, Jason and Medea, Daedalus, and, of course, Odysseus). She becomes a magnet for reckless and randy sailors (these are the ones she turns to swine as they try to rape her) and her island a place for disgruntled fathers to send their disobedient daughters, like some mythical convent. She casts her feminist viewpoint on her treatment. “Brides, nymphs were called, but that is not really how the world saw us. We were an endless feast laid out upon a table, beautiful and renewing. And so very bad at getting away.”

The Sorceress (1911) by John William Waterhouse 

Circe’s story is one that has only previously been told through the eyes of others and the tangential effects she has on their narrative. Miller presents us with another side to wily Odysseus, “The spiral shell. Always another curve out of sight.” She also shows us a fresh perspective on Penelope when Odysseus’ wife and son visit Circe on Aiaia, and the use of the word ‘weaving’ to describe spells and craft unites the women through something other than the lover and mother trope.

Circe is immortal, and she sees many changes, but she does not wish to see destruction. During her early experiments, Circe discovers the limits of her powers. “However potent the mixture, however well woven the spell, the toad kept trying to fly, and the mouse to sting. Transformation touched only bodies, not minds.” To her mind the greatest transformation is life into death. The idea that there is an undying spirit is comforting; it is the same as a story which can be endlessly retold. And this is a version I would be more than happy to hear again.

Circe and Her Swine (1896) by Briton Riviere

Friday Five: Another Quintet of Women of the Odyssey

I'm in the middle of rehearsals for The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood, which is a retelling of The Odyssey, focussing on Penelope, who was left behind while Odysseus went off to war and then travelled around having adventures rather than returning to her in a timely manner. I'm co-producing and directing the play which will be on at the Courtyard Studio in Canberra from 7-17 July. I have always loved mythology and the value of storytelling, so have thoroughly enjoyed providing a bit of context to some of the characters mentioned in the text. This is Part Three (See Part One and Part Two).

The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli

1. Aphrodite

Aphrodite is the Greek goddess associated with love, beauty, pleasure, passion and procreation. Her major symbols include myrtles, roses, doves, sparrows and swans, and she is consistently portrayed as a nubile, infinitely desirable adult (having had no childhood as she was born fully-formed from sea foam caused by the severed genitals of Uranus - it's complicated), and usually nude. Her Roman equivalent is Venus, hence the famous Bananarama song (okay, I know it's not originally theirs), female razor products (exactly the same as the male ones but twice as expensive because, you know, pink), the fly trap (because stupid creatures will entrap themselves and die for nubile beauty) oh yes, and the above painting.

In The Odyssey, Aphrodite is married to Hephaestus (blacksmith to the gods who makes all sorts of wonderful gadgets, like Q in James Bond) not by choice but through some bargaining with Zeus - she is given to Hephaestus as a bribe (sound familiar?). Aphrodite is frequently unfaithful to her husband, and her lover include Ares, the god of war (Mars in the Roman versions). Hephaestus sets a trap for the lovers and casts a golden net in which they are caught the next time they have sex upon the marital bed. Hephaestus invites all the other gods to laugh at the adulterous pair, but many of the (male) gods have sympathy for Ares and Poseidon agrees to pay Hephaestus to release Ares. Meanwhile, Aphrodite was humiliated and returned in shame and ignominy to Cyprus where she was attended by the Charities (or Three Graces). What's that you say? Rhymes with stubble dandards?

Charybdis before she was a sea monster

2. Charybdis

Charybdis was a sea monster who dwelt in the Strait of Messina. She swallowed large amounts of water of water and then belched them out, creating large whirlpools that resulted in the destruction of passing ships. She was the offspring of Poseidon and Gaea (Water and Earth) and helped her father in his quarrel against Zeus by flooding large areas of land with water - don't you just love how all cultures have a creation and a flood myth? Zeus was angry (it seems to be his default setting - grumpy head god) and punished Charybdis by turning her into a monster that would eternally swallow sea water and create whirlpools.

Scylla, the Huntress, from Game of Heroes

3. Scylla

Scylla was a sea monster who haunted the rocks of a narrow strait opposite the whirlpool of Charybdis. Ships who sailed too close to her rocks would lose six men to her ravenous, darting heads. Homer describes Scylla as a creature with twelve dangling feet, six long necks and grisly heads lined with a row of sharp teeth. Her voice was likened to the yelping of dogs. In classical art she was depicted as a fish-tailed sea-goddess with a cluster of canine fore-parts surrounding her waist. According to late classical writers she was once a beautiful nymph loved by the sea-god Glaukos, but her jealous rival, Circe, transformed her into a monster. Older poets, however, envisaged her as simply a monster born into a monstrous family. 

Scylla and Charybdis by Emmique on DeviantArt

Being between Scylla and Charybdis is an idiom along the lines of 'between a rock and a hard place', 'between the devil and the deep blue sea', 'to choose the lesser of two evils'  or 'out of the frying pan; into the fire'. The situation implies that one must seek to chose between two equally dangerous extremes which will inevitably result in disaster. Scylla and Charybdis were regarded as maritime hazards (a rock shoal and a whirlpool respectively) located close enough to each other that they posed an inescapable threat to passing sailors; avoiding Charybdis meant passing too close to Scylla and vice versa. According to Homer's account, Circe advised Odysseus to pass by Scylla and lose only a few sailors, rather than risk the loss of his entire ship in the whirlpool.

Nausicaa by Frederic Leighton

4. Nausicaa

After leaving Calypso, Odysseus is shipwrecked on the island of Phaeacia, where he is awakened by Nausicaa (daughter of King Alcinous and Queen Arete) and her handmaidens as they wash their clothes at the seashore. He emerges from the forest, completely naked, and the servants all run away terrified. Nausicaa remains and agrees to help him, giving him some of the laundry to wear and advising him to go to her parents' house and make his case directly to her mother, Arete. She and her maids go ahead of him as she doesn't want to give rise to gossip by walking with a stranger. He does as she says, which is a good move because apparently Arete is much wiser than her husband, and when Odysseus wins her trust, she allows him stay with them as a guest. In return for their hospitality, Odysseus recounts his adventures to the court - this forms a substantial proportion of The Odyssey itself. Alcinous then generously gives Odysseus a ship to help him return to Ithaca. 

Margaret Atwood interprets all this in her inimitable fashion in The Penelopiad thus:

"After seven long years there of kissing and woo,
He escaped on a raft that was drove to and fro,
Till fair Nausicaa's maids that the laundry did do,

Found him bare on the beach - he did drip so!" 

Nausicaa is young and very pretty, and she is presented as a potential love interest. She may have had unrequited feelings for Odysseus, but he wins Arete's sympathy and she is determined to help him get home to his wife and child, rather than being tempted to dally with yet another romantic entanglement. There is a deep affection between the two of them, however - she tells him, 'Never forget me, for I gave you life' (which is oddly maternal) - and of all the women he met on his adventures, Odysseus never tells Penelope about Nausicaa. Some accounts say that Nausicaa eventually married Odysseus' son, Telemachus. Could this be a rare occurrence in classical literature of a man actually respecting a young and beautiful woman?

Ulysses and the Sirens by John William Waterhouse

5. Sirens

According to legend, sirens are beautiful seductresses who lured sailors to watery graves with their stunning singing voices. Apparently the sailors, bewitched by the voices, would steer their ships too close to the rocks and end up wrecked. In other versions (particularly Indian myth), their sweet sounds lull the sailors to sleep, and then the Sirens set upon them and tear them to pieces. 

They were believed to look like a combination of women and birds in various different forms. In early Greek art they were represented as birds with large women's heads, bird feathers and scaly feet. Later they were represented as female figures with the legs of birds, with or without wings, playing a variety of musical instruments, especially harps and lyres. Originally sirens were shown to be male or female, but the male Siren disappeared from art around the fifth century BC. Because we all know that only women can fulfil the role of evil tempter, right?

Homer tells that Odysseus wanted to hear the Sirens, and so he acted on the advice of Circe (yep, her again) getting all his sailors to plug their ears with beeswax and tie him to the mast. He ordered his men not to release him no matter how much he ranted and raved. As he passed the sirens he screamed for his men to untie him. In the words of Simon Armitage's translation he begged,

"Untie me now. Now. Untie me, you bastard scum. 

Zeus, hear me. I'll sacrifice everything in your name.

All my flocks and herds, all my lands and estates...

All my servants and slaves... these men... take them...

My son, Telemachus... my wife, Penelope...

Take them all but guide me into these voices...

Zeus, kill me afterwards, but show me their faces...

I CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT KISSING THE MOUTHS OF THE SIRENS."

The extreme feelings make him pass out and when he comes to, the ship is some distance off from the Sirens and his men are standing around him. When he asks why they didn't untie him despite his curses and threats, they reply, "We couldn't hear you. Beeswax - remember." Thus Odysseus becomes the only man to have heard the Sirens and lived. Sound familiar? And yes, I do recall the 1994 film, Sirens, loosley based on the life of artists Norman Lindsay and starring Hugh Grant, Tara Fitzgerald, Sam Neill, Elle Macpherson, Pamela Rabe, Portia de Rossi, and Ben Mendelsohn, which should have been so much better than it was.

Friday Five: More of the Women in The Odyssey

I'm in the middle of rehearsals for The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood, which is a retelling of The Odyssey, focussing on Penelope, who was left behind while Odysseus went off to war and then travelled around having adventures rather than returning to her in a timely manner. I'm co-producing and directing the play which will be on at the Courtyard Studio in Canberra from 7-17 July. I have always loved mythology and the value of storytelling, so have thoroughly enjoyed providing a bit of context to some of the characters mentioned in the text. This is Part Two (Part One is here).

Helen of Troy (1898) by Evelyn De Morgan 

1. Helen of Troy, also known as beautiful Helen, Helen of Argos, or Helen of Sparta, was said to have been the most beautiful woman in the world. The myths relate how she was born (hatched from an egg) after Zeus 'visited' Leda (wife of Tyndareus) in the form of a swan and 'seduced' her. Helen's appearance inspired artists of all times to represent her, frequently as the personification of ideal human beauty. Images of Helen started appearing in the 7th century BC, with her abduction by Paris (or escape with him) being a popular motif.

In her youth, Helen was abducted by Theseus. He liked the look of her so with his mate Pirithous, the the king of Larissa, he went to Sparta, kidnapped Helen and brought her back to Aphidnae, a small city outside Athens, to be taken care of by his mother. Pirithous then decided he would like Persephone, goddess of the Underworld, for his wife, so the two mates popped down to Hades (the place) to kidnap her. Things didn't go so well, however, as Hades (the god) threw Theseus into prison and let his dog, Cerberus, tear Pirithous to pieces. Meanwhile, Helen's brothers, Castor and Pollux, invaded Aphidnae, rescued Helen and brought her back to Sparta.

When it was time for Helen to marry, many kings and princes from around the world came to seek her hand, bringing rich gifts with them, or sent emissaries to do so on their behalf. Menelaus, her future husband, did not attend, but sent his brother, Agamemnon, to represent him. Tyndareus was afraid to select a husband for his daughter, or send any of the suitors away, for fear of offending them and giving grounds for a quarrel. Odysseus was one of the suitors but had brought no gifts because he believed he had little chance of winning. 

Odysseus promised to solve the problem if Tyndareus would support him in his courting of Penelope, daughter of Icarius, and Tyndareus readily agreed. Odysseus proposed that, before the decision was made, all the suitors should swear a most solemn oath (known as the Oath of Tyndareus) promising to provide military assistance to the winning suitor if Helen were ever stolen from him. After the suitors all swore the oath, Menelaus was chosen as Helen's husband. For some, this marriage marks the beginning of the end of the age of heroes, as Zeus planned to obliterate the race of men and heroes in particular, using the Trojan War as the means to this end.

Cut to Paris (the Trojan prince), who was appointed by Zeus to judge some kind of Greek Goddess Beauty Competition between Hera, Athena and Aphrodite. Aphrodite promised Paris that if he chose her, she would reward him with the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen, as a bribe. Surprise! Paris chose Aphrodite, and incurred the wrath of Hera and Athena, but won the prize, carrying off Helen and kicking off the Trojan War as all the sworn suitors set out to reclaim her. 

This abduction or elopement is deliberately ambiguous, depending on which side you're on and which motif you wish to pursue - in medieval illustrations this event was frequently portrayed as a seduction, whereas in Renaissance paintings it was usually depicted as a rape. This ambiguity continues through her relationship with Paris, Menelaus, and the warriors of Troy. Some tales claim Helen revelled in her fatal mischief, tormented the Greeks inside the wooden horse and rejoiced over the carnage of the Trojans; others suggest she was distraught and racked with guilt at being the cause of so much death and destruction, and was desperately lonely because so many people (particularly women) held her responsible and hated her.

According to some accounts, Greeks and Trojans gathered to stone her to death, but Menelaus demanded that only he should slay his unfaithful wife. When he saw her, however, she dropped her robe from her shoulders and the sight of her beauty caused him to let the sword drop from his hand, and the couple were reunited. 

Helen a la porte scee (1888) by Gustave Moureau

In stories, Helen is a prize; a possession; a temptress and seductress; she forces men to act a certain way and her beauty has been portrayed as potent and destructive. But here's the thing; she is always passive - things are done to her and because of her and for her, but never by her. She is born from rape, abducted, captured, stolen, rescued, contested, and never gets to tell her own story. We know that she is beautiful, but not a lot else, and if beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then she is a blank canvas on which we project our own ideology. Gustave Moreau portrays her as faceless in his painting of her witnessing the destruction of Troy. 

In The Penelopiad, Margaret Atwood refers to Helen as "the sceptic bitch" and "poison on legs". She redresses the balance, however, in her 1995 poem, Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing, in which Helen understands that her 'beery worshippers' would like to 'watch me/ and feel nothing. Reduce me to components/ as in a clock factory or an abattoir./ Crush out the mystery./ Wall me up alive/ in my own body." If we're talking about Helen's influence on poetry and plays, we cannot ignore Chritopher Marlowe's lines from his 1604 tragedy Doctor Faustus, in which the titular character sells his soul for (among other things) a night of passion with Helen of Troy, and when he first catches sight of her remarks,

"Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships,
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.
Her lips suck forth my soul: see where it flies!"

Odysseus Wants to Embrace the Ghost of His Mother (1901) by Jan Styka 

2. Queen Anticlea

Odysseus’ mother Anticleia is a shady character in the Odyssey; we meet her only in the Underworld, where Odysseus has gone to seek the advice of the dead prophet, Tiresias. Initially Odysseus rebuffs his mother as he is waiting for the prophet to approach, but after speaking with Tiresias, he allows Anticleia to come near and lets her speak. She asks him why he is in the underworld while alive, and he tells her about his various troubles and failed attempts to get home. Then he asks her how she died and inquires about his family at home.

Anticleia says that she died from a broken heart, longing for him while he was at war and having given up hope of ever seeing her son again. She also says that Laërtes (Odysseus' father) "grieves continually" for Odysseus and lives in a hovel in the countryside, clad in rags and sleeping on the floor. Penelope has not yet remarried but is overwhelmed with sadness and longing for her husband while Telemachus acts as magistrate for Odysseus' properties. Odysseus attempts to embrace his mother three times but discovers that she is incorporeal, and his arms simply pass through her. She explains that this is how all ghosts are, and he expresses great sorrow.

Odysseus’ futile attempt to reach out to her could be seen as an indication of his distant relationship with his mother. His warm memories of planting trees in the family’s orchard with his father is not matched by any such memories of his mother.

Ulysses Recognised by Eurycleia (1849) by Gustave Housez

3. Eurycleia

As a girl, Eurycleia was bought by Laertes, Odysseus's father. He treated her as his wife, but she was never his consumated lover, so as not to dishonour his real wife, Anticleia. She later nursed Telemachus, Odysseus's son. The name Eurycleia means 'broad fame', while Anticleia means 'anti-fame'. The tension between the meanings of their names can be seen to reflect the tebsion between the aspects of Odysseus's life.

Odysseus was born to Anticleia, a noble woman, but nursed and raised by Eurycleia, a lower-class maid. Odysseus's fame came from his role as a noble hero paralleled to his role as an anonymous beggar. His heroism was essential for capturing Troy; his skills as an orator and a schemer as well as his strength and tactics on the battlefield were instrumental in the success of the Greeks. However, he disguised himself as a beggar at critical moments, such as when he entered Troy and killed the unsuspecting Trojan soldiers, and when he returned to Ithaca and killed Penelope's suitors.

Eurycleia was the only person to recognise him without him first revealing himself (as he did to Telemachus) when he returned home after the Trojan War. She then informed him which of his servant girls had been unfaithful to Penelope during his absence, conspiring with Penelope's suitors and becoming their lovers. His son, Telemachus, hanged the twelve maids that Eurycleia identified.

Eurycleia supports Telemachus in much the same way as she had Odysseus before him, giving Telemachus provisions and supplies before he left for Pylos to seek out news of his father. She swore not to tell Penelope he had left until twelve days had passed, as Telemachus did not want his mother to be any more worried than she already was, or indeed to prevent him from going.

Some classicists argue that the woman who anoints Jesus in the Gospel of Mark is a direct reference to Eurycleia. She is the only one to recognise Jesus, and what she has done will be widely known in the same way as Eurycleia is the only one to recognise Odysseus and whose name means 'widely known'.

Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt, a Roman copy of the original by Leochares circa 325BC

4. Artemis

Artemis, daughter of Zeus and Leto, is the twin sister of Apollo and a goddess of the moon. She was the patron and protector of young girls, and was believed to be able to both bring disease upon women and heal them of it. She was worshipped as one of the primary goddesses of childbirth and midwifery, and was one of the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities: her temple at Ephesus was one fo the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

Her Roman equivalent is Diana and she is also known as being a hunter. Homer calls her either 'Mistress of the Animals' or 'She of the Wild', and she is often referred to as 'arrow-pouring' or 'deer-shooting'. Just like her brother she may occasionally be called 'bright' or, even more illustrative of her function as a moon goddess, 'torch-bringer'. Her symbols included a bow and arrow, a quiver, and hunting knives, and the deer and the cypress were sacred to her. 

Women gods and demi-gods traditionally followed one of two paths: sultry or chaste: Artemis was definitely in the latter camp, preferring to remain a maiden and swearing never to marry. This chastity could be interpreted as cruelty or frigidity (fancy not giving her self away to anyone who desired her!) especially by Ovid in his Metamorphoses. When Actaeon stumbled upon Artemis while she was bathing, she was so enraged that he had seen her naked that she turned him into a stag and whipped his hunting dogs into a fury until they turned upon him and ripped him to pieces.

Her legacy lives on in the Artemis Program, formally begun in December 2017 under the Trump administration with the stated intention of landing the first woman on the Moon. Together with commercial and international partners, NASA intends to establish a sustainable presence on the Moon 'for private companies to build a lunar economy' (i.e. to establish commercial mining) and to prepare for missions to Mars. The scale of and motivation behind this project are quite literally out of this world. 

Calypso (1869) by Henri Lehmann

5. Calypso

If Helen of Troy is the face that launched a thousand ships, then Calypso is the name that launched almost as many products, including ships. Tributes to her come in the form of a drink (rum, peach schnapps, orange juice and grenadine), a dance, a style of music, video games, software companies, space craft, British Navy ships, an underwater camera, and a 1942 British minesweeper that was later repurposed as an oceanographic research ship operated by Jacques-Yves Cousteau.

The name means to cover, conceal or hide, and in Greek Mythology, she is a nymph who 'detained' Odysseus on the island Ogygia for seven years when he was attempting to return home to his wife, Penelope in Ithaca. In some accounts this 'detainment" resulted in two children. In others, Odysseus pines for his wife until Athena intervenes and begs her father, Zeus, to order the release of Odysseus from the island.

Zeus orders the messenger Hermes to tell Calypso to set Odysseus free, as it was not his destiny to live with her forever. She is furious and points out the double standards that allow gods to abduct females willy-nilly, but that punish goddesses who have affairs with mortals. Eventually she reluctantly concedes and sends Odysseus on his way after providing him with wine, bread and the materials for a raft. She then takes up the same position on the rock looking out to sea and pining for him, as he had previously sat longing for his Penelope.  In The Odyssey, this is the section of the adventures that begins the tale, before it plunges back into flashback, thus positioning it as an important highlight of the journey.

Friday Five: Depictions of the Greek Underworld

I have been exploring the Greek underworld - not literally, obviously - but because The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood, the play I am directing and co-producing, is partially set there.

The underworld itself - sometimes known as Hades, after its patron god - is described as being either at the outer bounds of the ocean or beneath the depths or ends of the earth. It is considered the dark counterpart to the brightness of Mount Olympus with the kingdom of the dead corresponding to the kingdom of the gods. The Underworld is a realm invisible to the living, made solely for the dead.

Landscape with Charon crossing the Styx by Joachim Patinir

The Greeks had a definite belief that there was a journey to the afterlife or another world. They believed that death was not a complete end to life or human existence.

In the Greek underworld, the souls of the dead still existed, but they are insubstantial, and flitted around the underworld with no sense of purpose. The Greeks accepted the existence of the soul after death, but saw this afterlife as meaningless. In the underworld, the identity of a dead person still existed, but it had no strength or true influence. The dead within the Homeric underworld lack menos,or strength, and therefore they cannot influence those on earth. They also lack phrenes, or wit, and are heedless of what goes on around them and on the earth above them. Their lives in the underworld were very neutral, so all social statuses and political positions were eliminated and no one was able to use their previous lives to their advantage in the underworld.

Generally speaking, the Greek Underworld can be thought of as being made up of three different regions; Tartarus, the Asphodel Meadows and Elysium.

An alternative view of the London Underground tube map by the Iris Project

While Tartarus is not considered to be directly a part of the underworld, it is described as being as far beneath the underworld as the earth is beneath the sky. It was thought to be the deepest region of the Underworld, ad a place where it would take an anvil nine days to reach if allowed to fall from the rest of the Underworld. It is so dark that the “night is poured around it in three rows like a collar round the neck, while above it grows the roots of the earth and of the unharvested sea.” – Robert Garland, The Greek Way of Death

Tartarus is the region of the Underworld normally associated with hell, and was the area where imprisonment and punishment was undertaken; as such it was the normal location of the imprisoned Titans, Tantalus, Ixion and Sisyphus. Zeus cast the Titans along with his father Cronus into Tartarus after defeating them. Homer wrote that Cronus then became the king of Tartarus. While Odysseus does not see the Titans himself, he mentions some of the people within the underworld who are experiencing punishment for their sins.

Aneas and Sibyl in the Underworld by Jan Brueghel the Younger

The Asphodel Meadows was a place for ordinary or indifferent souls who did not commit any significant crimes, but who also did not achieve any greatness or recognition that would warrant them being admitted to the Elysian Fields. It was where mortals who did not belong anywhere else in the underworld were sent. It was where the majority of the deceased would end up, for it was the region of indifference. Having drunk from the River Lethe the deceased located here would forget their previous lives, but would spend eternity in a greyness of mindlessness.

While in the underworld, the dead passed the time through simple pastimes such as playing games, as shown from objects found in tombs such as dice and game-boards. Grave gifts such as clothing, jewellery, and food were left by the living for use in the underworld as well, since many viewed these gifts to carry over into the underworld. There was not a general consensus as to whether the dead were able to consume food or not. Homer depicted the dead as unable to eat or drink unless they had been summoned; however, some reliefs portray the underworld as having many elaborate feasts. While not completely clear, it is implied that the dead could still have sexual intimacy with another, although no children were produced. The Greeks also showed belief in the possibility of marriage in the underworld, which in a sense describes the Greek underworld having no difference than from their current life.

Fields of Asphodel by Brian Doers

Elysium, or the Elysian Fields, was a place for the especially distinguished. It was ruled over by Rhadamanthus, and the souls that dwelled there had an easy afterlife and would spend an eternity of pleasure free from work and strife. Usually, those who had proximity to the gods were granted admission, rather than those who were especially righteous or had ethical merit, however, later on, those who were pure and righteous were considered to reside in Elysium. Most accepted to Elysium were demigods or heroes. Heroes such as Cadmus, Peleus, and Achilles also were transported here after their deaths. Normal people who lived righteous and virtuous lives could also gain entrance such as Socrates who proved his worth sufficiently through philosophy. It is the region of the Underworld where mortals were supposed to aspire to and the most closely associated with paradise.

The Waters of Lethe by the Plains of Elysium by John Rodham Spencer-Stanhope

The idea of progress did not exist in the Greek underworld – at the moment of death, the psyche was frozen, in experience and appearance. The souls in the underworld did not age or really change in any sense. They did not lead any sort of active life in the underworld – they were exactly the same as they were in life. Therefore, those who had died in battle were eternally blood-spattered in the underworld and those who had died peacefully were able to remain that way.

Overall, the Greek dead were considered to be irritable and unpleasant, but not dangerous or malevolent. They grew angry if they felt a hostile presence near their graves and drink offerings were given in order to appease them so as not to anger the dead. Mostly, blood offerings were given, because they needed the essence of life to become communicative and conscious again. This is shown in Homer's Odyssey, where Odysseus had to give blood in order for the souls to interact with him.

Hades itself was free from the concept of time. The dead are aware of both the past and the future, and in poems describing Greek heroes, the dead helped move the plot of the story by prophesying and telling truths unknown to the hero. The only way for humans to communicate with the dead was to suspend time and their normal life to reach Hades, the place beyond immediate perception and human time.

It sounds as though social strata was rigidly imposed even back then and even in death.

Friday Five: Women of the Odyssey

I'm in the middle of rehearsals for The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood, which is a retelling of The Odyssey, focussing on Penelope, who was left behind while Odysseus went off to war and then travelled around having adventures rather than returning to her in a timely manner. I'm co-producing and directing the play which will be on at the Courtyard Studio in Canberra from 7-17 July. I have always loved mythology and the value of storytelling, so have thoroughly enjoyed providing a bit of context to some of the characters mentioned in the text. 

5 Female Characters mentioned in The Penelopiad

Pallas Athena (1898) by Gustav Klimt

1. Athena, also spelled Athene, in Greek religion, is the protector of Athens, and the goddess of war, handicraft, and practical reason – her Roman equivalent is Minerva. She was essentially urban and civilised, the antithesis in many respects of Artemis, goddess of the outdoors.

 She was the daughter of Zeus, produced without a mother – the myths tell how she emerged fully-formed from Zeus’s head, after he swallowed Metis (the goddess of counsel) when she was pregnant with Athena. Being the favourite child of Zeus, she had great power.

She represents the intellectual and civilised side of war and the virtues of justice and skill. In the Iliad, Athena is the divine form of the heroic, martial ideal: she personifies excellence in close combat, victory, and glory. The qualities that lead to victory are found on the aegis, or breastplate, that Athena wears when she goes to war: fear, strife, defence, and assault. Athena appears in Homer’s Odyssey as the Odyssey’s goddess guardian. As the guardian of the welfare of kings, Athena became the goddess of good counsel, of prudent restraint, and practical insight as well as of war. She is often depicted in art with armour, a golden helmet, a shield, and holding a spear. Her armour is the aegis made, in some accounts, from the skin of a Giant, hung with tassels of gold, and featuring the head of the Gorgon given to her by Perseus.

Athena became the goddess of crafts and skilled peacetime pursuits in general. She was particularly known as the patroness of spinning and weaving. That she ultimately became allegorized to personify wisdom and righteousness was a natural development of her patronage of skill.

Circe Offering the Cup to Ulysses (1891) by John William Waterhouse

2. Circe is a sorceress known for her vast knowledge of potions and herbs, and her ability to use these enchantments to transform her enemies, and those who offended her, into animals. In myths she is known to turn an Italian king who spurned her advances into a woodpecker, and when a sea-god preferred the nymph, Scylla, to her, Circe poisoned the water where her rival bathed and turned Scylla into a dreadful monster.

In the Odyssey she is described as a beautiful goddess surrounded by tame wolves and lions. She lures any who land on her island to her home with her lovely singing while weaving on an enormous loom, and then drugs them so that they change shape. When Odysseus visits her island, she invites his crew to a feast and turns them into swine - Odysseus is protected by Athena from drinking the drugged wine that effects the transformation, and he is able to rescue his men, although he then remains on the island for over a year and has several sons by Circe.

She became representative of the results of drunkenness and gluttony over abstinence and self-control. Because she made men lose their reason and act like lustful beasts she was accused of witchcraft and considered the archetypal seductress and whore - clearly female sexual desire was perverted and the poor men couldn't possibly remain chaste and faithful in the face of such evil. 

It has been argued that the fairy Titania, in William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, is an inversion of Circe. In this case the tables are turned and she is made to love an ass after, rather than before, he is transformed into his true animal likeness. Naturally, feminist interpretations reveal her in a more flattering light, and in her poem of 1870, the English poet Augusta Webster posits that when she met Odysseus and his men Circe did not turn them into pigs but merely removed their disguise which made them seem human.

The Three Fates (circa 1855) by Paul Thumann

3. The Three Morai also known as the Three Fates, are three goddesses who determine the course of human life. According to Thomas Bullfinch in Bullfinch's Mythology, they are described as the daughters of Night – to indicate the darkness and obscurity of human destiny – or of Zeus and Themis (Law), that is ‘daughters of the heavens.’ They were Clotho, who spun the thread of life; Lacheisis, who held it and fixed its length; and Atropos, who cut it off.”

Stephen Fry in his book, Mythos, instructs, "Their name derives from a word that means ‘portion’ or ‘lot’ in the sense of ‘that which is allotted to you’. ‘It was not her portion to be loved’, or, ‘It was his lot to be unhappy’, are the kinds of phrases Greeks employed to describe attributes or destinies apportioned by the Moirai. Even the gods had to submit themselves to the Fates’ cruel decrees.”

He continues, “The Fates seldom allowed glory and triumph without the accompaniment of suffering and sorrow... The Greeks felt that for every individual there was a personal, singular moira that could be expressed as a mixture of necessity, doom, justice and fortune. Something between luck and kismet.” Isn't it interesting that the Greeks had a world of gods doing terrible things to humans (raping, abducting, torturing...) and it's the women who get blamed?

The Delphic Sibyl (detail from the Sistine Chapel) (1509) by Michelangelo

4. The Oracle “answers from the gods to questions from mortals seeking knowledge or advice on the future. They were usually given in equivocal form so as to fit an event. Also the places where such answers were given forth by a priest or a priestess.” - Thomas Bullfinch

“In a trancelike state of prophetic ecstasy the priestess would sit out of sight on her interrogator, above a chasm in the ground which channelled down to the womb of the earth itself, and call her ambiguous prognostications up into the chamber above where the anxious petitioner awaited her proclamation… Oracle never lies, but nor does (s)he ever give a straight answer, finding it amusing to reply with another question or a riddle so obscure as only to make sense when it is too late to act upon it.” - Stephen Fry

Lilaia the Naiad (2013) by Annie Stegg

5. Naiads are water nymphs of lakes, rivers and fountains. They derived their vitality and in turn gave life to the water in which they dwelled. Generally speaking, Naiads were not considered to be the most helpful of nymphs, for they could be vengeful when angered.