Orestes- Blood and Light Read online

  Helen Edmundson

  ORESTES

  BLOOD AND LIGHT

  Based on

  Euripides

  NICK HERN BOOKS

  London

  www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

  Contents

  Title Page

  Original Production

  Foreword

  Characters

  Orestes

  About the Author

  Copyright and Performing Rights Information

  This version of Orestes was first performed by Shared Experience Theatre Company at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford, on 14 September 2006; and subsequently at Dublin Theatre Festival; Warwick Arts Centre; The Lowry, Salford; Liverpool Playhouse; Oxford Playhouse; and Tricycle Theatre, London. The cast was as follows:

  MENELAOS Tim Chipping

  TYNDAREOS Jeffery Kissoon

  ELECTRA Mairead McKinley

  HELEN Clara Onyemere

  SLAVE Claire Prempeh

  ORESTES Alex Robertson

  Director Nancy Meckler

  Designer Niki Turner

  Lighting Designer Peter Harrison

  Composer Peter Salem

  Company Movement Liz Ranken

  Foreword

  When Nancy Meckler first gave me Euripides’ version of Orestes to read, I was puzzled by it. It is structurally flawed and tonally inconsistent. Although classed as a tragedy, its ending, in which a god descends and puts everything to rights, is a happy, if hollow, one. For these reasons it is rarely performed and often over-looked in discussions of his work, but the ideas contained within it are fascinating. The more we talked, the more I understood why Nancy was drawn to it. I understood the sad and frightening number of ways in which it is relevant to the current state of the world. When I began writing I was thinking as much about George Bush disregarding the views of the UN, and Tony Blair praying to God for guidance before invading Iraq, as I was about suicide bombers and religious extremists. I was thinking as much about honour killings amongst religious communities as about the loss of faith in the integrity of government and the impartiality of law.

  As I wrote, I found the story allowed me to go even further. The way the characters use religion to justify their actions opened up into questions about the very nature of faith and the complex relationship between Man and his Gods, whilst Electra’s damaged, desperate heart speaks volumes about the personal, deep-rooted pain that underlies so many acts of violence, both on small and large scales.

  I confess I have played fast and loose with the conventions of Greek theatre and with Euripides’ version of the story. I have abandoned the Chorus (who is not active or influential in the Euripides) in favour of the more subtle witness of the Slave. I have cut the character of Pylades to allow Electra her full role in the story and to allow myself to explore the extremities of her relationship with her brother. I have given Helen an intelligent, probing mind and allowed her and Klytemnestra some defence. I have chosen not to emulate the verse structure and metres of Euripides’ text, but to try to create a rhythmic, heightened language of my own.

  In short, I have followed my instincts. I have kept what is useful to me and lost what is not in the hope of creating a drama which can speak freely, freshly and vitally to audiences today.

  Helen Edmundson

  Characters

  ELECTRA

  ORESTES

  HELEN

  SLAVE

  MENELAOS

  TYNDAREOS

  SOLDIERS

  ATTENDANTS

  A forward slash (/) in the dialogue indicates that the next character begins speaking at that point. If the forward slash appears at the end of a character’s line of dialogue, it indicates that the character continues their next line of dialogue without a break.

  In Klytemnestra’s bedroom in Agamemnon’s palace. It is an ostentatious room, full of clothes and pairs of shoes, full of the gold-plated trappings of wealth.

  ELECTRA is sitting at the dressing table. She is wearing one of her mother’s dresses over the top of her own clothes.

  ORESTES is on the bed, asleep.

  ELECTRA. Sometimes she would let me stay while she undressed. Sometimes she would send the servants away and she would sit here while I brushed her hair. My mother. She would let me open jars and bottles, sniff and touch, she would let me uncover close things from drawers, treasures, and tell me where they came from. Tell me stories of a life before. Sometimes she would hold out her hands for me and I would rub them with oil, taking the rings off, one by one, feeling the deep lines on her knuckles, shifting her skin, gently, over veins and bone.

  I wanted to climb back inside her, always, and settle down behind her heart.

  The best day . . . the best day was when my father came home triumphant in wine and pride and said he had betrothed me to a prince, though I was only six years old, Prince Kastor of Sparta, a demigod, a god to be. That day I was the centre of my mother’s eye. She dressed me as a princess, put colour on my lips and cheeks, a golden crown upon my head. And my father lifted me up on his shoulders, a horse for a virgin-bride, and staggered me around the room, cornering and swaying, laughing loud while my mother played the easy, adoring people.

  And that night I crawled into bed beside my mother, that bed, and when my father came he didn’t tip me out but let me stay. And I crept down and down, burrowing between them, smelling in the mattress and the sheets all their nights of passion and sweat, good dreams and bad, our warmth all mingling together.

  He was naked when she killed him. Naked in his bath, his home bath, his safe bath. Naked. His muscles releasing their memories of battle and rough seas. They netted him – my mother and her lover Aigisthos – they caught him round with cord, with rope. He stood, too late. He struggled, twisted, they brought him down, crashing to his knees, arms pressed against his sides like giant, folded wings. He moaned, roared, spat, they swung the axe and split his skull, they swung again, they hacked his chest until it cracked, they axed and axed until his moving, twitching stopped and blood lapped the sides of the bath with a steady, slowing rhythm. My father.

  Someone had to see. It was right that it should be me. Right for my father, right for him – (She indicates the sleeping ORESTES.) so that I could tell him, perfectly, what she had done. I didn’t need to fable it, tell how she danced and sang while he lay dying, wound garlands through her hair. I could tell him how she sagged and felt for the floor, vomiting and shaking. I could tell him how Aigisthos stood so still and Time gaped, gasped. Time gasped.

  If I hadn’t seen it, we might have balked at what we had to do. My brother and I. Orestes.

  Beyond the doors, footsteps and noises are heard. ELECTRA springs up, terrified.

  No. No. Who’s there? It isn’t time yet. Leave us alone. Let my brother sleep. Let us have our last night. Who’s there?

  The doors open and HELEN enters with SOLDIERS in attendance. Also with her is a female SLAVE who is carrying HELEN’s baby daughter, HERMIONE.

  ELECTRA stares in disbelief. HELEN stands still and takes in the scene.

  HELEN. Do you recognise me?

  ELECTRA. Yes.

  HELEN. Speak my name.

  ELECTRA. Helen. You are Helen, if you are real.

  HELEN. I haven’t changed so much. Unlike you, Electra. You were a child when I left.

  ELECTRA. You’re back.

  HELEN. Sixteen years.

  ELECTRA. You’re back.

  HELEN. Yes. I’m back.

  ELECTRA. My uncle? Is he with you?

  HELEN. ‘Uncle’ Menelaos. He’ll be here. Soon. He sent me on ahead under cover of darkness, to slip unseen through the city gates. He feared the people would be baying for my blood, poor souls who lo
st their sons to the war. But the people have scented fresh blood now.

  (To SOLDIERS.) Bring more light in here.

  (Looking at ORESTES.) Is this your brother?

  ELECTRA. Yes. It is Orestes.

  HELEN. Wake him up.

  ELECTRA. No. Please. No. He hasn’t slept for six days and nights. He hasn’t closed his eyes.

  HELEN. Since he murdered his mother? Since he murdered my sister?

  ELECTRA. We both did it. I did it too. Apollo told us to.

  HELEN moves further into the room, seeing things more clearly in the new light.

  HELEN. This room. A mausoleum. It smells of her. (She picks up a hairbrush from the dressing table.) Is this her hair?

  ELECTRA. Yes.

  HELEN. It was always stronger than mine, though it never shone so well. Is this where she died?

  ELECTRA. No.

  HELEN. Where then? Where did she die? My sister?

  ELECTRA. In the hills outside the city. After they killed my father – she and Aigisthos – they wanted me gone. They married me to a farmer, a peasant, a man much older than myself, so that any son I should chance to have would be too low to set himself against them. But Orestes came. Back from long years away. He found me, knew me. Our hands locked together. He told me what Apollo had decreed and so we lured them to us and we killed them. And then we came home.

  Now the people are angry with us. They call us the matricides. By day they press around the palace walls. They leave the rotting carcasses of dogs beneath the windows. They have nailed shut the wells and taken the wood so that we have no warmth. In the assembly, in our absence, we have been tried and condemned. Tomorrow they decide how we should die – by public execution, or abandoned to the mob. Tomorrow is the last day.

  We gave her a decent burial. We passed her through cleansing fire. There is a tomb, you will see, a proper place where prayers can be said and offerings can be made.

  We did what Apollo asked of us. We are in his hands. We commend ourselves to our God.

  HELEN. Pretty dress, Electra. Was it one of hers?

  (To SOLDIERS.) Open up another wing of the palace. Away from here. Go out and find food, water, wood. If anyone should challenge you, say you come in Menelaos’ name. Make somewhere safe and clean for myself and my daughter and my husband.

  HELEN starts to go.

  ELECTRA. Helen?

  Tomorrow is the last day.

  HELEN. Yes.

  ELECTRA. If you find water . . . if you could spare some for Orestes. He is ill. He is hot, feverish. A little food perhaps?

  HELEN turns to go again.

  Helen. Talk to Menelaos. Please. We know our lives are gone, but ask him, please . . . not the mob. We are Agamemnon’s children. We shouldn’t die like that. Please ask him that.

  HELEN comes to stand close to her.

  HELEN. Are you still a virgin?

  ELECTRA. Yes. My husband was a good man. He had no wish to shame me.

  HELEN. Is that what he told you?

  You are unlovable, Electra. And unloved. It happens sometimes; a child is born who cannot be loved.

  The third of three girls, what possible use could you be? You were a prelude to Orestes; a mistake, a slip.

  Your mother knew it and you knew it too. You are a warren of need, more holes than self. If I tried to look for you, where would I find you? Here? Here? There is nothing to be found.

  What a chance this was for you, what an opportunity to punish her for what she didn’t do, for all the smiles you didn’t get, each kiss that never met your lips, the long appalling nightmare of her indifference.

  ELECTRA. My mother loved me.

  HELEN. The only affection you ever knew was from your sister, Iphegenia, who cared for you from pity, nothing more. Your beautiful, glorious sister who your father took away and slew, who he tricked from the safety of your mother’s arms and slaughtered in the full glare of the sun, all the knowledge of her own death banging in her heart and head – /

  ELECTRA. Because of you! /

  HELEN. Knowing that he cared more for a fair wind than he did for her.

  ELECTRA. A fair wind to take him after you. So they could all go running after you, / because you couldn’t stay in your own bed.

  HELEN. Why didn’t you kill your father? Your murderous, treacherous father?

  ELECTRA. My father? Don’t speak about my father. You are not even worthy to / speak his name.

  HELEN. Agamemnon. The great and good. He took your mother first by force, did you know that? She had a husband before he found her. He killed him, dashed out the brains of the child that she had born. Did they tell you that? And she submitted. She submitted and submitted every day, stretched her heart to cover him but it was too much. Iphegenia was too much.

  ELECTRA. You talk as though you had no part in it. She was sacrificed for you.

  HELEN. Where was your anger then, Electra? Or did you smile? Smile at the acid thrill of a sister’s death, a mother’s grief?

  ELECTRA. No.

  HELEN. She needed you, did she? After that? Kept you with her through the nights, you washed her face, fed her morsels, kept her alive, my child, my child, and then she found her lover and you were nothing – /

  ELECTRA. No.

  HELEN. And you were back in the corner. Back in the dark.

  ELECTRA. You are just the same as her. Both of you the same. Both of you are whores.

  HELEN. Yes. Yes, yes. Ring your virginity like a leper’s bell. What do you know of what we do? What do you know of a woman’s heart? You will never feel the weight of a man, you will never be kissed between your legs, no great moment of ecstasy will ever blur the lines of your pristine vision.

  Do not judge me.

  What do you know of any of it? Bargains made in silence beneath the sheets, sealed with babies, bodies, a hundred different ways to pay. Do not judge me.

  Why did I do it? Why did I go? Because I am a bitch on heat? Because Menelaos was not man enough to keep me? Because Paris was not made to be resisted, who shall we blame? Leda, my mother? Zeus, my father, for covering her with his wings and giving me this face, this power, this light to draw men on? Who shall we blame? Let’s unpick the earth like a tapestry until there is nothing left.

  Electra. Electra. You are lying to me or you are lying to yourself. Apollo told you to do it. Did he so?

  ELECTRA. Yes.

  HELEN. The Gods speak and you obey.

  ELECTRA. Yes.

  HELEN. There is a meeting place between Gods and man – I should know, it is tangible in me – a battle between blood and light, and it is in that place that all is decided and actions are taken and life is lived.

  ELECTRA. I don’t understand what you’re saying.

  HELEN. I think you do.

  ORESTES has awoken and cries out.

  ORESTES. Apollo. My Lord God, help me.

  ELECTRA. Orestes?

  ORESTES. Away. Stay away from me. You are not my mother.

  He is terrified.

  ELECTRA. Orestes.

  ORESTES. Away.

  HELEN. He thinks you are her.

  ELECTRA. He has been like this since . . .

  ORESTES. Apollo. Apollo, where are you now? She’s here. She’s here. Help me, protect me. Where is the horn-sprung bow you promised me?

  ELECTRA. Orestes, stop.

  ORESTES (to HELEN). You are not my mother. You are not her. She is dead. I killed her with these hands. Get away from me. There is nothing for you here. You cannot take my soul, my soul is gone.

  He sees the SLAVE with the baby.

  Oh, no. Oh, no. She tore her dress. She showed me her breast. Would you bring me death where I gave you life? Would you bring me death where I gave you life? Would you bring me death where I gave you life? Strike me twice, a woman and a mother. Kill me twice, my baby. No.You are not my mother. You are not my mother.

  ELECTRA. Orestes, no. Look at me. I am Electra. Electra. I am Electra.

  ORESTES. Electra?

>   He stops still. He sinks down and lets out a terrible, long moan.

  Oh –

  He begins to weep. ELECTRA puts her arms around him.

  HELEN. I pity him. He feels the guilt for you both.

  HELEN leaves.

  ELECTRA. Orestes, don’t. My sweet brother, don’t. I’m here. I’m here. I’m here with you forever, in life and death. Don’t. Don’t cry.

  ORESTES. I’m so afraid.

  ELECTRA. I know. And I am too.

  ORESTES. She came again.

  ELECTRA. She wasn’t here.

  ORESTES. Electra, listen to me. Listen. Listen, while my head is my own. My eyes are my own now, my tongue. Listen to me: we should not have done it.

  ELECTRA. Hush. Hush now.

  ORESTES. We should not have done it. It is unforgivable. It is against nature, against the world, against life. I had a life. You had a life. There is nothing left now.

  ELECTRA. Hush. You are ill. You are feverish.

  ORESTES. He would not have wanted us to do it.

  ELECTRA. Who?

  ORESTES. Our father.

  ELECTRA. No.

  ORESTES. He would have begged us not to do it.

  ELECTRA. No. You’re wrong.

  ORESTES. Not for her sake but for our own. He would have begged us not to cast aside our own humanity, because without it there is nothing.

  ELECTRA. Then he would have been thinking of us. But it was him we had to think of. We had to do what was right for him.

  ORESTES. It was right but it was not good.

  She was our mother.

  ELECTRA. Don’t think that I don’t feel it as you feel it. It was I who put the sword into your hand.

  ORESTES. And I who struck her down.

  Our mother.

  ELECTRA. We did not begin this. Of course . . . of course it would have been better if we had never had to do it, if none of this had ever happened, but it did. We had to act for him. We had to bring him peace.

  Where would we be now if we hadn’t done it? How could we have lived? Knowing that he was in perpetual darkness and there was no one else to set him free?

  ORESTES. It was Apollo’s will.

  ELECTRA. Yes. Yes. It was Apollo’s will.