Playing Around

I don't think I mentioned that we were reading out The Orestia.  If the name rings a faint bell (or if it doesn't), it's a cycle of three plays by the great Greek playwright Aeschylus.

 I will explain.  No, there is too much. I will sum up.

The first play, Agamemnon, has Agamemnon returning victorious from the Trojan War, home to the welcoming arms of his wife, Clytemnestra.  Remember Odysseous returning to Penelope?  This is exactly not like that.

Clytemnestra has a bone to pick with her husband.  Oh, some old thing about him sacrificing their daughter Iphigenia to get the winds to sail to Troy.  The fact that he brings some chicky baby back in chains (remember Cassandra?) as his, er, servant, doesn't help either.

Clytemnestra tricks him into sacrilege and then kills him.  There's a bit more to it, but you can read the play.

The second play, The Libation Bearers, has Orestes--Agamemnon and Clytemnestra's son--return from exile and (under orders from Apollo) kill his mother to avenge his father.  It's done in a creepy mirror image to the death of Agamemnon, death begetting death.

The third play, The Eumenides, has the furies hounding Orestes for killing his mother. Orestes turns, first to Apollo, then to Athena for protection.  Apollo is essentially an accomplice, and we see the central problem of the play: what do you do when there is no right answer? If the gods make you kill your mother, can you, should you, be punished for doing it?

Athena, with luminous grace, treats both Orestes and the furies with dignity and compassion.  She holds a trial to determine Orestes' guilt, and his fate.  Orestes is freed, but not completely absolved.  The Furies declare that the unsatisfied blood guilt will cause the destruction of Athens.

This is where it gets amazing.  What is the answer when there is no right answer?  Love.  Athena offers the Furies love and acceptance.  She offers them a home in Athens and asks them to be the protectors of her people, to be forever honored. She asks them to leave off being avenging spirits, following the old law of blood for blood, and be spirits of a new law, based on peaceful justice.

The  Furies become the Eumenides, the Kindly Ones.

We read out the plays together over the course of a month or so (not that it took that long, but just that we have so few free evenings!), and then the kids picked a three-minute scene to memorize and act out.  They selected the trial scene.  I didn't get it on film, but here they are:

Mxyl is Orestes, Klenda is Athena (nice job with the "divine fire" in the eyes!), and Leena is the terrifying leader of the Furies.