Laius
Laius is part three of City of Wine,
co-commissioned in 2006 by Nightswimming and
the National Arts Centre (Ottawa).
Synopsis:
Trained for battle and raised with the entitlements of royalty, then humiliated and driven into exile following a civil war, Cadmus and Harmonia’s great grandson Laius festers in bitter self pity and loathing until he becomes capable of a crime which horrifies the gods and precipitates the curse which will plague Thebes for generations. This play is central to the cycle’s exploration of leadership: how do we create our leaders and what do we demand of them in return?
LAIUS
directed by Eda Holmes
George Brown College, Toronto
www.georgebrown.ca/theatre
February 4 – 14, 2009
Favourite line:
Glass:
“How many girls in how many towns,
Alone and in that state, have cried
‘A god came to me in the night!’ ”
Favourite Image:
Bowl:
“I am here now, with the wine.
No coin will kiss my tongue and throat.
It will not rock me gently from within
Or lift my ears to let the breezes in.
It will not spice my blood
Or make my singing beautiful.”
Favourite Line:
Lycus to Dirce.
“I could have loved you better,
But I loved you most of all.”
The fabulous writing makes it difficult to choose.
Favorite line: Firewood;
Yes, horror floods our town,
And he is swept along by it as much as anyone.
Cling to each other, friends, and we may yet swim free.
Favorite Image: Blood;
One man alone?
I like these odds.
For one by one like stepping stones they lie behind me now.
Day Four: City of Wine – Laius at Concordia University’s Theatre Department
Please answer two of the following questions for Monday, August 20th:
1)What is the importance about the Unnamed’s differences in Thebes and in Elis?
2)Who is your favorite character and why? Please give an analysis of the character using the text to support your answer.
3)How does time work in this play?
4)Trace the journey of Water or Blood from the plays Harmonia, Pentheus and to the end of Laius.
***For Monday, please have a definition for Fate from a book source and be prepared to discuss how Fate has played in your life.
What is Laius about?
-ambition
-tradition
-conspiracy
-entitlement
-pride
-betrayed
-duty bound
-vengeance
-truth
-injustice
-deceit
-loss
Images from reading
-dark and eerie damp feeling
-dirty bar
-smelly
-how Laius is incapable of running anything
-walls of Thebes built by Amphion’s playing of his lyre
-wine
-Lycus’ murder
-cloaks – hiding under cloaks
-slaughter house
-celebration of gods in slaughter house
-absence of gods
-movement from dust to dry
-stones
-truth built on stones
-tied to bulls horns (execution)
-when Zethus thrust knife into Lycus
-a lot of doubling
-scratching people’s name out (from history)
-ius raping Chryssipus
-fire (burning Elis down; when twins and their wives are in tavern and fire blazing)
-Thebes scenes at night; Elis scenes during day
-image of Thebes built up more as a city with alley ways, there are shadows and darkness, etc
-Balance of Harmony
-feeling of bluriness
My favorite character in this play is BOWL. He’s becoming a priest of Bacchus. ” So, shall we drink? One to wake up, then one for the appetite. One more to help the food go down, One each for courage, laughter, and desire. And… there. A priest’s long working day is done. Come, join me by the fire”. (Act 1, scene 3.)He’s always present in most of the events in Laius, but he he’s drunk. When the circumstances are awful and atrocious, he keeps the sense of irony and intelligence to point out that all that has happened is because pride, sense of revenge and natural stupidity. He’s dares to say the truth, when the others are afraid of speaking loudly. My favorite line is when BOWLS describes Laius’ personality, saying: “Well, all that wine in one small head”.
The time has worked to permit LAIUS to grow up. At the beginning of the play, he is a young fellow, moved by ambition and stupidity.Somebody who does not think about the consequences of killing Lycus. Laius is an alcoholic and also a coward, that is forced to leave Cadmea after the murder. He refuges himself in a small town for 20 years, always drunk and still dreaming of being a king. When we see him again, he has not grown up mentally at all. He’s worst. More stupid and ambitious. However, at the end of the play he becomes a king and he will act moved by his revenge feelings. With him, Cadmea, now Thebes show its decadency.
About the unnamed, I do not think they are the same than in Harmonia. It’s a new generation of Unnamed, but born in Cadmea and 100% mortals, however they keep the task and mission that they inherit from their ancestors. This 20 years in between, show us a corrupted Cadmea, its agony and the birth of Thebes.
My favourite character throughout the play was “Bowl”. The entire show is very heavy and laden with sadness and deceit so Bowl played the role of comic relief in many instances. I felt that he kept the charm in the show because, although he is a drunk throughout the play’s entirety, he is consistent and genuine. He does not claim to be anything other than a man who loves wine a little too much than perhaps he should and this humble quality wins over the audience in addition to his witty lines. He is the true “voice of reason” in this play as he displays that pride and greed and a sense of entitlement are the vices which have gotten the “great men” into such trouble.
The function of time in “Laius” is much different than time in “Pentheus”. A matter of 20 years has passed between the time when Laius flees Cadmea and his return after the murder of Pelop’s son. This is at times difficult to follow if one is expecting the same sort of time passage as in “Harmonia” and “Pentheus”, thus one must pay close attention to each line as all of the details are contained within the text. Time in “Laius” is only measured on the human/mortal scale contrary to previous plays’ time structure being based around the gods idea of time. Thus 20 years in “Laius” really means just that and the characters all age accordingly.
1) What is the importance about the Unnamed’s differences in Thebes and in Elis?
At the begining of the play we are made aware that the UnNamed are different in Act I and Act II:
(The UnNamed of Act 1, in Cadmea, while similar are NOT the same people as the UnNamed of Act 2, in Elis. i.e. every town has a group much like this one.) (2)
And again in Act II, sc. II we are reminded that: “With the exception of BOWL, these UnNamed are not the same as those back home” (71)
Although each unnamed character in Elis displays some differences from their Cadmean counterparts, such as Water being more dominant in Elis, compared to Water being more submissive in Cadmea, the main difference between the UnNamed in Cadmea (Thebes) and those in Elis is that the Elisian UnNamed are still relatively innocent to the decadence and chaos that comes witht he adoption of the Bacchic rituals. They have not fully adopted the wine culture that has ravaged and led to the majority of problems in Cadmea (Thebes). Elis is still quiet and peaceful, while Cadmea has experienced murder, death, hardships and chaotic confusion. This important difference is slowly becoming less clear since the arrival of Bowl and his supply of wine. He warmly invites the Elisians into his “tavern” to enjoy the Theban wine and introduces them to the Bacchic mysteries.
2) Who is your favorite character and why? Please give an analysis of the character using the text to support your answer.
Laius:
My favourite character is Laius. Although he is certainly not the most respectable character in the play, he is certainly entertaining and interesting. There are two points of view about Laius in the play: what Laius thinks about himself: courageous, bold, manly, fit-to-be-king, wise, and clever: for example: Although he is being a completle fool himself, playing drunken games, he believes himself to be very clever: “You have no faith in me, Menaeceus, you never did. You see, each time I drink more wine and so make room for air. My whole head almost sits above, you see? I fooled you all” (p.5) And what everyone else thinks of him, which can be summarized by Chryssipus’ words: Laius is a drunken, weak, pathetic, boastful, coward, and a liar. Shall I go on? ” (116). Laius is also very unkind, rude, and disrespectful to his host, King Pelops, even though King Pelops has been very kind and hospitable to him for 20 years. Laius at one point openly insults his host by saying: A king? Of this? This little clump of sheds and barns? This is your kingdom? Ha. You are more innkeeper than king. When I am once again Cadmea’s king I may decide to conquer Elis. Wait. Did I say conquer? No. That is too grand a word. I may decide to pluck it from the mud.” (65)
2. Who was your favorite character in Elis and why?
My favorite character in Elis was Chryssipus. I was drawn to him because of his journey through the course of Act 2. He embodied the characteristics of any normal teenager – rebellious, questioning authority, looking for a role model, searching for identity, etc. In my opinion he was a human representation of the city of Cadmea/Thebes, telling it’s coming of age story. Both questioned their rulers. Both experimented with dangerous things like wine, Laius, and sexuality. And both were struggling to find a clear sense of self. For me, Chryssipus’ death represented the end of innocence and reason in Cadmea/Thebes, leading to a much more violent reality and future for the city.
3. How does time work in this play?
Time seems to be quite linear in this play, meaning that it moves forward in an organized and realistic manner. Act 1 appears to take place over the course of 24 hours and Act 2, 20 years later, moves in a similar pattern. One interesting element however is the fact that time seems to be moving in a different way for Laius than for the other characters. Time seems to be moving at a faster pace for Laius, and for some reason he is aging at an accelerated rate. In Act 2 both Bowl and Pelops make reference to how old Laius appears. Everyone else in the play, including Bowl, don’t seem to have aged. Although you are aware that time has passed for these characters in a “real” way, there is only evidence in the text that Laius is getting older.
What is the importance of the difference of the un-named in the two cities, “Thebes” and “Elis” The difference as far as I see it is that the Un-named are us. They represent “the people”, the audience, the ones who ultimately will have deal with the outcome of whatever the royals and the gods have gotten into this time. They are the recipients of the consequences. Now why different? I believe this is to show that no matter where you go, villages, cities, countries, anywhere in the world, you will meet the Un-named. They look different, have different lives, different day to day, but I hope this doesn’t sound to trivial, but they have the same dreams, wants and needs. Shelter, food, wine, security, a quality of life that is simple, decent, with maybe a few moments of joy. They have no time for the complexities of the gods and birth rights of the royals. They’re too busy trying to get to tomorrow. To have different Un-named, is a device. A device to show us that though the geography might be different, ‘we’ are not.
My favorite character in Laius, was, not surprisingly, Laius. I had the pleasure of reading him and it was a blast, a glorious transformation from ridiculous party boy to killer. On first meeting, you love him, he’s a bon-vivant, the life of the party, a man of arrogance and ambition, but it all rolls off as if he just might be a loud drunk. But then his ambition is tinged with a little bit of danger, might he just do it? Could he kill the king? My guess is that, no not my guess, my version of the story is that he would not have killed, having lacked the true nature of a tyrant, but only after being used as a murdering tool and forced to leave his home and rightful kingdom did his ambition turn ugly and festered for too long until all that was left was darkness. There’s so much there and so much you could just simply imagine, to play him, to try to physicalize him would be a special thing.
1. What according to you is the importance of the unnamed being different in Thebes as they are in Elis?
The importance of the unnamed being different in Thebes as they are in Elis, is precisely as the author has pointed out in the character list, that “every town has a group much like this one”. They cannot be played by the same actors, because it would then seem as though they had all left Cadmus, when it is only Bowl who has done so. It is important to see the parallel between the two groups in either city, without confusing them for each other. I believe that the unnamed are archetypes that represent the common man, but I need a closer read to determine whether I think each one really retains the same characteristics in each play, and between the two cities. (Other than Bowl, who is decidedly recognizable throughout). Since their names are never spoken, I’m not sure that the audience would understand the commonality without a conscious effort to maintain similar characters throughout the seven plays. Perhaps this is unnecessary, and it is simply a way for the actors and director to understand the role and relationship of the unnamed.
2. Who is your favourite character in Laius and why?
I have a hard time deciding between Dirce and Lycus, but it is their relationship that interests me the most. Perhaps it was because Mike read for both Cadmus and Lycus, but I saw a parallel between the relationship of Dirce and Lycus and that of Cadmus and Harmonia. Actually, their relationships are quite opposed. Where Cadmus and Harmonia were completely devoted to each other, Lycus and Dirce don’t even seem to like each other much, and have both had their trysts outside of the marriage. But it is a complex relationship. While Dirce is having an affair with Laius, and encouraging him to kill Lycus and take the throne, she also shows her devotion and allegiance to her husband when the time actually comes to do the deed. And though he is apparently “notoriously lecherous”, Lycus claims that he loved Dirce the best. For two characters who die very early on in the play, we get a very fleeting but interesting glance into their complicated relationship. As I found “Pentheus” to show the complications for Cadmea following its idealistic foundations, I find the unfaithful, treacherous, yet still somehow loving, relationship between Lycus and Dirce a response to the simplistic true love forever relationship between Harmonia and Cadmus.
1) The importance about the unnamed being different in Thebes and in Elis, expresses the way humans share universal thought patterns. This is because as unnamed humans, those that are considered perhaps to be simply general population who service the world we live in have many things in common, such as, a conscious and a subconscious entangled with feelings, emotions, thought patterns, ideas and the like that drive them to do certain things in certain situations and to feel a certain way because of this outcome. It is not to say that the named or the gods don’t have their own level of commonality when it comes their characteristics, because they too share a universal thought pattern according to their egos. Thus, the unnamed living in Thebes act and feel a certain way according to the doctrines that they follow and the unnamed in Elis, who are living according to a similar doctrine will therefore feel and act in a similar fashion because they are a we say “on the same page”. It is interesting for Ned to have put this in perspective because it is something that is in constant cyclical nature as the world changes among it’s societies and is an excellent demonstration of what happens on the other side of the boarder; the same thing.
2) My favorite character in Laius, was Laius. It is not because I like what he did in the play but because I took pleasure in is journey, which was quite vivid and always changing in massive ways depending on the situation. He went from a young boy-like wino in one city to an old murdering wino in another. He was once thought to be king with his vibrant attitude and festive outlook and then he spiraled down towards the dark side of lying, cheating, and killing. Although these are not good traits in a person, they are exciting traits for a character, especially when they are executed with fantastic one-liners; “My nose is suddenly so full of sweaty animals it has no room for other smells,” (p.8) “If you touch me I swear I will eat your fingers one by one while standing on your face.” (p.118) Laius is like a car accident that you just can’t look away from. I adore the feelings that these sort of characters stir up in me as the reader who is sitting at the end of her seat just wondering what will actually happen. I’d say that is having the reader in the palm of your hand. Good job Ned!
Blog #3
Question #1: What, according to you, is the importance of the unnamed being different in Elis and in Thebes?
I believe that the different unnamed show that in two very different places, which having seemingly very little contact, a person can find very similar beings, almost like the archetypes of people in any town. The unnamed are universal, which is why I feel that they continue to appear in the City of Wine plays, not always as the exact same person as before, but always similar in personality and demeanor as they person they were in a previous play. Shows to what extent the two towns are connected, but also how the unnamed are connected. Therefore, the different unnamed in each town shows the parallels of these archetypes and then what makes them different and why. It is interesting to see how, with a different set of circumstances, the same archetypes can change considerably, and perhaps even more interesting to see which archetypes do not change at all.
Question #2: Who is your favourite character in Laius and why?
My favourite character is Menaeceus because he appears throughout the play to be very loyal and driven by doing what is right, however whether what is right is actually what is best is hard to say. I think it was really interesting how he does not know that his father is Pentheus and that he should be king, but especially interesting is how he has little desire, or shows little desire, to be king. His lack of wanting to be king makes me both angry and relieved. Relieved because his father turned into a bad person once he had been made king and once the power of the position blinded him, and I did not want that to happen to Menaeceus too. Angry because it appears that Menaeceus would be a great king, much better than Laius, which perhaps has to do with the fact that, as I see it, he has a lot of his mother, Tireisias, in him. He has a profound sense of loyalty, or love, for Thebes, and for his children, which guide him on the path to bring back Laius, because he truly believes that Laius must be king according to Pentheus’ Law and that Laius as king will be best for Thebes.
1. What (to me) is the importance of the unnamed being different in Thebes and in Elis?
I feel that with this decision it makes it clear that the unnamed are not real people, they are archetypes. This resolves the confusion that was mounting due to the swapping of relationships and in some cases the sex of the unnamed from play to play.
I do wonder though… this will not translate into the production well because they so rarely are referred to by name. I’m not sure if the audience will be confused or be completely oblivious to the reoccurring roles of the unnamed.
2. Who was my favourite character in Laius and why?
Though I am tempted to say Tiresias because I seem to adore him, I feel that that is sort of skirting the question (given that he only has a dozen or so lines…)
So I will have to answer… no – I can’t do it.
It’s Tiresias. I’m falling for him, what can I say.
He has a honeyed tongue “Forgive me, I am blind and turn my face towards another light.”
He is lost outside the flow of time. “They both were kings, or will be, I suppose.”
He is a poet and speaks in riddles “The vision is now lost in blood and dust.”
Part of me is always drawn to the tragic figure. And Tiresias couples that with intelligence, a vocabulary, and (in one version of Oedipus) one snarky attitude.
Granted, he doesn’t seem to be there quite yet… but I believe in the power of his snark! Given time, and more cruelty he will develop into my perfect Tiresias…
Ah, how I am drawn to fate’s punching bags… I wonder what that says about me…
What is the importance about the Unnamed’s differences in Thebes and in Elis?
Their didn’t seem to be a difference in the personality of the “Unnamed” characters in Thebes and in Elis but rather any differences that were found were in the social and cultural context of these characters. As a collective they were definitely living in different societies with difference and had social issues to deal with. Thebes was being ravaged and thrust into political turmoil, whereas Elis was relatively peaceful and tranquil (at the beginning of the play). Ancient Greece, as we’re are becoming more and more aware of, is only but an abstract version of the world we live in today. Like Thebes and Elis our world also houses big cities and small towns and usually in these cities and towns you can find character types- “Unnamed” that are very similar. What I find interesting is the idea of the collective masse and the world the governments they live under and how the come to collective decisions against or for that government.
Who is your favorite character and why?
Chyssipus is my favorite character in Laius because he is living a very complex time in a father/son relationship. I can relate to his push for independence, “I go.
But not because you tell me to. And where I go is not for you to say”. I can also relate to his attachment to Laius and his powerful personality and freedom of exile and enjoyment of good times (i.e. Wine). But what is so touching about Chyssipus is his own realization that things just aren’t as they seem with Laius and that he really is his fathers’ son. He rediscovers his fathers personality in himself and ultimately wants to rule one day, in the gentle way that his father rules. When Pelops says to Chyssipus that he is almost a man, Chyssipus replies “Like you, I hope”. And finally, painfully Chyssipus is murdered for his turn of feeling towards Lauis. Chyssipus, with child like innocence discovered the true nature of Lauis, but had to pay for it with his young life- A difficult message to swallow.
My favorite character without a doubt is Bowl. My reason for liking him best is because he is the sole character in my opinion that provides comic relief to the mishaps which seem to be happening within the play. Myself being someone who enjoys comedy more than tragedy have drifted toward this comedic character in this play, He comes off as being a character who tries to keep the togetherness of the characters, this can be seen when in Act II Scene 2 when he says “Come in friends and join our happy company.” He is always drunk within the play which is what makes him funny.
Time seems to pass normally in the first act and in a linear fashion. Between the first and second act of the play 20 years have passed. I am very interested to know how the director of this play would make this apparent to the audience when the play is staged. In the second act time seems to pass just as normally as in the first act. It is just very intriguing to ponder upon the huge gap between the two acts.
Who is your favourite character in Laius? Why?
Perhaps it is because throughout the reading of the plays in City of Wine I have always read for Bowl, but he seems to always be one of my favourites. In Laius he had a more important role than any of the unNamed; he showed the progression of time by aging. Not only did he serve as a tool to show the change in time, his archetypal character of “town drunk” consistently entertains me and helps to lighten the mood in this play which, because of its events and stories, is often quite heavy to read. I also like Bowl’s character because he is the only unNamed who is truly outspoken and concerns himself less with the ramifications of saying what he is thinking without filter. Oh alcohol. You truly are a gift from the gods.
How does time work in this play?
The most obvious progression of time happens between the first and second acts. It is written right in the stage directions that the second act is “20 yrs after Act I”. This increment in time is self-explaining if the audience is a reader thumbing through the script. An audience watching a stage production may not as quickly pick up on the exactitude of the passage of time, though once Bowl and Laius were seen in an aged form, this would quickly clarify. The other passage of time that I found interesting happened at the beginning of the play. After arriving in Thebes, it seemed to take Amphion and Zethus very little time to convince Laius to kill Lycus. Once the murder was carried out, there was a flurry of action which made the time from the murder to the intermission also seem very condensed. The feeling of brevity that the first act gives me may simply be to do with the fact that it is significantly shorter than the second.
Responses to Laius:
Q#1) What is the significance of the Unnamed being different in Thebes than in Elis?
R#1) In act 2, scene 2, of Ned Dickens’ play Laius, the Unnamed remain essentially the same characters in Elis as in Thebes, although they are specifically marked by Ned as “not the same as those back home” (71), with “home” referring to Thebes. The Unnamed in Elis do appear more innocent as those in Thebes as they invite Chryssipus and Laius, disguised as a stranger, into their midst, yet the Elisian Unnamed have not been hardened by the same chaos and destruction that the Theban Unnamed have experienced. Besides this mild divergence, the two groups still represent the same archetypical characters as before, as both groups share drinks and stories around the campfire together and even the drinking locale in Elis is noted as “The slaughterhouse that honours Thebes” (122) by Pelops, thus strengthening the parallel; as well, Ned notates on the character list, “The UnNamed of Act 1, in Cadmea, wile similar are NOT the same people as the UnNamed in Act 2, in Elis. i.e. every town has a group much like this one” (2). The significance of this strong parallel between the two groups of the Unnamed outlines one of the sharp focuses in Ned’s plays: the people, or essence, of the city. In City of Wine, the progress through the plays steadily removes the presence of the gods and places more of a focus on the Unnamed, or people of the city, who exist continuously through the play cycle with their archetypical roles. The typically ignored townsfolk in the classic Greek tragedies are placed more in the limelight here, as the Unnamed are shown to be the characters that fill the town with life and its energy. They are the crucial element to create a city. Whether in Thebes or Elis, the Unnamed are the people who experience and pass on the stories, possibly around a campfire, and ensure its historical survival. Without a city and its constituents, such as its people, all the heroes and gods in these ancient stories wouldn’t exist as their purpose and significance would cease to be.
Q#4) What is the journey of Water or Blood from Harmonia through to the end of Laius?
R#4) From Harmonia through to the end of Laius, Water retains basically the same characteristics and mild persona. In the shift from Harmonia to Pentheus however, Water stops being the father to Glass and husband to Firewood and becomes a female who is sister to Parent and Firewood and aunt to Glass. Water remains a female in Laius as well, but it isn’t as distinctly marked as in Pentheus, but her mild remarks and inconsequential questions still merely serve as a small catalyst to the dialogue. The light trace of wisdom and calmness of Water persists though, as in Laius, when the tavern crowd is bombarding Zethus with questions, Water redirects the dialogue to Zethus with a reassuring, “We are all listening, go on” (11). Overall, the development of Water, besides the gender shift, is minute as Water still acts mainly as a filler and lacks any grandiose, memorial statements.
Responses to Laius:
Q#1) What is the significance of the Unnamed being different in Thebes than in Elis?
R#1) In act 2, scene 2, of Ned Dickens’ play Laius, the Unnamed remain essentially the same characters in Elis as in Thebes, although they are specifically marked by Ned as “not the same as those back home” (71), with “home” referring to Thebes. The Unnamed in Elis do appear more innocent as those in Thebes as they invite Chryssipus and Laius, disguised as a stranger, into their midst, yet the Elisian Unnamed have not been hardened by the same chaos and destruction that the Theban Unnamed have experienced. Besides this mild divergence, the two groups still represent the same archetypical characters as before, as both groups share drinks and stories around the campfire together and even the drinking locale in Elis is noted as “The slaughterhouse that honours Thebes” (122) by Pelops, thus strengthening the parallel; as well, Ned notates on the character list, “The UnNamed of Act 1, in Cadmea, wile similar are NOT the same people as the UnNamed in Act 2, in Elis. i.e. every town has a group much like this one” (2). The significance of this strong parallel between the two groups of the Unnamed outlines one of the sharp focuses in Ned’s plays: the people, or essence, of the city. In City of Wine, the progress through the plays steadily removes the presence of the gods and places more of a focus on the Unnamed, or people of the city, who exist continuously through the play cycle with their archetypical roles. The typically ignored townsfolk in the classic Greek tragedies are placed more in the limelight here, as the Unnamed are shown to be the characters that fill the town with life and its energy. They are the crucial element to create a city. Whether in Thebes or Elis, the Unnamed are the people who experience and pass on the stories, possibly around a campfire, and ensure its historical survival. Without a city and its constituents, such as its people, all the heroes and gods in these ancient stories wouldn’t exist as their purpose and significance would cease to be.
Q#4) What is the journey of Water or Blood from Harmonia through to the end of Laius?
R#4) From Harmonia through to the end of Laius, Water retains basically the same characteristics and mild persona. In the shift from Harmonia to Pentheus however, Water stops being the father to Glass and husband to Firewood and becomes a female who is sister to Parent and Firewood and aunt to Glass. Water remains a female in Laius as well, but it isn’t as distinctly marked as in Pentheus, but her mild remarks and inconsequential questions still merely serve as a small catalyst to the dialogue. The light trace of wisdom and calmness of Water persists though, as in Laius, when the tavern crowd is bombarding Zethus with questions, Water redirects the dialogue to Zethus with a reassuring, “We are all listening, go on” (11). Overall, the development of Water, besides the gender shift, is minute as Water still acts mainly as a filler and lacks any grandiose, memorable statements.
After completing day one of our workshop at George Brown on Laius, I am excited to see where this play will go, where it will take us as a class and cast. I love how the relationships of the unnamed are so clear in each of the taverns. To me there is a strong familial sense between some, and definitely not between others. The strongest image for me was the line “the bottom of the earth has cracked”. I am wondering what or who Sown Men are? They are mentioned twice in the play. I am also wondering (quite factually) how old is Jocasta in Act II? And who is the other child of Menecius and Mrs. M mentioned in act I, the boy? I excitedly await our second day together, to get more inside this tumultuous world.
April 2008 George Brown workshop feedback…
Compliment: I love the way the writing in the public/political speeches builds step-by-step so naturally to a passionate, commanding climax.
Strongest image: The description of Dirce’s death on the bull horns.
Question: Mrs. M’s journey is still unclear to me … I’m not sure what she wants from Meneceus in the first section – it take it they have some sort of ongoing disagreement because she wants him to be king, but I think that relationship could use more history (in her first scene, she seems a bit like a 2-dimensional nagging wife to me).
Nothing like reading about City of Wine as one of the “not to be missed theatre events of 2009″ to kick me into gear and share the notes from our November workshop.
First of all, we were introduced to the creative team we will be working with: Director Eda Holmes, Assistant Director Severn Thompson, Designer Vikki Anderson, and Costume Designer Lina Falomkina.
We spent 3 days working on the latest, revised script of Laius, which we begin rehearsing tomorrow! Ned has expanded the character of Phebe in the past few months, including her presence in the previous plays. In order to catch up on this history, we launched the workshop by reading the latest draft of Pentheus. We then immediately moved into a reading of Laius.
In our post-read discussion, many of my classmates shared how exciting it was to see changes in the script based on the previous workshops we had done on the piece. Overall, us women were pleased to see how much the female characters have grown since the first draft of this piece – they are more involved in the action, richer, edgier, and more realistic.
Over the course of the next two days, we experimented with double and triple casting (of which there is lots!), continued to work on creating a distinction between the worlds of Cadmea and Elis, explored the overt nature of the relationship between Firewood and Water, finding where the Unnamed disagree with each other, and when they change their minds, and finally, Ned expanded – and even further heightened, I would say – Pelops’ invocation of the Gods at the very end of the play.
Some interesting oppositions that Brian mentioned that we keep in mind while reading (in order to help create dramatic tension) might be useful for all of you:
triumph vs. defeat
men vs. women
public vs. private
outside vs. inside
unnamed vs. named
youth vs. experience
stategy vs. chance
We culminated our 3 day workshop with a public reading of the first scene of Laius. Fantastically generous and supportive donors, industry professionals, faculty, and community members were there. We celebrated a very exciting read with wine!
It seems like we are going to be creating a lot of ensemble sound and music – and Eda has asked us to check out some music by the Pogues before we begin rehearsals. She has also asked us to consider the following questions from our own and character(s)’s perspectives: What is a city? What is a bloodline? What is leadership? What is truth?
Photos have been posted on the City of Wine facebook page, and more “action” shots will be up as soon as rehearsals are on their way.
At the Laius Rehearsal today at George Brown, they were working on the movement (with music they created) for Act 1, Scene 1, where the audience is introduced to the UnNamed at the Drinking Place. It was quite breathtaking. Awhile back, Eda asked the actors to find individual gestures for 5 words linked to themes in the play. Through research, Eda found a particular movement (pushing head up to the sky) that is linked to a Bacchus ritual which puts people in a trance. Today, she incorpoated the gestures with the Bacchus ritual movement to introduce the UnNamed and reenact the killing of Penthus in front of the fire.
The initial image of this dance is inspired from a Turkish burial ritual where the women prepare to bury the dead by digging the graves with their hands. The movements of their robes create a pulsating movement.
After the dance, one of the actors said the experience felt like a possession.
For me, the movements corresponded to yesterday’s chanting music they created. This wailing sound which was so primal and pulsating.
Amazing. Feed drugs as strong as words to wild artists and watch them eat the world.
The sounds coming out of Elis is ominous these days. Last Friday, the Laius’ cast started to build the music for the beginning of Act 2. The music they are creating is inspired from a Finnish A Cappella group who make rythms from nonwords. They started to build the chords and from there they recorded each part and then the whole song, so they could email it to everyone. It’s great how technology can organize everything!
Today, they had the stumble through of Act 2 and they are doing quite well.