The ongoing 18th International Festival of Ancient Greek Drama
has brought to Cyprus many noteworthy artists.
The gruesome story of Orestes came to life in front of us
in a strikingly perfect way.
The production was aware of new trends in criticism about
the play and they were not afraid to show how they understood Aeschylus as
modern people.
For most of us the story of Orestes is quite simple: a
young man is ordered by a god to murder his mother to avenge his father’s
murder. The story aims to show how the Areopagus council was formed and how it
is supposed to be interlinked with the history of Athens.
Indeed, Athena in Eumenides
founds the court of Areopagus which became responsible for serious cases of
homicide.
However, matricide is not any case of homicide.
That is what the Furies say. That is what we all think.
At the core of the story lies a much deeper narrative. The
Oresteia is all about the replacement
of the older matrilineal system of property by a new patriarchal system of
ownership of goods and women.
Apollo and Athena, the representatives of the Olympians,
side with the father claiming that the mother is unimportant.
Apollo clearly
states that the mother is merely a vessel for the father’s seed, an opinion
expressed by Pythagoras.
Aeschylus merges the scientific knowledge of his time
with the old myth of Athena being born from her father’s head to explain female
subordination.
According to scholarly research, the first inhabitants of
Europe had different gender dynamics from modern societies but were not
matriarchal. They were peaceful people who worshiped the mother- fertility and
opted for creating life instead of destroying it without any gender imposing
itself upon the other.
The Indo-Europeans, the new settlers, brought with them
male gods, male superiority and a warlike aggressive political life.
As it usually happens, the Oresteia is the story told by the victors.
The Furies, the representatives of this older pantheon,
are described as monsters with serpentine hair: crazy, destructive women.
The snake as the symbol of the feminine traces its
origins back to the worship of the mother as a symbol of knowledge and
divination.
That is why there was a snake at Delphi, Python. Apollo
conquered Delphi when he slew Python.
This conflict between the sexes and different religious
and societal systems lies at the heart of the trilogy.
The deeper meaning of the text was beautifully addressed
by the performance.
I really enjoyed the ending. In Aeschylus’s text the
Furies are persuaded by Athena to become benevolent, Eumenides. Some scholars
suggest that Athena bribes them with honours to prevent the destruction their
wrath would bring upon Athens.
It could be assumed that Athena indeed bribes them. And their
last victorious speech could be ironic. They had lost because they were
disrespected and offended on many occasions.
So, the reading of INDA coincides with this assumption. The
Furies are still offended, they are not persuaded.
I loved how they did not wear the red robes the Athenians
offered them and how they leapt forward towards the audience. It was also very
striking when the central image of the mother and fertility collapsed as they
ignored the call of Athena.
INDA interpreted Aeschylus in a sensitive and careful way
and managed to emphasize the basic conflict of the play in a clear and profound
way.
It is our turn now to think how we will recreate our
world and undo the evil of this disturbing gender dynamics.
Eisler, the writer
of the Chalice and the Blade believes
that the world before male domination was a utopia, the world of the chalice of
life. She even suggests that we could regress to that world and keep our
technology and centuries of advancement.
What do you think?
