SO, SO EXCITED.
The play is cast, first read through was today. It is just fab hearing all the words spoken outside of my own head. And you know what? It is going to be amazing. It is a bit of a weird sensation sending it out into the world and not cringing.
And of course we're starting to gear up for the costuming, there are 50ish members of the cast, but luckily there are going to be lots wearing the same thing. I started playing aroud with ideas for the chorus tunics - and it has all started to click, I now just need to figure out fabric painting and print blocks....
Sally helped me with modelling the tunic mock up I tried this evening - I need to play with the shapes a bit more (wider and shallower neckline, narrower shoulders and cut to the knees I think) but it was a 15 minute play around and Sally was very pleased. (Some new pictures in the background!)
So - Some lines from the play. This part is the bit I wrote first - the Cretan chorus speak as the Tributes arrive & it acts like a mini play within the main narrative. The director has cast a bunch of year 7's to be 'puppets' acting it all out... well most of it - Posidon and Pasiphae are going to touch hands, anything more and I think Child Protection would be after us.
Anyway, enjoy!
Listen to the story of the hideous beast, the vile creature that lurks in the blackened corners of Daedalus’ crafty maze.
Diabolical beast of unsavoury appetites,
Hellish Fiend
We curse you.
Even whilst we feed you on the purest, youthful blood.
The youth and vigour of enemy Athens is sent that you may gorge yourself to your fill.
Bull of Minos, dweller of the Cretan Labyrinth, unnatural child.
Listen as we tell you of Minos, our great ruler in whose city you stand.
Such a mighty man shows us how great pride must sometimes fall.
Even in greatness you must not anger the Gods.
A white bull he prayed for from Poseidon, ‘Oh Send me a Snow-White Bull, God of the Ocean Wave, Shaker of the Earth, send me your sign that I might stand king over all.’
And the bull came! Sent by Poseidon, it rose from the foaming surf a thing of majesty and beauty profound.
Minos, euphoric, ordered festivities in its honour, his horns were gilded and like a god itself the might beast processed through the streets.
But, Minos faltered - such a mighty creature he could not send to slaughter - he would keep it and another bull would die in his place.
Fool, Minos! The mighty God, watcher of the Earth, will know.
So, the offerings smoked on the altar, the fat wrapped thigh bones failed to light. Worms crawled black from the intestines, the crowds hushed, dancers faltered.
We would know Poseidon’s wrath.
Oh, Pasiphae, the beauty, Minos’ cherished wife. Such punishments would fall on your head, tender child of Sun, Helios.
Your light should have held you pure, but Poseidon in his wrath would steal your wits, he would make you mad.
The bull with it’s gilded horns seemed a god to you, the lavish gold on its horns a crown. You could not see Poseidon’s treachery, how he lurked in the beast.
Poseidon made you blind with lust; you begged Daedalus to make you a hollow cow. Our master craftsman, complied, thinking this was a statue to merely to decorate and please, unaware you would conceal yourself within this mockery of a beast.
Poseidon took but a moment. Then his abominable seed was sown.
Half man, half beast, a child of two worlds that could live in none.
Poor Pasiphae, such hideous offspring would savage her rather than nurse; tender infant was he none, and blood, always blood, a parody of the snowy whiteness of his ancestry was his craving.
And thus, Minos, directed by Delian Apollo ordered a maze, Daedalus, the cunning architect made such a labyrinth to make escape impossible and the beast was imprisoned.
And ever since, child after human child is sent to him, to pour out their pure blood for his sustenance.
And so our city grows, and so our empire fears us.
This is Crete, this is Minos, blood-city, city of the bull.
Its not all like this at all - this is the most eleborate verse-like section. The rest of the time, Theseus runs around being an over the top arrogant arse, Ariadne moons over him and gets abandoned on Naxos and a delighfully camp Dionysus stumbles across her and carries her off to be his Queen. Its not going to be a radical feminist revision, we're not going to meet the Minotaur and see how his poor character has been unfairly maligned, but the director has got an awesome bamboo pole maze and it's going to be outside and we have cool lighting rigs and I am very, very excited about the chaos that has been unleashed that is going to somehow cohere back into something really slick and fun.