The Burnt City
Character Loops
Introduction
The following notes are about the play 'The Burnt City' by the theatre group Punchdrunk, that ran for 508 performances from March 2022 to September 2023. They’ve been put together from my own notes, after twenty-seven visits, and posts from the Facebook group ‘(Contains Speculation) The Burnt City Discussion Group’.
The show is based on the Trojan War and the main storylines come from two plays – ‘Hecuba’ by Euripides’ and ‘Agamemnon’ by Aeschylus. The worlds of Troy and Mycenae are recreated in two former arsenal buildings in Woolwich and the epic sets cover about 100,000 sq ft.
Six hundred audience members are given white masks to wear and granted free rein to explore the scenery. The play is three hours long and there’s a cast of about thirty characters, most of whom play out their stories in one-hour loops, repeating the loops three times a night.
One Cartridge Place
The entrance to the show is through a small pavilion that spans the road between the two Victorian warehouses.
Audience members are given a playing card as they walk through a pair of doors into a large, lively cabaret bar called ‘Peep’. The room is decorated with dozens of sensual red drapes and thick ropes tied around columns and hanging from the ceiling. There’s a stage in front of a large, luminous sign of the Porsche logo.
A host calls out a card number and audience members are taken through a pair of colourful curtains into a holding area, where they collect their white masks.
There’s a short introductory speech from an usher and the audience is led into another small, dark room.
A man in a three-piece suit stands in the middle of the room under a spotlight. Next to him is a glass display case containing an ancient clay mask. There are two doors out of the room. One leads to Troy and the other leads to Mycenae.
The man welcomes everyone to his exhibition, ‘Thank you for coming to see my collection of antiquities. Half-museum, half-maze. Each of you must find your own way. Embrace your own fate.' He singles out a woman and points her towards one of the exits, ‘Yours lies this way.’ A white box lights up above the door with the words, ‘EXHIBITION CONTINUES’. The woman walks through on her own, a little confused.
‘I suggest that you all say goodbye to your friends. Let go of your loved ones for now. For your own good and for theirs. And don’t worry if you get lost. You are already lost. That’s why you came here. Into the dark, to see the light. Not to be told a story, but to live inside a dream. A strange, vast, ungraspable, dream. Full of mysteries. Who’s next? You. Stay there. The rest of you, this way.’
He singles out another woman and tells her to stay behind, while the rest of the audience shuffles through the other door. He warns them, ‘Don’t look back. Never look back.’
He whispers to the woman, ‘Explore the roads before you. Get swept away in the labyrinth. This labyrinth, has many, many centres. A different centre for everyone. So you must turn your fear into desire. Find out whatever is waiting for you. And remember. All paths lead you back to me.’ He points to the door and sends her on her way.
Mycenae Entrance
The route to Mycenae takes the audience along a twisting corridor, as they pass through the link building behind the main entrance. There are three more museum rooms with a single display case in each room. The vases on display depict some of the scenes which appear in the show, and a narrator can be heard over the speakers.
‘The stories surrounding the Trojan War show the devastating cost of conflict on winners and losers alike. In Mycenae, Queen Clytemnestra is consumed with grief after King Agamemnon sacrifices their beloved daughter Iphigenia to appease the god Artemis, so that a favourable wind will bring the Greek fleet to Troy. And in the aftermath of the fall of her city, the Trojan queen Hecuba is devastated by the deaths of her last surviving children; her daughter Polyxena killing herself before she can be sacrificed by the invading Greeks.’
The narration continues in the next room. ‘Revenge is a common theme of these legends. In Troy, the blinding of Polymestor is Hecuba's brutal revenge on the man to whom she had sent her son Polydorus for safekeeping, but who treacherously murdered him instead. And in Mycenae, the victorious Agamemnon returns home in glory, only to be immediately struck down by his queen in retribution for the death of their daughter.’
In the final room, there’s a broken display case surrounded by shards of glass. Whatever was there has been taken. The note on the display case suggests it was a pair of mythical antlers.
‘In the ancient Greek world view, mortals lived at the mercy of the whims of the gods. Divination was an essential practice to discern the speech of the gods and understand their will. Establishing and maintaining good relations with these higher powers often called for a sacrifice to prevent natural disasters, or to alleviate famine or plague, or to influence the outcome of war. A sheep, goat, ox or bull would be killed in honour of a deity. Extreme circumstances could require a human offering; a heroine offering of a young woman was considered the ultimate act of submission and deepest devotion to the divine.’
There’s a glitch in the soundtrack and the narration crackles and repeats.
Mycenae
Audience members file out and find themselves in a tangled maze of billowing tents, representing the Greek army encampment. There’s a series of sleeping quarters for the soldiers and a mess area. One of the tents appears to be the campaign headquarters and an office for King Agamemnon. The room is filled with 1920s office equipment, typewriters and dial phones and in the middle of the space is a large model of a labyrinth.
There’s a painting of Clytemnestra above a desk and on the desk is a letter warning of prophecies. There are four old-fashioned telephones marked with the names of the four winds - Boreas, Zephyrus, Notus and Eurus.
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There’s a military memo from Nestor to 'Commander in Chief' Agamemnon relaying the prophecy of Calchas. The date on the letter is September 1922, which appears to be a reference to the Burning of Smyrna.
As audience members emerge from the tents, the space opens into a large, cavernous wasteland. A mournful expanse of blackness is interrupted by a couple of anti-tank structures made of metal ‘I’ beams. On one side is a desolate border area and a deserted checkpoint, and on the other is a grand staircase leading to the royal palace.
Troy Entrance
When entering the show via Troy, the audience is led up a flight of stairs to continue their journey on the first floor.
The same voice plays through the speakers. ‘The Trojan War has captivated audiences for over three thousand years. The story of how an invading Greek fleet laid waste to the city of Troy was first told in the epic poems of Homer. Later it provided the basis for many of the great tragedies of ancient Greek drama, which shifted the focus from battlefield heroics to the terrible human cost of war, not only for warriors, but for their families and women and children on both sides of the conflict.’
The story continues in the next room and focuses on the German archaeologist, Heinrich Schliemann, who coined the phrase ‘The Burnt City’ during a dig in Turkey in 1873.
‘Heinrich Schliemann claimed to have discovered Troy in his excavation at Hisarlik in Turkey. He found great fortifications beneath a layer of ash - the remains of a city destroyed by fire. The treasures he unearthed made him famous throughout the world, but he was still not satisfied. In his later years, he turned his attention to researching and re-enacting the practices of mystery cults, whose worshippers drank hallucinogenic concoctions from vessels such as these, and took part in rituals to transcend the world of appearances and commune with the gods.’
In the last room, the display case contains a strange electrical object, which is jarring after all the ancient artifacts on display. A little white card reads, ‘Record Needle. Date Unknown.’
‘Schliemann wrote: The world of the ancients cannot be found by digging down into the earth. The past is never past - it is here and now for those with eyes to see, and mine now are open wide. For I have drunk the kykeon and I looked upon the face of Agamemnon, and through the great gate I entered at last that place I have dreamed of all my life: my burnt city.’
As the audio ends, a pair of curtains open to reveal a balcony overlooking a large market square. The audience walk down another flight of stairs and enter the backstreets of Troy.
Troy
The square in the middle of Troy is full of stalls and brightly lit shops and cafes. There's an auto repair shop and a large theatre with a neon sign reading, ‘Palladium’. Some of the aesthetics are from 1920s Germany and the early years of the Weimar Republic, referencing the time and place of the creation of the Fritz Lang film ‘Metropolis’.
Further afield, some of the backstreets are covered in a weird veneer of science fiction imagery and references here include the film 'Blade Runner', as well as ‘Metropolis’. The opera ‘Bluebeard’s Castle’ by Béla Bartók is also an inspiration.
Sprinkled everywhere are the more obvious references to Greek mythology. There are garish neon signs in the ancient Linear B script and posters advertising ancient Greek musicians and dancers. There are religious shrines and votive offerings; there's a metallic panel of an eagle killing a pregnant hare.
On a wall near the border is a small, illuminated sign that flashes a cheery message in red, ‘Hello There’. The light flickers and the message reappears as ‘Hell here’.
The sets in both towns are from an indeterminate time period and seem to cover a number of different ages, including the Mycenaean Age, the 1920s and some strange future period. The backstreets of Troy are covered in 1980s hip hop graffiti. There’s an advert for pomegranate lipstick using imagery from a 1930s advert for Marybelline make-up.
Both Troy and Mycenae are stripped of conventional references to war. Given the title of the show, it’s surprising not to see any trace of a devastated Troy or the ravages of battle. Both towns display a dimmed grandeur, rather than burnt-out devastation.
Traditional Bronze Age weapons, such as arrows and swords, are also notable by their absence. The show is more interested in the social consequences of conflict, rather than the experience of warfare itself. As in the original plays, 'Hecuba' and 'Agamemnon', scenes typically depict the smaller, intimate ramifications of war, those within a household or a relationship.
Trojans
Hecuba Polymestor Cassandra Polyxena Polydorus
Macaria Askalaphos Luba Eurydice Zagreus
Kronos Laocoön Kampe
Hecuba
Emily Mytton, Fania Grigoriou, Kathryn McGarr, Maya Milet, Omagbitse Omagbemi, Sarah Dowling.
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Hecuba is the Queen of Troy and wife of King Priam. In the play by Euripides, she’s mother to nineteen children, including Polydorus, Polyxena and Cassandra. At the start of the play, she is already enslaved by the Greeks and held captive on the coast of Thrace, deprived of her usual royal surroundings.
In The Burnt City, Hecuba is staying at the Elysium hotel as a guest of Polymestor, who is described as a close family friend. Her room is listed as ‘the Aphrodite room’ in the hotel reception and the space is dominated by a large bed with a headboard shaped like a scallop shell. The room is slightly seedy and faded and there’s a notice on the wall with a strict list of hotel rules.
In the original play, the ghost of Polydorus laments his mother’s fall from grace, ‘Old mother, your royal palaces are reduced to meagre corners in another ruler’s tents. How poorly you fare - as poorly as you once fared well. To balance out your past prosperity, some god has ruined you.’
Hecuba wears a pale-pink, puffed-sleeve silk jacket, a puffy silk dress and a golden headpiece. In later scenes, she wears a short black dress, fur coat and black boots.
Start of Loop
At the start of her loop, Hecuba is in the Aphrodite room. Her daughter, Polyxena is curled up on the bed and Hecuba gives her a friendly nudge to wake her up. She stretches and groans as if she’s got a bad hangover.
Hecuba pours them both some water and they get ready for the day. Hecuba is wearing just a thin black slip and she puts on an elaborate dress and jacket, as Polyxena sits at a mirror and brushes her hair. Hecuba retrieves a jewellery box from the top of the wardrobe and they head out, ‘Come on, we'll be late.’
They walk to the main square in Troy and part company as Polyxena disappears into a clothes shop, Alighieri’s. Hecuba walks to the Palladium theatre and approaches a chaotic pile of red chairs that look like they’ve been ripped out of the building.
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The notes for the show suggest that they were torn out by the locals so that they could replace them with a debauched cabaret bar.
Hecuba climbs the chairs and sits at the top, like a queen on her throne. She leaves her jewellery box at the top of the pile. Polyxena comes out of Alighieri’s with Polydorus, and the two siblings fight over a large gift box.
Track 1 - A Birthday Party
The family are planning to have a party in the town for Polyxena’s birthday. Polyxena climbs the chairs to be with her mother and Hecuba gives her a ring. She beams with delight and Polydorus finally gives her the gift box, which contains a new jacket.
Joyful opera music plays in the background – Offenbach’s ‘Belle nuit, ô nuit d'amour’ from ‘Les Contes d'Hoffmann’. The hotel maid, Luba, is on the balcony singing flamboyantly.
They climb down from the chairs and dance in the square. Polymestor arrives and pushes his way through the audience, wearing a black jacket, silver shirt and cowboy hat. He bows and presents Polyxena with a white flower.
Polyxena’s friend, Macaria, joins them and Eurydice, the waitress from Ciacco, brings out a tray of drinks. Everyone grabs a glass and raises a toast to Polyxena. They turn to applaud Luba on the balcony and continue to dance, spinning in and out of each other’s arms.
There’s an atmosphere of optimism and good cheer until the party comes to an end and the background music shifts awkwardly. Macaria is holding hands with Polyxena, who’s holding hands with Polymestor. He holds on to Polydorus and they pull at each other in a line, with Polydorus at the front, reaching out to his mother. She reaches back, but they’re pulled apart. The girls take Polydorus away, slapping his back and laughing.
It's an unsettling moment and Hecuba is left alone in the middle of the square. She’s shaken by the strange exit of her son and appears to have a premonition. She falls to her knees and notices a bloodstain on the ground. A strange noise echoes through the square, like a wind howling. Strobe lights flash in the sky and Hecuba looks to the heavens. Luba is still on the balcony and she stretches out her arms as if she’s manipulating a storm. She starts to thrash back and forth in a fit of confusion.
The storm dies down, and Luba returns to normal as she sings the final lines of her aria. Hecuba feels a terrible dread and clutches her jacket. She looks around her, but she’s totally alone. She calms herself and wanders about the square, pausing briefly at a flower stall.
Track 2 - Prayer to Apollo
She walks through the backstreets to the tenement courtyard, a run-down part of town surrounded by a series of dilapidated tenements. The space is sinister and neglected and washing hangs haphazardly from above.
Hecuba looks at a small shrine on the wall, dedicated to Apollo. It includes a small statue of Apollo with swans at his feet and a couple of flower holders.
Polymestor appears from the shadows and they share a pleasant exchange. Hecuba gestures for him to join her in a short ritual at the shrine. He’s hesitant and she laughs, ‘You have to obey your queen’. She twirls some red twine while recounting a prayer and he humours her. She pauses for a moment and seems to suffer another dizzy spell. Polymestor comforts her and the two of them part ways.
Track 3 - A Vision
Hecuba returns to the town square and heads for Ciacco. Eurydice is there and she sits Hecuba at a table outside, before hanging her elaborate coat in the café. She takes her order and Hecuba asks if she can borrow her pen and pad.
She wants to protect Polydorus by sending him away while the Greeks are waging war against Troy. She writes, ‘Dear loving husband Priam. I hope you are well and I hope that you come back soon. I’m arranging with Polymestor to look after our son.’
As she writes, Polydorus appears behind the bar inside the cafe. He stretches out over the counter and dances over to his mother. She doesn’t see him and he floats around her like a ghost. He creeps up to her and nudges her pen. She feels his presence, but he’s invisible and he brushes her cheek with his own.
Suddenly, she looks into the distance and sees something terrible. She stands up and she’s silhouetted by a piercing, bright light from the side of the square. Stretching out her arms, she moves backwards into the café as if pushed by an unseen force. The premonition ends and she falls back into her chair.
At the start of the original play, Polydorus recounts that his mother has had nightmares for many days. Heartbroken, he describes her torment, ‘See how Hecuba stumbles from the doorway of Agamemnon’s tent, upset by nightmares and visions of my ghost. Alas!’
Polydorus appears again and this time Hecuba sees him. They embrace and she puts her head on his shoulder. Polydorus is full of life. He’s jumpy and playful, but Hecuba is worried about him. She wants him to be serious, but he just laughs at her.
They walk through the square and he climbs to the top of the pile of chairs. Hecuba gestures towards something and Polydorus retrieves the jewellery box from the top of the pile. They talk about the war as they walk upstairs. Polydorus wants to fight, but is naively innocent of the danger, ‘They need me on the front line.’
Emily Mytton
Sarah Dowling
Track 4 - Safe Haven
The two of them enter Polymestor’s office. Polymestor is sitting at an ornate desk looking at some papers. There’s a safe next to the desk and a drinks cabinet with a whisky decanter.
Polydorus sits down in a low chair in the middle of the office, still holding the jewellery box. He opens it and it glows yellow. He plays with the precious necklaces and trinkets, wide-eyed and childlike.
Hecuba approaches Polymestor and they discuss the plan to take Polydorus away. Hecuba is anxious, but Polymestor is relaxed and nods along. The jewellery box must go with Polydorus to pay for his safekeeping.
Polymestor goes over to the drinks cabinet and grabs the decanter and three glasses. Hecuba sits in the chair behind the desk and eyes him warily. He pours everyone a drink and takes one over to Polydorus. ‘Your Sweet Love’ plays quietly in the background and they raise a toast to their plan.
Hecuba takes the jewellery box from Polydorus and puts it on the desk. She holds out her hands and looks at her rings, before pulling them off and adding them to the box. Polydorus comes over to stop her, but she tells him that everything’s okay and they embrace. She takes off her head piece and again Polydorus tries to intervene. She shakes her head and pushes him away.
Hecuba hands Polymestor a letter, and the two of them clasp each other’s hands to seal the deal.
Polymestor walks to the side of the office and opens a pair of cabinet doors to reveal a large, golden statue of Moloch, glowing red and wreathed in smoke. The music twists and distorts, as Hecuba and Polydorus look at each other uncertainly.
Polymestor closes the doors and smiles, reassuring Hecuba that everything will be taken care of. She leaves the office and Polymestor is alone with his charge.
Hecuba walks through the streets of Troy to the tenement courtyard, where she meets her daughters, Polyxena and Cassandra. Cassandra is worried about something and tries to warn Hecuba, but she brushes it off. The three women walk together to the town square, as a sinister hum plays in the background.
Apollo is floating around the square and as he reaches the Palladium doors, he bows theatrically. A loud drone is heard and a Greek soldier, the Watchman, walks through the doors pushing a metal crate on wheels.
Hecuba sees him and realises that something’s wrong, but doesn’t want to alarm her daughters. ‘Come on’ she says, ‘Let’s have a drink’, and she leads them to Ciacco. The girls sit down and Hecuba retrieves a bottle and some glasses, ‘When are we ever together like this?’
Cassandra knows that danger is looming and she stares out of the window. In the square, the Watchman has drawn a large chalk circle. Hecuba fills their glasses and her daughters look at her nervously. The lights to the Palladium flicker and the strange humming continues to echo through the town.
Macaria is behind the counter in Alighieri’s and hears the commotion outside. She rushes through the square and joins the women in a state of panic. Hecuba and Polyxena are now as frightened as Cassandra. The lights flicker more rapidly and the drone gets louder. Hecuba hits the table with her glass, ‘Rise up your stricken head from the dust. Lift up your throat. This is Troy. Come.’ The women knock back their drinks.
Hecuba’s quote is from ‘The Trojan Women’ – ‘Rise, stricken head, from the dust; lift up the throat. This is Troy, but Troy and we, Troy’s kings, are perished. Stoop to the changing fortune.’
The women exit the café and look towards the Palladium, as the loud, ominous drone rises to a crescendo.
Track 5 - The Breach
The doors swing open and three soldiers in greatcoats stand in front of a piercing spotlight. In the middle is Agamemnon, the Greek king, and he’s flanked by Neoptolemus and Patroclus. The Watchman joins them and the soldiers move towards the centre of the square. The Trojan women stand firm and face them down.
Cassandra retrieves a jewelled mask from Ciacco and hands it to Hecuba, who holds it aloft. Agamemnon takes it from her and gestures to the audience, affirming his victory, before the Watchman hangs it on the side of his crate.
The significance of the mask is ambiguous. In ancient Greece, funeral masks were laid over the faces of the departed to preserve their identity on their journey to the underworld. Possibly the mask represents the Mask of Agamemnon, a gold mask discovered at the ancient Greek site of Mycenae by Heinrich Schliemann.
Eurydice returns to the square, having lost her boyfriend in the confusion. Seeing that the walls of Troy have finally been breached, she retreats to her café and watches the unfolding horror through the window in disbelief.
The two groups face each other again. In unison, they lean to one side. They walk in a large circle, mirroring each other’s movements, before breaking into a run, so that the men are chasing the women. They stop and Hecuba approaches Agamemnon, pulling open her blouse and beating her chest with the palm of her hand. The other three women do the same, and now the women circle the men.
Track 6 - The Sacrifice of Polyxena
They stop still and Polyxena moves forward. Hecuba’s youngest daughter is to be sacrificed as an offering to the tomb of Achilles, and to ensure that a strong wind will take the Greeks home.
Polyxena runs at Agamemnon and leaps onto his shoulders. She wraps her arms and legs around his head and holds still.
Agamemnon is offended and Neotoplemus and Patroclus grab her arms, lifting her to the ground. She pushes them away in anger. She lifts her hair vertically into the air while the other three women form a small circle, walking around the men, bowing and spinning in unison.
Polyxena flicks her hair in Agamemnon’s face in a show of contempt. He remains stoic and unmoved. Finally, he grabs her and pushes her away.
The Watchman unfolds a circular crash mat on the floor as Neoptolemus takes off his greatcoat and hands it to Patroclus. At the same time, Polyxena pulls off her dress and stands topless in just her tights with her arms aloft, offering her body to the invaders.
Neoptolemus walks towards her, but he’s hesitant. She grabs his hand and forces his weapon into her stomach. Blood pours from her gut and she falls at his feet. Hecuba is lying face down on the ground, with her arms outstretched.
In the original play, Hecuba asks to be killed along with her daughter, ‘At least then slaughter me with my child’. But the Greeks only need a single sacrifice, ‘The maiden's death suffices; no need to add a second to the first.’ Polyxena refuses to be held by the Greek warriors, as was customary in sacrifices, and tears her robe from shoulder to waist. She defiantly invites her killer to strike her in the neck, and she finds enough strength to fall gracefully and die a death befitting a princess.
Neoptolemus is immediately regretful and kneels down to cradle her head. The Watchman ties her ankles to a rope and her body is winched into the air. The Greeks intend to make an example of her and hoist a warning to the conquered Trojans.
As she rises, Neoptolemus tries to hold her, but she’s lifted out of his grasp. ‘All The Earth’ by Jessica Curry plays through the speakers; a ghostly plainsong sung by soprano Elin Manahan Thomas.
Neoptolemus falls to the floor and bows his head, devastated by what he’s done, as Polyxena’s body swings back and forth above him. Hecuba gets up from the floor. Her jacket falls from her shoulders and she approaches her daughter in just a slip, vulnerable and powerless. Neoptolemus runs through the crowd to escape the horror.
Track 7 - A Mother’s Grief
The other performers move away and a darkness descends on Hecuba. Macaria approaches and the two women are heartbroken. Patroclus is standing in the shadows, operating the winch, and he lowers Polyxena’s body to the ground.
Hecuba cradles her and Macaria unties the rope from her ankles. She has a bowl of water and wipes blood from her body with a cloth.
Hecuba is consumed with grief. She stands up with her arms outstretched and is pulled backwards by an invisible force. She stumbles into Alighieri’s, the clothes shop, where she collapses into the counter. She pulls herself up only to fall back again, in a tragic dance of pain.
She moves through the corridors and stops in Hesperides, the flower shop. In a fit of delusion, she stands on the counter and plucks flowers from the ceiling. She crashes into the furniture and climbs the walls, sitting on a cabinet and banging her legs against it.
She picks a single flower and gives it to an audience member, reciting the name of one of her children as she does so. She hands out more flowers and each time she says the name of another lost child. In the original myth, Hecuba has nineteen children with Priam, most of whom die over the course of the Trojan War.
Sitting on a bookcase, she spreads her legs out wide. She grabs a huge pile of red petals and lets them spill over her stomach and between her legs. A river of blood pours from her womb and the image is horrific.
Luba appears in the doorway and pushes her way through the audience as she rushes to help. She’s frightened for her queen and tries to calm her down, holding her tenderly as Hecuba shakes. Luba takes her by the hand and leads her away.
Track 8 - The Sacrifice of Polydorus
They climb a staircase alongside the tenement courtyard. As they rise, Hecuba looks back across the square and sees a body wrapped in a white plastic sheet. Her son, Polydorus, has been killed by Polymestor and dumped in the street. Hecuba starts to howl, ‘My son! That man! He was meant to protect him! I can’t breathe!’
In the original play, when Hecuba sees the corpse of Polydorus, she cries, ‘Aah! It’s my son! My youngest son, dead! He was supposed to be safe with the Thracian king. O Polydorus! I’m truly dead. This sight annihilates me utterly.’
Luba manages to drag her through to the Aphrodite room where she collapses on the bed and thrashes about, grief-stricken and tormented. Luba frets anxiously, unable to help.
Hecuba is the embodiment of grief, a captive woman who has lost everything all at once. The death of Polydorus is one more blow for a grieving mother who thought she could sink no further, bringing her a step closer to breaking point.
Opposite the bed is a balcony overlooking the shopfloor in Alighieri’s. As Hecuba rages, Polyxena can be seen by the audience on the counter below, re-emerging as a Fury.
Luba hears someone approaching and warns Hecuba that Polymestor might be coming. Hecuba crawls behind the bed.
Kathryn McGarr
Maya Milet
Track 9
Polymester walks into the room and eyes Luba. He’s full of manic energy and he takes off his shirt. Seeing the box of jewellery, he opens it and handles the various necklaces and trinkets. He marvels at the treasure he’s managed to steal from Hecuba by disposing of her son. He places an elaborate headpiece in Luba’s hair and strokes her cheek. She remains docile as he paws her and then puts the headpiece on his own head, laughing.
He stands on the bed, topless and wearing his chains, looking vain and ridiculous as he gestures for Luba to fetch a mirror. She holds it up and circles the bed so that he can admire himself from every angle. He holds his arms aloft like Christ and flexes his muscles like a Greek god.
Hecuba crawls out from behind the bed. She’s hunched over and looks defeated. She approaches Polymestor, but he can’t avert his gaze from the mirror. Before she has a chance to confront him, he cries out like an animal and she flinches. She knows that he’s murdered her son, but needs to restrain herself. She asks him if her son is safe and he reassures her. She asks again and he looks irritated. Her grief has turned to disgust, but she maintains her pretence. She backs away in a silent rage, leaving Polymestor and Luba in the bedroom.
Track 10 - Come, Spirits of Vengeance
She enters the office next door and starts pushing things off the desk, slowly at first and then with more aggression. She ransacks the drawers and throws letters and papers into the air.
Stretching out her arms, she mumbles strange prayers and ritualistic chanting. She curses Polymestor and the Gods and existence itself. Crying out, ‘Erinyes, come!’, she summons the Furies, the goddesses of vengeance. She has turned from a wounded, lamenting mother to an outraged avenger, hungry for retribution.
As she ransacks the office, Kampe appears behind the window to the night club. She sits against the glass and stares at Hecuba. The club is dark and the window is surrounded by a red neon glow, as Kampe scowls like a demon.
A pounding drumbeat kicks in and ‘Confusion’ by New Order blasts through the speakers. Kampe pulls audience members onto the dancefloor, as Hecuba continues to cry out, summoning her goddesses. She climbs onto the desk and crouches on all fours, bestial, pounding her fists, her incantation building.
Polyxena and Macaria walk through the office and join Kampe in the night club. Polymestor enters from the storeroom and Hecuba watches as he follows the women into the lion’s den. He shimmies through the crowd and can’t believe his luck, taking a seat to watch the action.
Hecuba leaps from the desk and walks to the window. She’s joined by Luba on one side and Cassandra on the other. The Furies have answered her call and the coven is complete.
Hecuba puts her hand on the glass as she watches Polymestor revelling on the dancefloor. Luba stretches out her arm in a curve, also resting it on the glass, and Cassandra does the same as they mimic the curved horns of Moloch.
Luba and Cassandra move next door and join the party. The women dance casually at first, before falling into step and performing a ritualistic dance of death.
Circling a huge Minotaur logo, they shift sideways from heel to toe, pressing their palms together in prayer.
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Hecuba enters quietly and prowls in the shadows behind the audience. Wearing a fur coat over her delicate black slip, she takes a seat next to the window and stares back at the audience in the office with a look of intense conviction.
The women circle Polymestor, who’s strutting his stuff. The music rises and the moment of judgement approaches. They pull him into the middle of a scrum, stroking and pushing him until he’s bamboozled. The music collapses in on itself and becomes an electronic cacophony as flashes of strobe lighting explode around the room. The women spin him round like a game of ‘Pin The Tail’, and drag him to the ground.
They straddle his limbs and press him to the floor. Hecuba walks up to the pile of bodies, wild-eyed and enraged. She grabs at his face and howls. Polymestor roars back and both sounds are animalistic and gut-wrenching. She plunges her claws deeper into his face and pulls out his eyes, as blood bursts over his cheeks.
Hecuba stumbles away and Polymestor flails about in agony. He stands up, blinded and in shock, pushing his way through the audience to get away. Hecuba stretches out her bloody hands and looks up at the bright lights. Holding an eye in each hand, she breathes in and savours the moment.
Kampe approaches and takes the eyes, dropping them in a cocktail glass. Hecuba staggers away, as her fur coat falls from her shoulders. She leaves the night club and stumbles through the office.
She walks to the Aphrodite room and the reset music plays, ‘Would You Like To Join Me’ by Trevor Jones from the film ‘Dark City’. A calmness falls over her. Polyxena is curled up on the bed and Hecuba strokes her gently.
Troy Finale
In the final loop, after Hecuba rampages through Polymestor’s office, she marches downstairs to the town square. In the distance, Hades disappears down the side of Ciacco. In the middle of the floor is a series of small concentric circles drawn in chalk and Hecuba walks backwards around them.
She climbs to the top of the pile of chairs as the residents of Troy converge on the square. ‘Confusion (Pump Panel Remix)’ pounds out of the speakers and the town is lit in a sinister blue glow. Sitting on her throne, Hecuba watches her Furies perform their barbaric dance routine. Polyxena, Polydorus, Eurydice, Macaria, Kampe and Orpheus all twist and vogue and charge like bulls in an intense choreography.
Polymestor appears and gets lost in the throng. Hecuba climbs down and joins the women as they run in circles around him. They pounce on him like dogs and pin him to the concrete. Hecuba lurches forward and rips out his eyes as he rolls around, howling in pain. She bends over him and screams in his face, ‘Look at me!’
She lifts his eyes to the sky and walks a lap of victory, celebrating her catch as Polymestor spins in agony. Kampe approaches with a cocktail glass and Hecuba drops in the two jellied balls.
Polymester runs away holding his face and the performers disperse, leaving Hecuba alone in the middle of the square. A spotlight shines on her and she suddenly looks exposed in her black slip and boots. Having had her revenge, she returns to a state of defeat and despair.
She’s been stripped of everything – her crown, her city, her children and her humanity. She had nothing to live for except vengeance and now there is nothing left.
Hades appears and picks up her coat. He wraps it around her, stroking her shoulder. He moves away and Persephone approaches to wipe the blood from her hands with a cloth. She follows Hades through the Palladium doors and Hecuba is alone again.
She stops still and a cloud of ash falls from above, covering her in a dusty mist. The light dims, leaving her in total darkness. ‘One More Kiss, Dear’ from Blade Runner plays in the background and the audience is ushered out.
Most audience members are directed to the exit, but some are approached by performers and led to the Mycenae Finale.
Polymestor
Adam Burton, Ali Goldsmith, Cameron Bernard Jones, Folu Odimayo, Harry Price, Jude Monk McGowan, Louis J Rhone, Milton Lopes, Nicholas Bruder, Sam Booth.
​
In the play ‘Hecuba’, Polymestor is married to Hecuba’s eldest daughter, Ilione. He’s typically described as one of the most unmitigatedly unpleasant characters in all ancient drama - a cynical, lying, avaricious opportunist.
In The Burnt City, he’s described as the ‘Kingpin of Troy’ and a close family friend of Hecuba’s. He runs the Elysium hotel and Klub night club. He wears a black mesh vest and shiny black suit jacket. He sometimes wears a black Stetson and an extravagant fur coat.
He has an office next to the night club with a large desk, a drinks cabinet and leather chairs. In one of his drawers is a leather folio containing images of young boys and girls and notes about their age and where they live.
In another drawer, there's three or four pages of handwritten notes which turn out to be 'The House of Asterion' by Jorge Luis Borges, the story based on the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur.
There’s a storeroom next to the office, filled with laundry and supplies of shells and owls and fake food.
Start of Loop
Polymestor is sitting at his desk with his head in his hands. He seems calm, but he’s got blood on his face and is recovering from an ordeal.
He takes out the folio from his drawer and looks through a few of the headshots under a low lamp, before nodding off to sleep.
Kampe comes in from the night club and approaches quietly. She walks behind him and slams one of the drawers shut. Polymester wakes with a start and grimaces.
Kampe sits across the desk. She’s holding his black suit jacket and fur coat and they share a knowing smile. She shakes her head as if she’s used to his bad behaviour and hands over his jacket. He puts it on, grinning wickedly, before putting on his fur coat.
Kampe has his black Stetson and puts it on, but he takes it from her sharply. Re-energised, he heads for the hotel stairs.
He pauses briefly in the Elysium yard and stretches out his arms in silent celebration. He’s psyched up and ready for the new day.
He enters Alighieri’s and sees Macaria behind the counter. Outside in the square, people are gathering for Polyxena’s party. Polymestor says he has a problem, he needs a gift for the ‘birthday girl’. Macaria has a white flower close at hand and he accepts it gratefully. He turns on his heels and walks out with the flower in his mouth.
Track 1 - A Birthday Party
Polyxena’s party is underway and the guests are dancing to the ‘Barcarolle’ from the opera ‘Les Contes d'Hoffmann’. Luba is serenading the guests from the Palladium balcony in an elaborate woollen coat.
Polyxena is surrounded by her family and Polymestor presents her with the flower. She curtsies playfully and he twirls her around. Macaria joins the party and the waitress from Ciacco, Eurydice, brings out a tray of drinks. Everyone raises their glasses and drinks a toast to the birthday girl.
The party comes to an end and there’s a strange scene as Polyxena, Macaria and Polymestor join hands and pull Polydorus away from his mother. She reaches out for her son, but he’s taken away to continue the party elsewhere. The lights dim and there’s a sense of foreboding as Hecuba is left alone in the square.
Polymestor and the three youngsters stop next to a pile of crates in the Elysium yard. The kids want to carry on celebrating and Polymestor gives his blessing for them to use his club, ‘As long as you stay out of trouble’. The girls squeal with delight and head for the hotel stairs as Polymestor shakes his head, ‘Go on, enjoy yourself’. Polydorus runs after the girls and they scamper upstairs. Polymestor smiles to himself and wanders to the tenement courtyard.
Cameron Bernard Jones
Adam Burton
Track 2 - Prayer to Apollo
The courtyard is in a rough part of town and surrounded by a series of dilapidated apartments. Dark corners are filled with discarded crates, boxes and metal trollies and washing hangs from the balconies above.
The caretaker, Kronos, is standing outside one of the tenements. Polymestor approaches and they have a tense disagreement. Polymestor asks for more time, but Kronos isn’t interested and slams the door in his face. Polymestor knocks on the door, exasperated. Kronos doesn't answer and Polymestor pounds the door with his fist.
Frustrated, he looks at a shrine nearby, surrounded by green ceramic tiles and a couple of plastic flowers. There’s a small statue of Apollo with a couple of swans at his feet.
Queen Hecuba enters the square and approaches the shrine. Polymestor offers her a flower and they have a friendly chat. The two of them are old friends and Hecuba is staying at the Elysium hotel as his guest.
Polymestor tips his hat and moves away, but Hecuba stops him. ‘Pray with me’ she says. He’s reluctant, but he joins her at the shrine. She wraps a red thread around his hand as she prays. He’s clearly not interested, but remains civil to keep up appearances.
Track 3
​
He continues through the backstreets of Troy and passes a vagabond, Laocoön, who seems to be living in a make-shift tent. Polymestor shoos him away with a shudder and continues to the White Cypress sake bar. He looks through the open window and sees that the barman has his back to him, so he leans in to steal a bottle.
​
He carries on with a spring in his step and stops at a door marked ‘Stage Door’. He unlocks it and turns to face an audience member, taking her hand and pulling her inside.
He smiles broadly and takes off her mask, ‘There. Are you okay? Good.’ He’s handsome and charming and he puts his arm around her, as he leads her up the stairs. There are posters advertising the works of Bela Bartok on the walls.
He stops on the half-landing and stares at her, ‘Philia. Do you know what it means? It means friendship. You and I are friends, aren't we? Are you a friend? Good, I thought so. I could see it in your eyes. I have a good feeling about you. It's good to have friends. And I have many friends. In many places. Come friend, we shall see what we shall see.’
​
They reach the top of the stairs and enter the final museum room from the start of the show, ‘I’m going to show you something that very few people have seen.’ He leads her to a pair of curtains and they peer through. Looking down on the town square, they see Hecuba and Polydorus sitting at Ciacco.
​
‘Hecuba. Dearest lady. I weep for you. And there, you see? The child. The love that is the most. The hope for the house. There. She braces him. Where is safe from the gathering? I’m going to help her.’ He pauses. ‘I wonder, how might one who stands so high help a friend who is so low? Fortune. Fate.’
He walks to the display case containing a record needle. He pours a couple of shots of sake from the stolen bottle and places them on top of the cabinet. Just before the woman takes one, he switches them around. They down the shots and he laughs in mock surprise, ‘You drank it? Ha!’
He raises his empty glass, ‘To the gods. They make us their playthings. Pawns in their frivolous games. Our bovine worship of them. Pitiful. These are futile lamentations.’
They have another look through the curtain and Polymestor says ominously, ‘Don’t worry. It is inevitable. What is coming, will come.’ Outside in the square, a storm starts to build.
He leads the woman downstairs and gently puts her mask back on. He gives her a necklace of red thread to help her on her journey. As he ushers her outside, he whispers, ‘Trust no’one. Not by deed. Not by name. No’one.’
Polymestor returns upstairs to his office. As he enters, he catches Polyxena and Macaria kissing by the desk. He shakes his head and tuts and they look at him as if to say, ‘Oh, go to hell!’ The hotel maid, Luba, is tidying nearby and she smiles.
The two girls move to the Aphrodite room for some privacy and Luba heads to the greenhouse room.
Polymestor sits at his desk and pours himself a whisky. He writes a note on a sheet of paper, ‘Welcome Heroes’, and signs it ’P’. He leaves it on the desk and it’s clear where his loyalties lie. The message is for Agamemnon, King of the Greeks.
The office paper is stamped with the address, '2ND-C / 3RD DIVISION / UW' - the 2nd circle of the underworld.
Polymestor walks to the side of his office and opens a pair of cupboard doors. Inside is a large, golden statue of Moloch, lit up by a menacing red glow. He bows down and prays.
Moloch was a Canaanite god associated with child sacrifice. Traditionally, he was depicted as a large bronze statue with the body of a man and the head of a bull. At the bottom of the statue there was a compartment where a fire would be lit, and above this there were seven chambers into which the victims would be placed.
The chambers in Polymestor’s statue are filled with small objects including a ring, a horse and a shell. The compartment at the bottom is locked with a padlock. On either side of the statue are two large, golden bowls filled with water.
Polymestor closes the cupboard and returns to his desk. He opens his drawer and has another look at his creepy headshots of young men and women.
Track 4 - Safe Haven
Hecuba and Polydorus enter and Polymestor hurriedly puts the headshots back in the drawer. Hecuba sits Polydorus down in a low chair. He’s holding a jewellery box and it glows bright yellow as he opens it. He marvels at the treasure inside, letting the chains and necklaces slip through his fingers.
Hecuba and Polymestor have a drink and discuss business. They agree that if the Greeks invade, Polymestor will take Polydorus away and protect him. Hecuba is anxious, but Polymestor reassures her.
Polydorus will take the jewellery box with him so that he will be provided for if Troy falls. Polymestor is to safeguard the box and Hecuba puts it on the desk, before adding her golden headdress. Everything is in place and they drink a toast to their plan.
Polymestor walks to the cupboard and opens the doors to reveal the Moloch statue. It’s an unsettling moment and Polydorus looks uneasily at his mother. Hecuba comforts him and heads downstairs.
Track 5
Polydorus is now the charge of Polymestor, who is very much the unreliable guardian. He looks at the boy and says, ‘I’ve got something for you.’
Pressing a switch on his desk, he opens a pair of curtains to reveal the night club next door. A magnificent monster, Kampe, is standing in the middle of the dancefloor wearing a black PVC cat-suit. She’s illuminated by a bright spotlight and the throbbing bass of ‘‘Nature Boy’ by Dennis Cruz plays through the speakers.
Kampe dances slowly, rocking her hips from side to side and staring intently. Polydorus is agog. He approaches the window and puts his hands on the glass.
Polymestor walks through the adjoining door and joins her on the dancefloor. He spreads his arms out and bows theatrically. They dance together and Polydorus watches in awe. He tries to mimic some of their moves, but he's awkward and stiff.
While Polydorus is captivated by the dance, a large man in dungarees enters the office behind him. It’s the caretaker, Kronos, and he sits down, lifting his huge boots onto the desk. Polydorus turns around and looks startled as Kronos stares him down.
Kronos stands up and approaches him, towering over the young boy. The two of them look like they’re from different species. Kronos places his hand on Polydorus’ shoulder and gives him a firm squeeze, before slapping his shoulder so that Polydorus almost falls sideways. Kronos sees Polymestor through the window and enters the night club.
Polymestor is dancing with Kampe and the music rises to a crescendo, before grinding to a halt. The lights go out and at the same time, in the town square below, the Greek soldiers enter Troy.
The music returns and the lighting strobes. Polymestor is still dancing, but he’s been joined by Kronos, who’s standing in front of him. He opens his eyes and jumps back in surprise.
Kronos takes centre stage and performs an intense solo dance. The lights flash on and off as he throws his huge, muscular body around the room. Polydorus stands behind the window, watching in wonder.
Polymestor and Kampe are puzzled and irritated by the intrusion. Kronos stops dancing and the three of them eyeball each other. Kampe picks up Polymestor’s jacket and crosses the dancefloor to return it, but Kronos snatches it from her. He holds it out for Polymestor, who lunges at it, as Kronos pulls it away. Polymestor shakes his head in frustration.
Kronos holds the jacket like a matador’s cape and Polymestor lunges for it again. This time he falls over and slaps the floor in anger. Kronos drops the jacket and looks at Polymestor with contempt.
He walks over to the window and points at Polydorus behind the glass, before slowly walking back to the office. Polymestor is unnerved, but he recovers and Kampe strokes his face.
In the office, Kronos can be seen taking off his necklace and putting it around Polydorus. Having demanded a sacrifice from Polymestor, he marks his target.
Polymestor returns to the office to talk with Polydorus, who’s struggling to make sense of his new world. Polymestor says that he’s going to make him a man and he gestures towards a rug. He lifts the corner and reveals a small square of glass floor with a view onto the audience bar below. He appears to be showing Polydorus his next destination. He nods towards the door, ‘Show them what you can do’. Polydorus wanders off uncertainly.
Track 6
Polymestor is full of energy and malicious intent. He walks to the storeroom next to his office. The room is full of shelves of laundry and paraphernalia for the hotel. He walks to a dark corner and moves a tall trolley on wheels to reveal a secret door.
He unlocks the door, turns around and holds out his hand. An audience member steps forward and he pulls her through.
The room is small and square and the walls are roughly textured and bright gold, like the inside of a huge gold nugget. On closer inspection, the walls are in fact covered with hundreds of totenpässe, tiny foil sheets inscribed with instructions similar to those on the Orphic tablets.
​
Polymestor faces the woman and gently takes off her mask, hanging it on the wall. He gestures for her to sit on a low stool in the middle of the room and he sits opposite her. ‘Are you afraid?’ he asks. ‘A little,’ she laughs and he reassures her, ‘You don’t need to be afraid of me.’
‘Are you afraid of monsters? Well, let me elaborate.’ He looks at her intently, ‘What is the basic law that governs the world? The one rule that governs all our lives?’ She replies, ‘To survive?’ He shakes his head, ‘Thou shall do wrong.’
His voice is hard to hear above the background noise, ‘No matter what you believe in, or what you choose. Sooner or later, you will defile your very essence. You will become the fearsome beast of your darkest nightmare, just like everyone else. This is the law.’
‘All around us. There is no hiding place. Wherever you go, it lies in waiting. Lurking in every corner.’ The woman looks nervously around the room. ‘Every prison, every palace. It’s the way it is. The way it always will be. So, why fight it? Let it in. And let the monster out. The music intensifies and the lights fade out.
After a moment, Polymestor appears directly in front of the woman, but all she can see are his teeth which are glowing bright red. He bellows in a strange, distorted voice, ‘The age of man is dying. A new order is beginning. Waiting to be born. Hail Moloch!’
The lights come back on and he’s disappeared. She looks around and he’s standing in the corner behind her. He’s calm again and he slowly puts her mask back on and ushers her out of the room.
​
In ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’, the mythical figure ‘Mercer’ explains to Deckard the immutability of the ‘curse’ that afflicts life. He tells Deckard, a bounty hunter, that he will forever be destroying life, no matter how hard he tries to escape his role –
‘You will be required to do wrong no matter where you go. It is the basic condition of life, to be required to violate your own identity. At some time, every creature which lives must do so. It is the ultimate shadow, the defeat of creation; this is the curse at work, the curse that feeds on all life.’
Downstairs in the main square, the Greeks have taken over. In the original play, once Troy has fallen, Polymestor embarks on his mission to murder Polydorus and seize Priam’s treasure.
Track 7
Polymestor exits the storeroom and walks to his desk, where he pours himself a drink. He picks up the jewellery box and heads next door to the Aphrodite room. Luba is there and he passes her the box for safe keeping.
He carries on to the greenhouse room where he sees Askalaphos behind his desk. They eyeball each other and Polymestor growls, ‘I wish to make use of your special talent. Make it strong. Like last time.’ Askalaphos squeezes a droplet into a vial and hands it to Polymestor who accepts it with a smirk.
He goes downstairs and struts through the graffiti-lined corridors to the Elysium yard. The walls are adorned with neon signs for ‘The Elysium’ and ‘Palladium’. There’s a huge black and white image of a labyrinth bleeding into a futuristic city. Polymestor leans against a wall and looks towards the entrance to Peep.
The door opens and Polydorus emerges. He’s pumped up after his latest adventure and he approaches Polymestor in energetic mood. Polymestor starts to wrestle with him and he fights back playfully.
Their sparring is light-hearted, but there’s a sinister edge to Polymestor’s jabs. The strange Nordic folk music of ‘Gripir’ by Danheim creates an ominous tension. As the fighting escalates, Polymestor grabs Polydorus by the shoulder and holds up the vial, forcing him to breathe it in. The young boy falls unconscious and collapses to the ground.
Polymester grabs a large trunk and lifts his body into it, closing the lid and dragging it onto a trolley. He pulls the trolley through the backstreets to the tenement courtyard.
Track 8 - The Sacrifice of Polydorus
He approaches a door marked IIIIIIII which has a large, white plastic sheet trapped under it. He unravels the sheet so that it stretches in a line across the square, like a rotten version of Agamemnon’s cape. He opens the trunk and rolls Polydorus onto it.
The door opens and a bright light bursts out. Polymestor falls to his knees and bows down, stretching his arms against the ground. He calls out, ‘Hail Moloch!’
Kronos steps out and looks at the body. Polydorus is still alive, his eyes bulging and his fingers groping at the thread around his neck. Kronos pulls the sheet and Polydorus into his home. The cold, harsh piano chords and synthesiser trills of ‘2049’ by Hans Zimmer play in the background.
On the other side of the square, Hecuba walks up the stairs with Luba. She sees her son being dragged through the door and cries out, ‘My son! That man!’
Jude Monk McGowan
Nicholas Bruder
Track 9
Polymester continues through the streets of Troy. He enters Peep and interacts with some of the audience members who are enjoying a drink. He eats a few peanuts and checks out the stage act. He carries on through the backstreets, full of manic energy, walking upstairs and heading for the greenhouse room.
He stops still for a moment and takes a seat inside the greenhouse. He seems to come down from his animated high and looks almost remorseful as he puts his head in his hands. He talks to himself, looking at his hands, talking about being a child of the Earth, looking upwards for an answer from a higher power. He grabs a handful of black sand from a tray and lets the grain fall through his fingers onto the floor. He takes off his jacket and walks to the Aphrodite room.
Luba is there and he flirts with her. She smiles thinly and tries to hide her distaste. He takes off his shirt and tells her to fetch the jewellery box.
Standing on the bed, he plays with the gold beads and trinkets. He tries on a tiara and then places it on Luba’s head. He gestures for her to get a mirror and she holds it up, while he admires his reflection from every angle.
Lying on the bed, he covers his eyes with a head piece, as Luba dangles a necklace over his chest and gently whips him with it, trying to satisfy his vanity.
Suddenly, Hecuba appears from behind the huge headboard. She’s wearing a black slip and looks fragile, but she confronts Polymestor and wants to know if her son is safe. She knows the answer, but is plotting her revenge.
In a burst of frustration, she holds up the mirror and tries to strike him with it, but he restrains her and she sobs.
Polymestor isn’t interested in Hecuba. He’s neither afraid of her nor concerned for her wellbeing. Pumped up and consumed by narcissism, he presses his face into the glass and howls. He pulls back and Hecuba repeats her question, ‘Is my son safe?’ He assures her that Polydorus is fine and she walks away in disgust.
Track 10 - Come, Spirits of Vengeance
Polymestor stands upright and looks at Luba, annoyed that his moment of worship was interrupted by Hecuba’s accusations. He reminds Luba that she works for him, but she doesn’t react. She’s fond of Hecuba and protective of her queen. ‘I know who you are’, says Polymestor.
He takes off his necklace and holds it up, waiting for her to fetch the jewellery box. He drops it in and glares at her menacingly. She avoids his gaze and busies herself, tidying the jewellery.
He walks downstairs to the hotel reception and makes his way to the tenement courtyard, where he stops at the empty trunk he used to carry Polydorus. He takes a pill out of his pocket and swallows it, before wheeling the trunk through the corridors, back to the Elysium yard.
He bumps into Polyxena who’s standing on a crate and stretching. She’s recently come back from the dead and is getting used to her new body. There’s a strange tension in the town and a sense that something momentous is happening.
Polymestor goes back upstairs and through the hotel corridors. He walks through the storeroom next to his office and hears a thumping techno soundtrack coming from the night club. He walks in and sees Kampe pulling audience members onto the dancefloor.
In the office behind him, Hecuba is with Cassandra and Luba, lusting for violence and retribution. They rush to the window and stare at him, before Cassandra and Luba enter the club and join the party.
Polyxena and Macaria are there and the women dance seductively, as ‘Confusion (Pump Panel Reconstruction Mix)’ blasts out of the speakers. They pull Polymestor into the throng, flirting and spinning him around.
Hecuba appears silently in the shadows, circling her prey. The soundtrack distorts and the women pull Polymestor to the ground. Hecuba approaches the pile of bodies and sits on his chest. He’s completely immobilized and she plunges her nails into his face, pulling out his eyes, as a jet of blood squirts into the air.
In the original play, Polymestor describes his terrible ordeal – ‘So I sat me down on a couch in their midst to rest; for there were many of the Trojan maidens seated there, some on my right hand, some on my left, as it had been beside a friend.’
‘Like foes, they seized me hand and foot; and if I tried to raise my head, they would clutch me by the hair; while if I stirred my hands, I could do nothing, poor wretch! For the numbers of the women.’
‘At last they wrought a fearful deed, worse than what had gone before; for they took their brooches and stabbed the pupils of my hapless eyes, making them gush with blood, and then fled through the chambers.’
Polymestor runs from the night club howling in pain. He crashes into his office and falls to the floor.
Track 11 – The Wheel Comes Full Circle
Persephone is nearby, kneeling down by the statue of Moloch. He flails about and Persephone is nervous, but she comforts him. She takes a bowl full of water and bathes his bloody eye sockets. To the amazement of them both, Polymestor recovers his sight and the pain disappears.
The reset music plays and Persephone backs away, shocked by her own power. Polymestor gets to his feet and sits at the desk, wiping blood from his face.
Cassandra
Brenda Lee Grech, Ingrid Kapteyn, Jahmarley Bachelor, Pin Chieh Chen, Sharol Mackenzie, WenHsin Lee, Yilin Kong.
​
Cassandra is the eldest daughter of Queen Hecuba. In ‘Agamemnon’, she is loved by the god Apollo, who promises her the power of prophecy if she complies with his desires. She accepts the proposal, but then refuses the god her favours. Apollo ordains that her prophecies will never be believed. She predicts the fall of Troy and the death of Agamemnon, but her warnings go unheeded.
In The Burnt City, she wears a long-sleeved black and blue-green shimmery dress with sequins and embroidery.
Track 1 - The Gift of Prophecy
Cassandra makes her way to the tenement courtyard where she meets Polydorus. He gives her a flower which she places next to the shrine for Apollo.
Polydorus moves on and passes Laocoön who’s moping about in the shadows. The god, Apollo, appears and stops in the middle of the square. Huge and imperious, he stares at Cassandra.
He circles her and they dance around the space. She’s bewitched and they share a powerful attraction, as he towers over her and seems to control her movements.
Apollo is smitten by the princess and falls in love. Possibly, this is the moment he blesses her with the power to prophesize. They stop still and he strokes her face. They form a dynamic bond and Cassandra walks upstairs as Apollo follows on behind.
Track 2 - Klubbing
She walks through Polymestor’s office to the night club.
'Ghost Poet (Schlepp Geist Remix)’ by Elfgrin plays and Apollo leans against the bar as Cassandra circles the dancefloor. They come together and stroke each other, twisting and turning and playing out a strange power struggle.
As they dance, the curtains behind them open to reveal Kampe and Polyxena partying in the office next door. Polyxena laughs as Kampe gives her a swig from her cocktail glass. Polydorus and Macaria are there and the four of them have their own party to the same drum and bass soundtrack.
Cassandra continues her battle with Apollo. She jumps onto the seating next to the window and Apollo runs after her. She dodges him and runs to the other side of the room. The more she rejects his advances, the more determined he becomes, but she won’t be persuaded. At the end of their dance, Apollo touches her forehead and she collapses to the floor. Is this the moment he punishes her with the curse of never being believed.
Pin Chieh Chen
Yilin Kong
Cassandra joins the party in Polymestor’s office. She interrupts her sister, who's dancing with Macaria, and tries to warn her about some impending danger, but she isn’t interested. Kampe pours Polydorus another drink and Apollo lurks in the background.
Cassandra gestures towards Apollo, but Polyxena doesn’t see him. Cassandra is flummoxed, and she heads off towards the greenhouse room.
Apollo walks through the storeroom at the same time and they meet briefly by the greenhouse. Cassandra pushes him away and heads for the stairs. Apollo is more and more aggrieved and his indignity turns to aggression.
Track 3 - A Curse
Cassandra walks down the stairs in the tenement courtyard and pauses on the landing. She looks up and sees Apollo glaring at her from the balcony. She turns away and hurries down to the square.
This time there’s a bench in the middle of the space and Cassandra sits down. Apollo approaches and they dance around the bench. He continues to energise her and strobe lights flash intermittently as they pull each other back and forth.
Laocoön is lurking near the shrine to Apollo, looking at the small figurine of the great god. He turns around and sees Apollo himself, staring down at him. Laocoön is unfazed and sits in a battered old chair. The three of them eyeball each other, sizing each other up. Cassandra sits back on the bench and Apollo circles her. He walks up to Laocoön who gets up from his chair.
The vagabond takes hold of a tether that’s hanging from a pulley, fixed to the underside of the balcony. He pulls himself up and spins his body so that he’s hanging upside down. Apollo pushes him sideways and he swings back and forth. The music shifts and a gentle chorus sings out, similar to the plainsong that accompanies Polyxena’s sacrifice.
Laocoön’s body is silhouetted by a bright spotlight. Cassandra gets up and is transfixed by the swinging motion. She sees her sister's lifeless body and a look of pain comes across her face.
Laocoön is lowered and he wanders back to his tent. Apollo leaves and Cassandra is alone in the courtyard, tortured by her vision.
Track 4
She moves towards an audience member, holding out her hands, ‘Did you see him?’
Polyxena enters the square and Cassandra hugs her sister. She tries to explain what she’s seen, but Polyxena is dismissive. Cassandra is insistent, but her sister is irritated and tells her to stop. Queen Hecuba enters and Cassandra gives her mother the same warning. Hecuba tries to calm her down and the three of them walk to the town square.
They walk to the middle of the space and Cassandra spins around in frustration. She approaches an audience member, ‘Don’t you see?’ An ominous drone echoes throughout the town.
In the original myth, Cassandra famously foresees the destruction of Troy by the Greeks. She warns the Trojans about the large wooden horse outside their city, but no’one believes her and the horse is pushed through the gates.
Apollo is hovering near the Palladium doors and he bows down. The doors are opened by two black masks and a Greek soldier, the Watchman, enters the square, pushing a large, metal crate on wheels. Hecuba is alarmed and ushers her daughters towards Ciacco.
The Watchman opens his crate and takes out a long stick with a piece of chalk on the end of it, before drawing a large circle around the centre of the square. Macaria sees the commotion and leaves her shop to join the women in the cafe. The four of them sit at a table and Hecuba pours everyone a shot. She gives a toast and they raise their glasses, ‘Raise up your throats. This is Troy.’
Track 5 - The Breach
The music intensifies and attention shifts to the other side of the square. The women exit the café and approach the Palladium, as the soundtrack reaches fever pitch. King Agamemnon and his soldiers burst through the doors and stop still in front of a blinding white light.
Cassandra retrieves a jewelled mask from Ciacco and carries it around the circle to Hecuba, who takes it from her.
Hecuba offers it to Agamemnon who lifts it aloft dismissively for the Watchman to take away. The women remain defiant and there’s a tense stand-off. They move in a large circle as the men watch with trepidation.
Track 6 - The Sacrifice of Polyxena
Hecuba stands before Agamemnon and unzips her jacket. She beats her breast as if to say, ‘Take me’, but Agamemnon wants Polyxena.
Polyxena leaps onto his shoulders and wraps her body around him. He pushes her off and she throws her hair into his face, over and over. She understands her fate, but refuses to be cowed. Agamemnon moves away and the princess is confronted by his second-in-command, Neoptolemus.
She pulls off her clothes and throws them at his feet. He slowly draws his hand across her throat and she falls to the ground, dripping with blood. The Watchman ties her feet to a tether and she’s winched into the sky by Patroclus. Her body swings back and forth and Cassandra sees her terrible premonition come true.
Track 7 - To the Victor the Spoils
The crowd disperses and Hecuba and Macaria are left alone with the body of Polyxena, as she’s lowered to the ground. Macaria weeps, wiping the blood from her lover's naked torso. Hecuba breaks down completely and falls against the counter in Alighieri's, sliding to the floor, breathless with pain.
Cassandra’s grief takes a different form. Resolute and calm, she walks slowly around the outside of the chalk circle and retrieves the jewelled mask from the side of the Watchman’s crate. She walks down a side alley towards the Elysium yard and makes her way to the hotel. She puts the mask half on, resting it on top of her head.
She sees Laocoön in the hotel reception and follows him upstairs. They walk through a lobby and bump into Luba who quietly hands Cassandra a metal object, like a hairpin.
They enter Polymestor’s office and Laocoön carries on to the night club. Cassandra sits in a low chair near the window, pulling the mask over her face. Destined to be the king’s concubine, she's ready for her master, a cursed prize waiting to be claimed.
Agamemnon walks through the door and sees his exquisite reward. He sits at the desk and eyes her up and down approvingly. ‘Gripir’ by Danheim plays and she dances seductively for him, while he pours himself a whisky. He gets up to join her and she leads him around the room.
In the original play, Cassandra is held captive and forced to cavort for Agamemnon’s pleasure. In The Burnt City, she has the upper hand and takes control of the dance.
She positions Agamemnon in the low chair with his back to the window. She straddles him and looks over his shoulder through the glass. Laocoön is dancing in the night club and performing a strange ritual. His face is demonic and he approaches the window, smearing a stripe of blood across the glass, just behind Agamemnon.
Cassandra puts her hand on the window and feels Laocoön’s energy. She pulls out Luba's hairpin and holds it menacingly above the kings head, before putting it back in her pocket. She pulls him to his feet and drags him out of the office.
They exit the hotel and journey through the backstreets of Troy.
They stop in a seedy area full of arcade games. Along the wall is a series of three small booths with windows, like a peep show. A strange man with a sinister skin-mask dances in one of the windows. Agamemnon points his torch at him and the man stops and stares.
They continue towards Mycenae, marching through the narrow corridors, with Cassandra still wearing the jewelled mask. The stop every now and then to pull and push each other. Agamemnon shines his torch at the walls and they make shadow puppets.
Track 8 - The Conqueror’s Return
They stop at the mesh fence on the border to Mycenae. Cassandra takes off the mask and places it on Agamemnon. He turns away and walks towards his wife who’s waiting for him on the steel girder.
Cassandra follows on and stops in the middle of no-man’s-land. She understands that Agamemnon will be killed and is suddenly frightened. In the original play, she also prophesises her own death, which drives her insane.
She knows that she’s an unwanted guest and that Clytemnestra is secretly disgusted with her husband for bringing home a sex slave. She stands alone in the dark as the royal couple embrace on the girder. Looking up at the royal palace, she sees bursts of green and blue flashes above the long table. Apollo and Artemis are preparing to welcome home the king.
Cassandra walks to the hinterland, a nearby wooded area, and sees the Oracle kneeling in the sand. She’s singing a lullaby and Cassandra sits with her briefly. The two of them share an understanding. They have the gift of prophecy, but know that it’s really a curse.
The Oracle rises and carries a basket of antlers to the other side of the woods, where she drops them in heap. She walks to the bottom of the grand staircase and Cassandra follows her. She locates a large box containing a ceremonial cloak for Agamemnon and pulls it into position.
Track 9 - The Robe of Glory
The king and queen approach and the Oracle opens the box to reveal the cloak. At first, Agamemnon thinks that it’s too grandiose, but Clytemnestra convinces him to wear it. The Oracle ties it around his neck as Clytemnestra makes her way upstairs to the royal palace.
Agamemnon follows on and his enormous cape billows behind him. Cassandra and the Oracle unfurl the fabric as he rises, glancing at each other knowingly. He enters the palace and Cassandra climbs the stairs after him, unnoticed and without fanfare.
The king steps onto the table and walks towards his wife. Cassandra walks at the same slow pace, alongside the table. He reaches his wife and takes off the jewelled mask, laying it on the table. He embraces Clytemnestra and they lie down together. They’re covered by the cloak and Agamemnon falls into a deep sleep.
Cassandra picks up the mask, bowing with reverence as she does so. She takes it away gingerly, holding it in front of her like a ticking bomb.
She walks towards Apollo and Artemis, who are sitting together on the middle of the table, and passes the mask to Apollo. He accepts it with far less reverence and the two gods run away.
Track 10 - Come, Spirits of Vengeance
Cassandra leaves the palace and walks quickly down the grand staircase. She runs through no-man’s-land, stopping near the border as the Watchman points her towards the crate room. She passes through the crate room and down the corridors to Troy. Climbing the stairs, she enters Klub and joins the women of Troy who have answered Hecuba’s clarion call.
​
Loop 3 / Track 10
At the end of Loop 3, instead of returning to Troy, Cassandra enters the hinterland. She sees the Oracle again, kneeling down near the tether. She looks over at Cassandra and howls out in anguish, before crossing over the sandy floor and disappearing.
Cassandra stands in front of the Artemis shrine and bows down before it. She removes her dress and top, and stands topless in her grey underwear. She bows again towards the shrine, leaning forwards and backwards, over and over, flicking her hair repeatedly.
Eventually, she walks through no-man’s-land and up the staircase near the metal ladder, carrying her clothes. She enters the royal palace and walks towards the side of the curtained area by the table, joining a queue of performers all wearing the same grey underwear. The performers file out through the curtains and approach the long table, depositing their clothes and rotating their limbs against the cold concrete.
Polyxena
Brenda Lee Grech, Chihiro Kawasaki, Eléonore Cabrera, Maya Milet, Miranda Mac Letten, Valentine Giannopoulou, WenHsin Lee, Yilin Kong.
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Polyxena is Hecuba’s youngest daughter and a princess of Troy, the Trojan equivalent of Iphigenia.
She wears a shimmery, metallic, purple-blue halterneck dress for part of her loop, and later she wears a short black top and tight leggings.
Miranda Mac Letten
Chihiro Kawasaki
Start of Loop
Polyxena is lying in bed in her clothes after a particularly rough night. Her mother comes in and walks to a basin where she washes her hands and neck. Hecuba and her children are living in exile in the Elysium hotel as guests of Polymestor.
Hecuba approaches the bed and gently rubs her daughter’s leg to rouse her. Polyxena smiles wearily and Hecuba takes her by the hand, pulling her up to get ready for the day.
Polyxena holds her head, struggling with a hangover, before putting on her shoes. Hecuba wears an elaborate pink jacket and skirt and Polyxena pulls a slim black dress over her top.
Hecuba brings down a jewellery box from the top of the wardrobe, as her daughter sits in front of the mirror brushing her hair. She holds Polyxena’s hand and they walk through the greenhouse room and downstairs to the town square, ‘Come on, we'll be late’.
Polyxena leaves her mother in the square and meets her brother, Polydorus, in the clothes shop, Alighieri’s. Macaria is working behind the counter and they chat excitedly about the upcoming party. Polydorus picks up a gift box and teases his sister who wants to know what’s inside.
Track 1 - A Birthday Party
The two siblings head back to the town square to meet their mother and they play-fight as Polyxena tries to grab the box. Hecuba is sitting on top of a huge pile of broken chairs and Polyxena climbs up to join her.
Her mother gives her a ring and she beams with joy. Polydorus hands her the gift box and she pulls out a jacket, which she clutches to her chest. They climb down from the chairs and dance in the square as opera music plays in the background.
Polymestor turns up and walks through the crowd wearing a black jacket and cowboy hat. He presents Polyxena with a white flower and spins her round. Macaria joins the party and Eurydice enters with a tray of drinks. The guests laugh and chatter and raise a toast to the birthday girl.
Polymestor dances with Hecuba and Polydorus dances with Macaria, before Polyxena playfully pulls him away. Eurydice refills everyone’s glass and Luba is on the Palladium balcony, singing Offenbach’s ‘Belle nuit, ô nuit d'amour’.
As the party ends, the music and lighting shift and the atmosphere darkens. Macaria, Polyxena, Polymestor and Polydorus hold hands in a line, like a tug-of-war team, and they’re pulled backwards by an invisible force, with Polydorus at the front reaching out to his mother. Hecuba reaches back, but they pull Polydorus away, leaving her alone in the square.
The four of them walk to the Elysium yard. They stop by the crates and everyone is a bit tipsy. The three youngsters want to keep partying and Polymestor gives them permission to use his office, ‘Just be sensible’. Delighted with the offer, they run up the hotel stairs, as Polymestor heads off to the tenement courtyard.
Macaria sings a few notes of Luba’s aria in mock imitation and Polyxena squeals with laughter. The party in the square was pleasant enough, but now they’re looking for something a bit wilder.
Track 2 - Klubbing
They burst into Polymestor’s office and find Kampe sitting in a low chair, drinking from a cocktail glass. She’s prepared a few drinks for her guests and ‘Ghost Poet’ is pumping out of the speakers. She sits Polydorus down and tips a drink into his mouth, and the four of them dance in the middle of the office, spinning in circles.
Kampe takes Polydorus over to the drinks cabinet for an intimate chat and Polyxena and Macaria continue to dance. Their moves become more and more sensual and they seem to be falling for each other.
Cassandra enters from the night club and approaches Polydorus. She’s upset and tries to warn him about some impending danger. Apollo hovers in the background, but appears to go unnoticed. Polydorus is wide-eyed and innocent, but doesn’t seem too concerned.
Polyxena and Macaria come over and Polyxena is particularly irritated by the interruption. She tries to calm her sister down, but Cassandra won’t be silenced. She gestures to Apollo, but the girls don’t see him.
Cassandra and Apollo move on and Macaria tries to comfort Polyxena, who’s frustrated. She shrugs it off and Macaria pulls her into the night club to carry on the party.
Track 3 - Love Under Seige
‘Feel The Sunshine’ by Alex Reece plays and the two of them stroll onto the dancefloor. The song starts gently with a few simple notes between moments of silence. Polyxena is wearing a long black dress with flashes of purple and she stands under a spotlight, holding up her glass.
The girls sway seductively at first, but as the music speeds up, they perform a powerful and energetic duet.
Polyxena pulls Macaria away and leads her back to the office. They stop briefly by the desk and share a kiss. Luba walks in and catches them, but he puts a finger to his lips, as if to say ‘I won’t tell anyone’. They laugh and continue to the Aphrodite room.
Track 4
They kiss more passionately and make love on the bed. For a brief moment, Polyxena stands up against the headboard and holds up her hair. Macaria steps back as if she’s seen a ghost, and their romantic encounter comes to an end. Macaria walks away and Polyxena stops her.
She has the jacket that she was given as a present and she wraps it around her. Macaria gestures that she’s fine and they smile. She leaves and Polyxena falls back on the bed, heady and in love. She dances with herself, clutching her chest.
She sits at the dresser, tidies her hair and puts on some lipstick, before walking through the greenhouse room and heading downstairs. She continues to the tenement courtyard where she sees Cassandra. Her sister has had another premonition and again tries to warn her. She knows that something terrible is going to happen, and specifically to Polyxena, but Polyxena doesn’t believe her.
Hecuba arrives and tries to calm them both down. Cassandra repeats her warnings to her mother, but Hecuba is also sceptical.
The three of them walk to the main square and Hecuba looks worried. Troy is under siege and there’s a terrible tension in the town. The soundtrack groans and the lights flicker. A Greek soldier, the Watchman, enters the square under the Palladium sign, pushing a large, metal crate. Hecuba leads her daughters to Ciacco and sits them down inside.
The mood is gloomy and Hecuba tries to lift their spirits, ‘When are the three of us together? I have a bottle of whisky here, squirreled away.’ Macaria enters in a panic and the four of them look out of the window in trepidation. Hecuba picks up her glass and says, 'Rise up your stricken head from the dust. Lift up your throat. This is Troy. Come.’
Track 5 - The Breach
She leads the girls out of Ciacco and the Palladium doors swing open. The music rises and a bright light silhouettes three soldiers - Agamemnon, Neoptolemus and Patroclus. The Watchman joins them and they walk slowly into the square.
The two groups stand face-to-face. They sway gently from side-to-side, as a repetitive drone grinds through the speakers. They mirror each other until the men stop still and the women circle them.
Track 6 - The Sacrifice of Polyxena
Polyxena runs at Agamemnon and leaps onto his shoulders, wrapping her legs around his head. He’s startled and gestures for his men to lift her off. She falls back and stands in front of him, unbowed. She takes hold of her long hair and holds it vertically in the air, expressing her defiance and contempt for him. She slowly and purposefully flicks it in his face, three times. He shows little emotion and stands aside, stepping back into the shadows.
Neoptolemus takes his place and Polyxena readies herself, pulling off her top. The young soldier hesitates and she takes hold of his hands and pulls them towards her throat. Blood pours from her neck and she falls to the ground.
A rope dangles above her and Neoptolemus drags her legs towards it. He fastens it to her ankles and she’s pulled high into the sky by Patroclus, who’s operating a winch. As she’s hoisted upwards, a sacred plainsong echoes through the square, ‘All The Earth’ by Jessica Curry. Neoptolemus is immediately remorseful and falls to his knees, as Polxena swings back and forth, dripping with blood.
In the play ‘Hecuba’, the ghost of Achilles demands that the Greeks sacrifice Polyxena to bring forth the wind needed to sail back home. The character Talthybius gives a stirring account of Polyxena’s heroic death -
‘The son of Achilles took Polyxena by the hand and set her on the top of the mound. Then seizing his golden sword by the hilt, he drew it from its scabbard, signing the while to the picked young Argive warriors to hold the maid. But she, when she was ware thereof, uttered her voice and said: "O Argives, who have sacked my city!'
'Of my free will I die; let none lay hand on me; for bravely will I yield my neck. Leave me free, I do beseech; so slay me, that death may find me free; for to be called a slave amongst the dead fills my royal heart with shame.’
‘Then he, half glad, half sorry in his pity for the maid, cleft with the steel the channels of her breath, and streams of blood gushed forth.’
Valentine Giannopoulou
Eleonore Cabrera
Track 7 - A Mother’s Grief
The performers disperse and Hecuba is grief stricken, on her knees, head bowed, with her arms laid flat in front of her. The lifeless body of Polyxena hangs still in the darkness. Macaria approaches and helps lower her to the ground and they untie her legs.
Hecuba staggers away in a daze. She falls against the counter in Alighieri’s and performs a tragic dance of despair on the shop floor. Macaria cradles Polyxena and uses a cloth and a bowl of water to wipe the blood from her chest. She pulls a top over Polyxena’s naked torso, and then tries to lift her, but she struggles with the weight.
Patroclus approaches and carries her to Alighieri’s, laying her body on the counter as if it were an altar. Macaria covers her with a sheet and bows her head in mourning.
Track 8 - Metamorphosis
She moves away and Polyxena is left alone to lie in rest. The haunting orchestral tones of ‘Bluebeard’s Castle: Door 3 (Instrumental Version)’ play in the background. Nearby, Iphigenia and Patroclus are dancing in Ciacco. Polyxena lies still in the darkness.
Moments later, her body twitches. She raises an arm and slowly awakens from her death. Falling from the counter, she stands on all fours like a cat. She moves as if she’s malfunctioning and her body jerks. She twitches and jolts as she exits the shop, erratic and jumpy, but alive and reborn.
The notes for the show suggest that she’s transformed into a Fury. She makes her way to the middle of the square and sees the rope that she was hung from. She pauses for a moment at the memory and sees her own blood on the strap. She takes hold of the rope and runs in a large circle, swinging high into the air.
Macaria walks past briefly as Polyxena floats above the ground. Polyxena reaches out for her lover and almost touches her, but Macaria doesn't see her. Unaware, she moves on, heading for the arcade area.
Track 9 - Fury in the Streets
Polyxena lets go of the rope and runs down the side of Ciacco. She dances along the dark corridor behind the cafe. She pulls out a couple of bright blue lights which she waves around in the darkness. The lights dance like fireflies and she pretends to retrieve one from behind the ear of an audience member.
She makes her way to the tenement courtyard, where she sees her brother, topless and breathing heavily. They embrace and hold hands, sharing a moment of reflection, both of them resurrected as ghosts. Polydorus stretches his arms in a Jesus Christ pose and looks upwards at a bright spotlight.
Polyxena starts to run around the benches in the middle of the yard and Polydorus follows suit.
They part ways and Polyxena walks through the graffiti corridor and out into the Elysium yard.
A blue neon sign for ‘The Elysium’ flickers on the wall. Looking up, she sees Polydorus standing on the roof of the White Cyprus.
They look at each other for a moment and carry on their separate journeys. Polyxena climbs the hotel stairs, pulled by an unseen force towards the night club.
Track 10 - Come, Spirits of Vengeance
She walks in and the whole room is vibrating to loud techno music. Kampe is there and Macaria and Luba arrive shortly afterwards. The women pull members of the audience onto the dancefloor.
Polymestor walks in and he’s in a party mood. The women dance around him and he lusts after them. They form a circle and perform a ritualistic and cultish routine, praying and bowing, twisting and turning. Hecuba enters and prowls in the background, wearing a fur coat and moving purposefully around the room.
Suddenly, Polymester is attacked by the dancers. They spin him around, pawing at his face and pulling him to the floor. They fall on top of him, pinning him down, and Polyxena sits on his arm. Hecuba circles the mountain of bodies, before straddling Polymestor as he lies paralysed.
She howls in anger and sinks her nails into his face, pulling out his eyes. She holds them up to the sky, squeezing the juice from them, before throwing them to the ground. Polymestor screams in pain and rolls on the floor. He scrambles to the office next door holding his bloody face. The performers disperse in different directions and Kampe is left alone on the dancefloor.
Track 11 – The Wheel Comes Full Circle
Polyxena is the first of the women to leave the club and she staggers into the office. Polymestor is crawling on the floor and crying in agony, but Polyxena walks straight past him and falls against the wall, laughing. She's delirious and Macaria comes after her to see if she’s alright.
She gestures that she’s fine, but she’s breathing heavily and struggling to walk. She leans backwards on the desk and seems ecstatic. Macaria helps her towards the Aphrodite room.
She kneels down next to the dresser and vomits into a bin while Macaria rubs her back. This helps a little and the two of them smile at each other. Polyxena crashes out on the huge clamshell bed and Macaria leaves her curled up in a ball.
Polydorus
Ferghas Clavey, Jahmarley Bachelor, Jordan Ajadi, Sharol Mackenzie, Theo Arran, Timothy John Bartlett.
​
Polydorus is Hecuba’s youngest son. He wears grey trousers, a waistcoat and a cream button-up shirt.
In the play ‘Hecuba’, the character of Polydorus is a ghost. His death is the cause of the main conflict and he presents the prologue, explaining that he was sent to Thrace under the protection of King Polymestor, in case Troy fell to the Greeks.
Start of Loop
Polydorus bumps into his mother and Polyxena in the backstreets of Troy, as they head for the town square. He has to run to keep up and Hecuba teases him, ‘You're as slow as a turtle.’ Polydorus is cheeky and boyish and play-fights with his sister.
They reach the main square and the two children pull away, heading for the café, Ciacco. Eurydice is behind the counter and she serves them a couple of shots. They giggle as if they’re doing something naughty and knock back their drinks.
They move on to the clothes shop, Alighieri’s, where Macaria gives Polydorus a gift box to give his sister for her birthday. He spins it around playfully and Polyxena tries to grab it, but he pulls it away, laughing. The two girls sit on the counter and gossip about Polyxena’s upcoming party.
Track 1 - A Birthday Party
The two siblings return to the town square and see their mother sitting on top of a huge pile of broken chairs. Polyxena climbs up to join her and Hecuba gives her a ring. Polydorus follows on behind and gives his sister the gift box and everyone chatters excitedly.
The hotel maid, Luba, appears behind them on the Palladium balcony to sing an aria, adding a touch of elegance to the royal party. Eurydice comes out of Ciacco with a tray of drinks and the family dance in the square. Polymestor arrives and gives Polyxena a flower, bowing theatrically and spinning her round. Macaria is the last to appear and they all waltz in and out of each other’s arms.
The party ends and there’s an uneasy moment as Polymestor and the girls pull Polydorus away and Hecuba reaches out to stop him leaving. The lighting dims and flickers and a strange energy descends on the square. Hecuba is having a nightmare vision. Fearful and uncertain, she kneels on the floor in a state of panic.
Polyxena and Macaria pull Polydorus into the Elysium yard and the three of them stumble and laugh. Polymestor catches up with them and the youngsters surround him. They want to carry on the party and Polymestor happens to run a night club. He gives his blessing for them to use the club, ‘As long as you behave.’ He taps each of them on the head with his Stetson, before dropping it on Polyxena. The girls have no intention of behaving and run up the hotel stairs, with Polydorus in pursuit.
Polyxena and Macaria are smitten with each other and they pause on the landing to steal a kiss. Polydorus pats Macaria on the head to hurry her along and she rolls her eyes.
Track 2 - Klubbing
They pile into Polymestor’s office and Kampe is waiting for them, sitting in a low chair and holding a cocktail glass. Polyxena sits on her lap and Kampe pours a drink into her mouth. She hands everyone a glass and the four of them live it up. Polyxena and Macaria dance sensually in the middle of the office and Kampe takes Polydorus over to the drinks cabinet for a private conversation.
Towards the end of the party, Cassandra enters with Apollo in tow. The great god shadows Cassandra, but is unseen by the other performers. Cassandra has had terrible visions of the future and tries to warn Polydorus about some impending danger, but he’s nonplussed and doesn’t seem to understand.
Polyxena is annoyed by the interruption and tells her off. She chides Cassandra for scaremongering and being paranoid. Frustrated, Cassandra moves on and Polyxena returns to Macaria who comforts her. They share a romantic embrace and seem to be falling in love.
Polydorus leaves the girls behind and goes downstairs, through the hotel reception. He walks along the pitch black corridor behind Ciacco and enters the cafe through the back door.
Track 3 - A Vision
He dances behind the bar and stretches out across the counter. His mother is outside in the square, sitting at a table and he spins through the café towards her. She’s deep in thought and writing a letter to her husband, Priam. She's unaware of his presence and he floats around her like a ghost as she continues writing.
Crouching down, he pushes the pen that she’s holding. She senses something, but still doesn’t see him. He puts his head next to hers and she smiles. Suddenly, she has a terrible vision and stands up, raising her arms out in front of her, as she’s pushed backwards into Ciacco by an invisible force.
She calms down and returns to her seat, convinced that she must do something to protect her son. Polydorus reappears and this time Hecuba sees him. They embrace and Hecuba can’t hide her anxiety. She needs to get him away from Troy for his own safety. She leads him towards the Palladium on the other side of the square and directs him to a jewellery box that’s hidden at the top of the pile of chairs.
She takes him by the hand and leads him upstairs to Polymestor’s office. Polydorus wants to stay and fight and he pleads with her, ‘They need me on the front line,’ but Hecuba tells him it’s far too dangerous.
​
Track 4 - Safe Haven
They enter the office and Polymestor is behind his desk. Polydurus sits in a low chair, still holding the box of jewellery. He lifts the lid and the box glows yellow. He marvels at the contents, pulling out a golden head piece. Hecuba puts together a plan and Polymestor nods along. She gives him a letter and they drink a toast to their deal. As Polymestor raises his glass, he mutters under his breath, ‘To Moloch’.
Hecuba is apprehensive, but Polymestor reassures her. He walks to the side of the room and opens up a large cabinet, revealing a huge, glowing statue of Moloch. Polymestor stares at it with veneration, as Polydorus looks at his mother doubtfully.
Hecuba leaves and Polymestor is now in charge of her young son. He smiles wickedly and fixes him a drink. Polydorus takes a sip and grimaces. Polymestor laughs and tells him that he has a surprise for him, and he turns his chair to face the window.
He presses a switch on his desk and the curtains open. In the night club next door, Kampe is dancing sensually to ‘Nature Boy’ by Dennis Cruz. Looking demonic in a PVC cat-suit, she shifts her hips rhythmically from side to side and Polydorus is transfixed.
Track 5
Polymestor walks next door and joins Kampe on the dancefloor and Polydorus continues to watch through the window. He twists and jerks along to their dancing, but he’s awkward and distressed.
Behind him, at the back of the office, a huge man in dungarees enters and sits at the desk. His name is Kronos and he’s looking for Polymestor. Polydorus senses his presence and turns around. He walks over, acting tough for a moment, and stares him down, but Kronos juts his head forward and Polydorus flinches. Kronos stands up and approaches the boy, towering over him like a giant. He slaps his shoulder and Polydorus almost falls over.
Kronos moves next door and Polydorus watches as he plays out a strange power struggle with Polymestor. He takes over the dancefloor and performs a powerful solo routine before chasing after Polymestor and confronting him. Kronos seems to make some demand of him and then re-enters the office.
He takes off a necklace made of red thread and approaches Polydorus. The young boy is frozen with fear as Kronos slowly puts the thread around his neck. His body reacts and he spasms and faints, as Kronos turns away.
In the night club, Kampe helps Polymestor regain his composure. He returns to the office and joins Polydorus, putting a hand on his shoulder and telling him not to worry. He’s going to take him under his wing and make him a man.
Lifting up the corner of a rug, he reveals a section of glass floor looking down on the audience bar below. The audience is enjoying the entertainment on stage, oblivious to what’s happening above. Polymestor winks at Polydorus and slaps him on the back, ‘Time to show them what you can do!’
He heads off towards the storeroom, leaving Polydorus perplexed and alone in the office. He turns to the window and sees Kampe through the glass, beckoning him through to the night club.
He walks through and Kampe holds him gently. She smiles and directs him through another door, and he wanders off uncertainly. He walks down a flight of stairs and finds himself in Peep.
Track 6
Peep is like an underground cabaret bar from the Weimar era. The hosts are brazen and shameless and all-knowing. They know that they’re doomed and must live in eternal darkness, but they’re determined to enjoy their time in the underworld through laughter and music.
Polydorus watches the two hosts on stage regaling the crowd with an outrageous and nonsensical patter, ‘Being up this high, I feel like a king. Well, you look like a queen. I feel royal. Real? Filthy? Rich. Dreams, screams, nightmares, realities. Dreams. We all have them. Here in Peep, we like to let them slip out, drip out, trip out. What do you say? Is it time to make a dream a reality? Yes! What do you say, people of Peep? Yeah! Then. Let’s. Get. Real!’
They’ve been waiting for Polydorus and they welcome him on stage to join them for a number. Polydorus is in his regular clothes, but the two hosts are wearing bright red PVC military-style short jackets, black PVC skin-tight trousers and black boots.
Polydorus performs a marching dance to ‘Nautilus’ by Anna Meredith and the hosts march along-side him. They salute and celebrate the brave soldier, while pulling mock-serious faces. A gridwork of strobe lighting blazes above them in a rapid-fire sequence of flashes, as they get down on their knees and kiss his feet.
Polydorus climbs off the stage to a smattering of applause and the hosts wave him off with a wink, ‘Bang bang! You’re dead. And when they were up, they were up, and when they were down, they were down. And when they were only halfway up, they were neither up nor down. Visit us again soon! Born in Troy, raised in Peep!’
‘Well, I’d say we made that dream a reality. But will that reality become a nightmare? Just wait till you see what's going to happen to him’.
Track 7
Polydorus opens the door to exit the bar and sees Polymestor in the distance, casually leaning on a crate. He walks up to him and his new guardian greets him warmly. He’s determined to make him a man and starts to wrestle with him. They spar, feint and parry around the pile of crates. Polydorus plays along and pretends to be a charging bull.
As they wrestle, Polymestor pulls out a small vial. Forcefully, he gets Polydorus in a head lock and pours the contents into his mouth. His body slumps to the ground and Polymestor takes a moment to catch his breath. Finding a large trunk, he rolls the boy’s lifeless body into it and closes the lid.
Track 8 - The Sacrifice of Polydorus
He lifts the trunk onto a trolley and wheels it to the tenement courtyard. There’s a plastic sheet tucked under a door marked 'IIIIIIII’ and Polymestor unravels it across the square. He opens the trunk and dumps the body on the sheet.
At the other end of the square, Hecuba is climbing the staircase with Luba. She looks across and sees the body of her son in the distance. She breaks down in disbelief and Luba carries her away.
Door IIIIIIII opens and Kronos appears. Polymestor kneels down and prostrates himself, crying out ‘Hail Moloch!’ Kronos eagerly accepts Polymestor’s offering, dragging Polydorus into his room and slamming the door. Polymestor exits and for a moment the courtyard is still.
Nearby, Eurydice is cowering under the stairs. She watched in horror as Polydorus was swallowed up and she sheepishly crawls out. She approaches door IIIIIIII and knocks on it. Suddenly, Polydorus falls out and collapses on the floor. Eurydice kneels down to cradle his head, as ‘Someone Crazy’ by The Insects plays in the background.
Ferghas Clavey
Jordan Ajadi
In the original play, the ghost of Polydorus describes his own death – ‘Polymester killed me. This ‘friend’ tossed me dead into the ocean for the sake of gold, so he could keep Priam’s wealth for himself. My lifeless body washes ashore and washes back to sea with the waves’ endless ebb and flow, and remains unmourned, unburied.’
Full of grief, Eurydice places a pink flower in his hand and tenderly strokes his face. She cries softly before releasing him and walking away.
Track 9 - Fury in the Streets
Moments later, Polydorus opens his eyes. He rises as a ghost and performs a heart-breaking dance of death around the square, bouncing off the bench and spinning wildly. Kronos emerges from his room and sits on a garden chair to watch the show.
Polydorus pulls off his shirt and stumbles around as if he was drunk, falling over and running at the walls. He sees the trunk against a wall and is traumatised by it. He throws the flower in and slams it shut. He climbs onto the bench in the middle of the square, stretching out his arms towards a bright light that’s cutting through the blue mist.
Polyxena enters the square, climbing the stairs in the darkness. She leans out from the half landing, lying backwards through the balustrading with her long red hair brushing against the floor. Polydorus approaches and touches her gently. She rolls to the floor and they share a tender embrace.
Looking into each other’s eyes, they feel each other’s pain. The two siblings, brutally murdered, have come together in the afterlife as they perform an agonising dance around the square. Polyxena runs around the benches and her brother runs after her, faster and faster. The notes for the show suggest that they've been reborn as Furies.
Polyxena moves away and Polydorus continues his frantic journey. He rages through the graffiti corridor in a state of panic. He leans backwards over the stair and hangs upside-down, looking into the eyes of an audience member.
He bursts through the doors and advances through the backstreets of Troy, climbing the walls and scrambling along the beams at high level, as the audience below watches in awe. He raises his head above a beam so that it disappears above his naked torso.
He climbs onto the roof of the White Cyprus and looks down at the crates in the Elysium yard. He sees his sister again and she smiles. He continues to climb and bounce around the rooftops like a tomcat.
Track 10
He returns to the tenement courtyard and takes a shirt from a crate near the stairs, pulling it on. He walks under the landing and stops at a louvred door. Turning, he reaches out to an audience member and pulls her inside.
He’s a little shaky and looking for reassurance as he gently takes off the woman’s mask and hangs it on the wall. He gestures for her to sit on a low crate.
He tells the woman the parable of the lion cub, from ‘Agamemnon’, about a man who rears a lion in his house. As a cub, the lion is gentle, but when it’s fully grown, its feral nature asserts itself.
Polydorus whispers, ‘Once upon a time, a shepherd found a lion cub. Took it home. Let it suckle milk. Little lion cub with the lambs. Let it play with his young ones. How they loved it. Cuddled it. Fondly nuzzled it. And the old folk smiled to see it.’
'Scampering around. Lion cub, children and lambs here together. Happily at play. The shepherd nursed the cub with tender care, in the crook of his arm, or on his lap. Softly it would sleep. How he laughed when the lion licked his cheek. What a sight to see. Sweet little thing.’
‘But nature shall not be hidden. And in time, the day of the lion dawned over the whole family. Screams rolled out. And from under the doors, blood came running through.’
At the end of the parable, the lion has become a 'priest of ruin', having destroyed the entire household. Most scholars believe that the lion cub represents Helen, and that its growth and final rampage represent her activities in Troy.
Polydorus reaches into a box for something to place around the woman’s neck, a wing milagro on a red string, ‘This will keep you safe’. He places her mask back on and ushers her back into the tenement courtyard.
Macaria
Ally Clarke, Brenda Lee Grech, Eléonore Cabrera, Fern Grimbley, Katie Lusby, Leal ZieliÅ„ska, Lou Ditaranto, Sharol Mackenzie, Stephanie Nightingale, WenHsin Lee, Yilin Kong.
​
In Greek mythology, Macaria is the goddess of blessed death. When it’s time for a mortal to die, she has the power to give them a gentle and calm death with no pain. She resides in the underworld and her parents are Hades and Persephone.
In The Burnt City, Macaria is Polyxena's lover and she works in the upmarket clothes shop, Alighieri's. The shop is filled with mannequins dressed in beautiful gowns and piles of elegant, white boxes on a black-and-white chequered floor. At the feet of one of the mannequins, there are dozens of balls of red string.
Macaria wears a short, blue jacket, over a turquoise mesh top and loose black-gold, glittery trousers.
The dramaturg for the show, Emma Cole, writes in her book, ‘Punchdrunk on the Classics’ –
‘Macaria was Polyxena's lover and one of a collection of resident characters who were named after Underworld figures from Greek mythology, including, for example, Askalaphos and Zagreus. The character was named Penthesilea in rehearsals due to the directors having an earlier interest in representing a female soldier within the world of The Burnt City.’
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Start of Loop
Macaria is with Polyxena in the Aphrodite room at the Elysium hotel. They’re in their party clothes and they crash out on the bed. After a moment, Macaria gets ups and stumbles out of the room, leaving Polyxena to sleep.
The reset music plays and Macaria walks down the hotel stairs and returns to her shop, Alighieri’s. Her mind seems to have been wiped and she smiles with a sense of hopeful expectation. She opens the side door and there’s a feeling of optimism for the new day.
Her counter is a mess and covered in ash, but she doesn’t seem surprised. She folds a long black sheet and puts away a wreath, without acknowledging what they signify. She spends time brushing the ash from the counter and wiping it clean. Only when she picks up Polyxena’s leather jacket, does she pause for thought. She smells the jacket and smiles, before putting it in a large, white gift box.
She gets out a post-it note and writes a message, ‘Polyxena, Happy Birthday. Big love, Macaria XXX’.
Polydorus enters the shop and they chat about Polyxena’s party. He’s looking for a gift and Macaria puts the box on the counter. Polyxena runs in and wants to know what’s going on. Polydorus pushes here out of the shop, shaking his head. He grabs the box and heads out.
Polymestor appears through the side door, wearing a cowboy hat and fur coat. He’s also doing some last-minute shopping, ‘I have a bit of a problem, I’ve got this birthday party out there.’ Macaria finds a white flower on her counter and it seems to fit the bill. He puts the flower in his mouth and struts out the door.
Track 1 - A Birthday Party
Macaria does a bit of sorting and then leaves the shop to join the party. The guests are drinking and dancing and she makes a beeline for Polyxena. They spin in and out of each other’s arms and everyone swaps partners in a playful line dance.
Luba is on the balcony wearing a fur coat and singing theatrically, ‘Les Contes d'Hoffmann: Barcarolle’. The guests raise their glasses towards her in admiration.
The party ends and Polyxena and Macaria drag Polydorus to the Elysium yard. Polymestor follows and he sees that the kids want to carry on the party. He tries to calm them down and says that they can use his office, but only if they behave. Polyxena snatches his Stetson hat and puts it on Polydorus. The three of them promise to be good and run into the hotel.
Track 2 - Klubbing
They climb the stairs and enter the office, where they find Kampe waiting for them with a tray of drinks. The heavy beats of ‘Ghost Poet’ (Schlepp Geist Remix) by Elfgrin drift in from the club next door and the four of them raise their glasses and dance in a circle, laughing and flirting.
Kampe crushes a lotus flower and places a piece in each of their mouths. They all smile ecstatically as the drug takes effect. Kampe pulls Polydorus to the side of the room for an intimate chat and Macaria dances with Polyxena. There’s a potent spark between them and they look deep into each other’s eyes, swaying sensually.
Next door in Klub, Cassandra is dancing a battle with Apollo. She enters the office and tries to warn Polyxena that something’s wrong. Apollo moves quietly in the shadows and only Cassandra seems to be aware of his presence. Polyxena isn’t interested and wants to carry on the party, brushing her sister away. Cassandra leaves, frustrated, and Polyxena continues to fall in love with Macaria.
Brenda Lee Grech
Katie Lusby
Track 3 - Love Under Seige
They move to the club and perform a passionate routine on the dancefloor to ‘Feel The Sunshine’ by Alex Reece. They start slowly and as the music builds, they dance with more and more energy.
Polyxena seems to be in charge and she pulls Macaria back into the office. She pushes her against the desk and kisses her. Luba walks in and they look guilty, but he puts his finger to his lips to show that he can keep a secret. The three of them grin conspiratorially.
Track 4
Polyxena takes Macaria to the Aphrodite room and they dance in and out of each other’s arms. Macaria takes off her jacket and they climb onto the bed.
Polyxena playfully holds her hair above her head and Macaria pulls back, as if she’s seen something terrible. There’s a moment of confusion, but she assures Polyxena that she’s ok. She takes Polyxena’s leather jacket and kisses her goodbye, as she heads back to her shop.
Like several of the characters, Macaria seems to have prophetic powers. Or possibly her subconscious remembers something from a previous loop. It feels like prophecy, but is just a repressed and hazy memory.
She walks down the hotel stairs, through the Elysium yard and returns to her shop. She’s shaken and sits against the window for a moment to recover. She returns to her counter and puts Polyxena’s jacket to one side.
Eurydice and Zagreus are running around in the yard outside, enjoying a date and laughing as they head to the arcade area. Macaria thinks of Polyxena as she busies herself behind the counter.
Moments later, Polyxena walks through the square with Hecuba and Cassandra. The three of them seem anxious and the girls turn to their mother for reassurance.
A Greek soldier, the Watchman, walks through the Palladium doors and the women back away. Hecuba takes her daughters to Ciacco and from her shop, Macaria can sense a rising tension in the town.
There’s a disturbing, low murmur and the lights flicker on and off. A siren-like drone sounds out across the square and Macaria steps outside. The Watchman is drawing a large chalk circle and she knows that something terrible is about to happen. She rushes over to Ciacco and sees Hecuba and her daughters at the window. She bursts into the café as Hecuba calls out a rallying cry, ‘Lift up your throat. This is Troy!’
Track 5 - The Breach
The four women head out and stand in the square to wait for the invaders. The Palladium doors open and a blazing white light shines through. Agamemnon walks forward with his three henchmen, Neoptolemus, Patroclus and the Watchman.
The men stand opposite the women and the two groups sway back and forth in synchronicity. The women are apprehensive, but they grow in confidence and stare down their enemies. The men circle the women, before the women turn the tables and circle the men. They march and then run, as they spin around the soldiers, showing their indignance and defiance.
Track 6 - The Sacrifice of Polyxena
Polyxena runs at Agamemnon and leaps onto him, straddling his shoulders and smothering his face. Neoptolemus and Patroclus lift her off and she comes back at him, holding her hair vertically in the air and flicking it in his face repeatedly. Agamemnon remains impervious. Polyxena is to be sacrificed to appease the ghost of Achilles.
Neoptolemus approaches and she accepts her fate. She pulls off her top and drops it to the ground. Macaria is standing in the shadows and she watches in horror, as Polyxena grabs the soldier’s hand and pulls it into her stomach. Blood bursts over her naked torso and she collapses to the ground. Hecuba falls to her knees along-side her, putting her head in her hands and curling up in despair.​
At once, Neoptolemus is filled with remorse and holds onto Polyxena’s lifeless body. The Watchman attaches a rope around her ankles and she’s winched upwards into the sky. The crowd disperses and her limp body hangs in the darkness.
Track 7 - Funeral of a Princess
Eventually, her body is lowered to the ground and left in the middle of the square. Macaria is overcome with sadness. She washes blood from Polyxena’s body and pulls on her top to cover her nakedness.
She cradles her head and tries to lift her up, but struggles under the weight. Patroclus takes pity on her and carries Polyxena to Alighieri’s, laying her to rest on the counter.
The fitament becomes an altar and Macaria pulls a black sheet over her body. She climbs onto the counter and looks down at her lover, rubbing her hands together and sprinkling ash over her body. She pulls the black sheet over Polyxena’s face and places a small wreath on her head.
Track 8
Macaria walks aimlessly out of the shop and wanders to the Danaids tenement, where she sits quietly at the table, unsure what to do. Crying gently, she looks at a ring on her finger.
On one side of the tenement is a wall with a number of basins and mirrors. Each mirror has its own tube lighting and the lights flicker on and off at different moments, in time with the sombre music.
Macaria approaches one of the mirrors and catches the eye of an audience member in the reflection. She turns around and reaches out to touch his face. She strokes his mask with tears in her eyes, desperate for a human connection.
She walks out to the town square, past the cafe. The ghost of Polyxena is floating in circles around the square, lit up by an eerie blue glow, holding onto the rope that she was hung from by the Greeks.
Macaria walks past, but doesn’t seem to see her. Polyxena reaches out her hand and they’re inches apart, but they don’t touch. Macaria moves away and the moment is gone.
Track 9
She walks through the Palladium doors and into the arcade area, stopping at a door near the DDR machine, under a painted sign that reads ‘Box Office’. She unlocks the door and turns around. Holding out her hand, she pulls an audience member into the room.
She gently removes the man’s mask and places it on a shelf, which is labelled ‘SECTION 16’. This may be a reference to ‘Canto 16’ of Dante’s Inferno which describes the third level of the seventh circle of hell.
She leads the man through what appears to be a storage room for costumes, filled with bric -a-brac and crates of dress fabric. She stops briefly to place a fabric red rose in his hand and leads him through a couple of dark corridors. They enter a large garage full of shelves and workbenches and auto repair equipment. High up on the wall is a neon sign that reads ‘Ferry’s Autos’.
The name is a reference to Ferry Porsche who was part of the famous Porsche family of car designers. It also recalls the Ferryman of Hades, Charon, who carried the dead across the rivers Acheron and Styx.
On the right of the garage is a racing car under a tarpaulin. On the left is a workshop filled with tools and car accessories. There are racing posters on the wall, including one for ‘Le Mans 70’, and a sign which reads ‘Open nights till 10pm’.
Beyond the workshop, is a pair of doors that open into the town square and to the left of these is a strange fort made out of cardboard boxes. Macaria walks towards the wall of boxes and crouches down. She pulls open a flap of fabric and reveals a small opening, which she crawls through. The man crawls after her, still holding the flower, and they end up in a small shelter with fabric walls.
There are a couple of sleeping areas laid out on the floor with blankets and cushions, and in between them is a shrine with a small statue of a goddess. Hanging from the ceiling are hundreds of grey, tin cups, strung up with string. Macaria sits down on one side and gestures for the man to sit opposite.
She looks at the statue and says, ‘I’m named after her. Macaria. But I’m not divine.’ She mentions Polyxena and her safe passing into the underworld, ‘Her kiss was a gift. I should never have kissed her’. She says that she spent a lot of time in the garage, talking about cars, because it’s what Polyxena loved to do.
The man is holding the flower and Macaria guides his hand to the shrine, where he drops it onto a small pile of similar flowers. She takes his hand and delicately traces her finger along his palm.
She whispers a prayer, before taking a grey cup and carefully wiping it with a cloth. She places it in the man’s hand and fills it with liquid from a small bottle. He knocks it back and discovers that it’s whisky. She empties the last drops over the shrine and reaches up to hang the mug on a hook with the others, gently pushing it to rattle them. The mugs seem to represent the hundreds of dead souls who pass through ‘Ferry’s Autos’ into the underworld.
There are tiny holes in the fabric walls and pin-pricks of light shine through. The lights and music fade out as Macaria holds out her arms and hugs the man for a long time. He hugs her back and is overcome by the intimacy of the scene, as she leads him back out through the cardboard tunnel. She retrieves a mask from a box and places it over his face. Opening the door to the town square, she whispers ‘Thank you’, and ushers him out.
Track 10 - Come, Spirits of Vengeance
A few moments later, Macaria exits the garage through the same doors and makes her way to Klub.
The music is pounding and she joins Polyxena, Cassandra, Kampe and Luba as they pull audience members onto the dancefloor.
Polymestor enters and the women fawn over him. He watches lustfully as they dances in circles. There’s a glint in their eyes as they stroke his face and spin him round, groping and clawing with increasing aggression. Hecuba prowls in the background like a wolf and the air is heavy and throbbing with hate.
Suddenly, the women pounce on Polymestor and drag him down. The room goes dark and there are flashes of strobe lighting as the music becomes a cacophony.
He's pinned to the ground and Hecuba climbs on top of him. They hold him down and Hecuba grabs at his face and roars. She rips out his eyes and Polymestor roars back.
The women pull away and Polymestor rolls on the floor, covered in blood. He crawls through the audience towards his office, crying in pain. Hecuba stands in the middle of the room holding his eyes in triumph.
Track 11 - The Wheel Comes Full Circle
Macaria sees Polyxena leave the night club and runs after her. They pass Polymestor who’s flailing on the floor, and stop briefly at the desk. Polyxena leans back and she seems deliriously happy, but very drunk. Macaria pulls her to the Aphrodite room, where she vomits in a bin as Macaria rubs her back.
They smile at each other like naughty teenagers and they seem remarkably unfazed considering the horrific attack they’ve just abetted. Polyxena falls asleep on the bed and Macaria walks back to Alighieri’s, as the reset music plays.​
​Askalaphos
Andrea Carrucciu, Emily Terndrup, Fania Grigoriou, Folu Odimayo, Fred Gehrig, Isaac Ouro-Gnao, James Finnemore, Jordan Ajadi, Jude Monk McGowan, Luigi Nardone, Ryan O'Neill, Timothy John Bartlett.
​
Askalaphos runs the flower shop, Hesperides, and has a side-line in drug-dealing. He wears a 70s style patterned jumper underneath a golden velvet jacket with golden trousers. The lapels on his jacket are lined with neon lights.
The notes for the show say that Askalaphos works under Polymester and creates the ‘Lotus Flower’, the drug of choice for Trojans, bringing them both pleasure and despair. He worships daily to Apollo and dreams of metamorphosing into a bird and flying away from the darkness of Troy.
His shop is full of plastic flowers and all his stock is fake, but he’s trying desperately to grow real plants. There’s a book full of pressed flowers in his shop and research papers on his desk dedicated to floriculture. His notes suggest that he has some of the last dried remnants of plant life in Troy. On his counter is a small shrine to Demeter, the goddess of the harvest.
He has a book full of illustrations by Lilley and Midgley called, ‘A Book of Studies in Plant Form with Some Suggestions for their Application to Design’.
He also occupies a room on the first floor, next to the Aphrodite room, which contains a large greenhouse. The room is filled with strange scientific equipment and horticulture paraphernalia. Askalaphos spends time here studying plants and carrying out pharmaceutical experiments.
The greenhouse is full of empty plant pots and trays full of soil. He keeps a jotter where he records his attempts to grow plants and seeds, but each page ends with the word ‘FAILED’. He has a single, real plant in a little glass case which he keeps locked in a cabinet.
In Greek mythology, Askalaphos is the custodian of the orchard of Hades. He tells the other gods that Persephone has eaten pomegranate seeds in the underworld. According to some sources, Persephone changes Askalaphos into a short-eared owl by sprinkling him with water from the river Phlegethon and, as an owl, he becomes the familiar bird of Hades.
Start of Loop
Askalaphos starts his loop in Hesperides, sitting in a low chair and reading a book. Cassandra walks in, on her way to the tenement courtyard, and he gives her a fake flower. She smiles and heads off to place it on a shrine to Apollo.
He walks upstairs to the greenhouse room and spends time mixing a new drug at his desk, before taking it back to his shop. He sits back in his low chair and squeezes a few drops onto his tongue from a pipette.
Track 1 / Loop 3 only
He returns upstairs to the greenhouse room. As he enters, he sees Persephone circling the greenhouse and he pretends to accidentally bump into her at the entrance. ‘Hello again’ he says with a smile and she recognises him.
Holding out his hand, he leads her into the greenhouse. She’s holding a small glass dome which contains a tiny seedling and she passes it to him. He smiles and turns to open a cabinet, pulling out a similar, larger dome. His dome contains a real plant, possibly the last of its kind in Troy. She looks at it in wonder and becomes ecstatic. Askalaphos backs away and she starts to shake and twist with excitement. She fills the room with a blissful energy and slowly slides to the floor.
She recovers and gives him back his plant, wandering off in a daze. He puts the plant back in its cabinet, locking it shut. He sits at his desk and returns to his drug paraphernalia.
Isaac Ouro Gnao
Folu Odimayo
Track 2
He gets up and heads for the stairs. On the way to the Aphrodite room, he stops on a small balcony overlooking his shop. Through the hanging drapes, he can see the foliage of his fake plants rising from below.
Aegisthus appears in the shop, climbing the furniture and dancing amongst the flowers. Askalaphos takes a handful of blue petals and scatters them over him. He picks up a small bouquet and Aegisthus stands on a cabinet to grab it from him, before disappearing into the room below.
Track 3
Askalaphos returns to Hesperides. Aegisthus is gone and he stands behind the counter, tidying and preparing bouquets. Every now and then, he squeezes a droplet from a pipette onto his tongue.
He sprinkles petals onto a large circular tray which is decorated with a couple of painted owls. He clears up the petals and turns to a small wooden drawer on the side of his counter, which appears to be a shrine to Demeter, mother of Persephone.
He opens the drawer and delicately rearranges a series of objects, including a feather and a small bottle. His movements are precise and ritualistic. He closes his eyes and quietly prays.
Suddenly, Apollo appears behind him out of the darkness. He approaches silently and caresses his face.
Askalaphos squeezes another droplet from his pipette and falls into delusions. When he opens his eyes, Apollo has gone. He puts the little wooden box back in its place against the wall.
Track 4
Still in a state of rapture, he walks calmly to a locked door at the side of his shop. He turns to face an audience member and slowly holds out his hand. He leads the woman into a small room and locks the door behind them.
The room is full of flowers, in bunches on the walls and hanging from the ceiling, all strangely colourless. There’s a workbench containing small pots of paint and brushes, where Askalaphos paints his fake flowers.
He takes the woman’s mask and hangs it on a hook. He gestures for her to sit on a round bar stool at the workbench and sits next to her. Picking up a small blue ball, he crushes it into a jar and mixes it with water into a paint. He paints the petal of a small white flower and hands over the brush for the woman to finish it off.
Suddenly he looks pained and leans over. He lowers the shoulder of his jacket and there’s a hole in his shirt, exposing his back. There’s a raw patch of skin which is pock-marked with tiny holes, a few of which have feathers sticking out of them. Grimacing, he slowly pulls out one of the feathers and hands it to the woman. He asks her to keep it safe and he clasps her fingers around it.
Standing up, he says, ‘I only wanted to be like them. I only wanted to be like the gods’.
He leads her to a different door and gently places her mask over her face.
Ushering her out, he whispers, ‘I flew too close to the sun’. He clasps her hand, ‘Be safe’.
The scene references the mythical story of Askalaphos being turned into an owl, as a punishment for telling the gods that Persephone had eaten pomegranate seeds in the underworld. The tale is told by Ovid in ‘Metamorphoses’ -
‘Demeter was resolved to win her daughter, Persephone, back from Hades. Not so fate permitted, for the girl had broken her fast and wandering, childlike, through the orchard trees from a low branch had picked a pomegranate and peeled the yellow rind and found the seeds and nibbled seven.
The only one who saw was Orphne's son, Askalaphos. He saw and told, in spite, and by his tale stole her return away. The Queen of Hell, Persephone, groaned in distress and changed the tale-bearer into a bird. She threw into his face water from Phlegethon, and lo! A beak and feathers and enormous eyes!
Reshaped, he wears great tawny wings, his head swells huge. A loathsome bird, ill omen for mankind, a skulking screech-owl, sorrow's harbinger. That tell-tale tongue of his no doubt deserved the punishment.’
Track 5
Some time later, Askalaphos exits the room and returns to his shop, where he splits his time between arranging flowers and taking drugs.
He heads upstairs and sits at his desk in the greenhouse room.
Track 6 - The Sacrifice of Polyxena
Kampe enters, dressed in black PVC, and asks Askalaphos for two doses. He prepares a concoction, taking great care with his pipette and tweezers, and gives Kampe her hit. She falls to the floor, intoxicated, laughing and sliding around under the table.
The delicate plainsong of ‘All The Earth’ by Jessica Curry drifts in from the town square below, which means the body of Polyxena is being hoisted into the air as Kampe rolls on the floor. She gets up and dusts herself down, before heading out.
Track 7
A moment after Kampe leaves, Polymestor shows up. He looks at Askalaphos imperiously and says, ‘I wish to make use of your special talent. Make it strong. Like last time.’ He gives Askalaphos a small case and he squeezes a couple of drops into it. Polymestor clips it shut and heads off to find Polydorus.
Askalaphos walks back to his shop. He arranges a few bouquets before heading into the backstreets and along a dark corridor. He stops outside a dishevelled tent, next to a couple of tatty chairs and a radio. He drops a couple of drops from his pipette into an old tea pot and moves on.
Track 8
He walks towards the arcade area and disappears behind a locked door, before popping up in one of the peep-show booths. Along-side him is Aegisthus, who’s wearing a creepy skin mask and performing to a crowd of onlookers. Askalaphos passes him one of his pills and Aegisthus puts it in his pocket for later.
Askalaphos returns to his shop and someone has made a mess, covering the floor with red petals. He shakes his head and clears them up. Returning to his counter, he carefully arranges some flowers in a small bouquet.
Hades comes in, hoping to find a gift for Persephone. Askalaphos presents him with the bouquet and Hades smiles, ‘They’re perfect’.
He heads off and Askalaphos takes a break. He sits in his low chair and swallows a few drops from his pipette, falling into a drug-induced stupor. After a moment he opens his eyes and approaches an audience member. Putting his hand on her shoulder, he stares at her and whispers, ‘Are you real?’
Track 9 - Seduction
He goes back to his counter and moves a few objects around, clearing a space. Moments later, Iphigenia and Patroclus crash through the doors, dancing and holding hands. Iphigenia pushes her new admirer backwards over the counter and kisses him passionately. Askalaphos watches nonchalantly as they dance out of the shop, laughing. He reorders his things and carries on with his day.
He walks out from behind his counter and approaches an audience member. Taking her by the hand, he leads her to the locked door at the side of his shop. He pulls her in and performs the same 1:1 scene as before.
The woman is released through a back door, near the Elysium yard, just as Polyxena and Polydorus are raging through the backstreets.
Track 10 - Come, Spirits of Vengeance
Askalaphos returns to his shop and sits down to read his book. Outside in the town, strange forces are gathering in the main square.
Luba
Alison Monique Adnet, Ally Clarke, Eric Jackson Bradley, Fania Grigoriou, Jahmarley Bachelor, Jayla O'Connell, Maya Milet, Omar Gordon, Paul Zivkovich, Stephanie Nightingale, Steven James Apicello.
Luba is a maid at the Elysium hotel, working for Polymestor. She is the trusted confidant of Queen Hecuba who is a guest and captive at the hotel. Luba’s character is partly based on Therapaina from the original play by Euripides.
Luba is also partly based on the Cretan princess, Ariadne, with Polymestor fulfilling the role of Theseus. There’s a suggestion that the two of them have a shared history and at some point, Polymestor abandoned Luba and betrayed her, as Theseus abandoned Ariadne.
Luba is played by both male and female performers and she wears a transparent lime green, plastic tabard, with a flowery, long-sleeved mesh top underneath. She sometimes wears a woollen coat and turban. It’s possible that she was an opera singer in a former life.
Luba is the only character in the show whose name is not taken from Greek mythology. Her name comes from a replicant character in ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’ In the early shows, at Polyxena’s party, Luba sang the same operatic aria that her namesake performs in the book. Her plastic apron echoes the outfit worn by the Luba figure, Zhora the Replicant, in ‘Blade Runner’.
Start of Loop
Luba washes her face in the storeroom next to Polymestor’s office. She walks along the hotel corridor and heads for the stairs.
At the top of the stairs is a water dispenser. The front of the dispenser is decorated with a large, illuminated image of a waterfall, possibly one of the rivers of the underworld. A similar image appears in a painting in the hotel reception.
Luba drinks a cup of water and leans against the wall to catch her breath. She walks downstairs and stops in the reception area. She pulls a strange, woollen coat over her party dress and wanders out into the Elysium yard.
Aegisthus is sitting on a crate. He’s topless and looks unwell. Luba comforts him with a hand on the shoulder and points him towards the hotel. He saunters off and she heads to the town square and Ciacco, where she locates a large, elaborate jacket that’s hanging on a hook. The jacket belongs to Hecuba and Luba straightens it out.
She leaves the café and bumps into Eurydice who’s turning the sign on the door. She’s arriving for work in a smart tweed coat, and they smile at each other as Eurydice prepares for the day ahead.
Luba takes Hecuba’s jacket into the square and sees her queen by a market cart. They greet each other warmly and Luba helps her into the jacket.
Hecuba is throwing a birthday party for Polyxena and she discusses it with Luba. She gestures to the balcony above the Palladium and asks if Luba will give a performance. Hecuba climbs to the top of a pile of broken chairs and Luba heads out to the arcade area. She walks to a door marked ‘Stage Door’ and disappears inside.
She climbs a staircase and ducks through an opening onto the Palladium balcony, over-looking the square.
Track 1 - A Birthday Party
Polyxena and Polydorus climb the chairs to be with their mother and they all turn to look up at Luba and wave. Polyxena opens a gift box from Polydorus and pulls out a leather jacket. Eurydice comes out of Ciacco with a tray of drinks and Polymestor arrives wearing a cowboy hat.
A spotlight picks out Luba on the balcony and she sings for the guests in the square below. She sings the ‘Barcarolle’ from the Offenbach opera, ‘Les Contes d'Hoffmann’ and the guests dance around the square. They each grab a glass and raise a toast, turning to applaud Luba’s glorious singing.
In the early shows, Luba would stand on a chair in the middle of the square and sing ‘La Vie En Rose’. Later, she appeared on the balcony, and sang the aria ‘Orfeo: Che faro senza Euridice’ from Gluck's opera 'Orfeo ed Euridice’.
The party ends and Polydorus is pulled away by Polymestor, Polyxena and Macaria. The two girls are laughing, but Hecuba looks worried. She’s left alone in the square and the music starts to distort.
Hades appears and sprinkles ash on the ground as he looks up at Luba and stretches out his arms. The lighting flashes chaotically and the soundtrack breaks down into a cacophony. Luba has a fit and thrashes her body about on the balcony, as Hecuba kneels on the ground, bewildered and frightened.
Hades disappears through the Palladium doors and the lighting and soundtrack return to normal. Luba continues singing and reaches the end of her aria as if nothing has happened. Hecuba calms herself and walks over to a market stall.
Track 2
Luba exits the ‘Stage Door’ and heads for the Elysium yard. She enters the hotel reception and changes into her work clothes, before sitting behind the front desk and sorting out some paperwork.
A guest register on the desk suggests that a party of four – ‘Priss Stratton +3’ – are staying in the ‘Athena Room’. Priss Stratton is a character from ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep’, and the Athena Room is upstairs and contains a huge cage filled with dozens of toy owls.
Three of the hotel rooms reference the three goddesses, Aphrodite, Athena and Hera, who propositioned Paris in the ‘Judgement of Paris’. The décor in each room reflects what each goddess promised Paris to gain his favour.
Luba walks upstairs and suddenly stops still in the corridor between the Aphrodite room and Polymestor’s office. Unlocking the door to a small closet, she turns to face an audience member.
She pulls the man into the tiny, dark space. The back of the closet is a fabric wall with dozens of pockets that contain hotel slippers. Luba takes the man’s mask and tucks it into one of the pockets. There’s a small shelf with some bric-a-brac, including a plastic Maneki-neko with a waving paw.
Luba places her hands on the man’s shoulders to reassure him. She smiles and he relaxes. She picks up a ball of red yarn and pulls out a couple of feet of thread before cutting it from the ball, ‘I always carry a ball of thread, you never know when you might need it.’
She holds the man’s hand and gently winds the thread around his fingers, ‘You can use it to make a bracelet for a loved one. Tie a birthday present. Moor a ship, so it won’t sail away. Always remember to tie the ends. It stops them from fraying.’
​
In the original story of Ariadne, she's betrayed by Theseus who sails away from the island of Naxos and abandons her.
Luba takes the string from the man's fingers and places it in the palm of his hand, closing his fingers around it. She tells him to ‘keep it safe’. She looks at the back of his hand and remarks, ‘You have beautiful veins. Like a web. They’re like pieces of string filled with blood.’ She traces a vein up his arm and then holds both his arms, admiring them.
She looks again at the ball of yarn and suddenly becomes animated. Possibly it’s triggered a painful memory and she looks at the man as if she recognises him, blustering and holding him more forcefully, ‘Who are you?’ She holds him by the shoulders and spins him round in circles, pushing him backwards.
The back wall of the closet opens up into another tiny cupboard that’s even darker and contains a large web of red rope. The web stretches as the man is pushed into it and Luba calls out in a loud voice, ‘Next time, there won’t be a web to catch you!’ The music rises as she spins him around and walks backwards into the web herself. A red bulb behind the web illuminates her in an eerie glow and she continues to rant.
She pulls him back into the main cupboard and the music slows. She turns to the little shelf and places her hand on the Maneki-neko to stop it waving and at the same time, the music stops. She holds a finger to her lips and sees that the man is a little shaken, ‘Are you okay?’ He nods and she reassures him, ‘You’ll be safe now.’ She retrieves his mask and shows him the door.
Track 3 - Love Under Seige
She exits the closet and enters the Aphrodite room to straighten the bed sheets and do some tidying. Crouching down, she slides a small box from under the bed, which contains a creepy face mask. She takes the mask downstairs to the arcade area, where she leaves it in one of the peep-show booths.
She heads back upstairs and walks through the hotel corridor to Polymestor’s office. Polyxena and Macaria are leaning against the desk and sharing a passionate kiss. Luba smiles and puts her finger to her lips as if to say, ‘I won’t tell anyone’. The two girls laugh and continue their romantic liaison in the Aphrodite room.
Track 4 - Safe Haven
Luba does some sorting in the storeroom. Polymestor enters the office next door and sits at his desk. Hecuba and Polydorus walk in shortly after and they discuss something serious in hushed tones. Luba lurks in the shadows for a moment, spying on her superiors. Polydorus sits in a chair, holding a box of jewellery.
Luba heads back through the hotel and enters the greenhouse room. Kronos passes briefly and they exchange a look. She sits in the greenhouse and her see-through apron glows fluorescent green under the UV lighting. She does a bit of rummaging and looks through the detritus on the shelves. Picking up a cup, which also shines bright green, she uses it to scoop a small amount of black sand and slowly pours it onto the floor.
She handles a ball of red thread, pulling it through her teeth and wrapping it into a smaller ball. She puts the ball in the cup and heads off.
Track 5 - The Breach
She walks downstairs to the tenement courtyard. Eurydice and Zagreus have just left in a hurry and there’s a strange energy spreading through the town.
Luba stands on the bench in the middle of the square and looks up. She looks to the sky and a bright, colourful spotlight suddenly shines down on her. A loud drone sounds out in the distance, like a warning siren, and there’s a burst of strobe lighting. Luba falls from the bench and onto the floor as if she’s been struck by lightning.
She stumbles away and stops to look at a red cable fixed to the wall by the side of the yard. She follows the cable along the wall and it takes her down a dark corridor. She suddenly takes off and runs upstairs, through the hotel.
Steven James Apicello
Omar Gordon
Track 6
She stops again in the corridor between the Aphrodite room and Polymestor’s office. Opening the door to the cupboard, she turns around and holds out her hand.
She pulls an audience member into the cupboard and performs the same 1:1 scene from earlier in her loop. She’s convinced that the man has been there before, ‘Everything here is repeating. Circles and cycles. Endlessly turning round and round. Like this string. One should always carry a piece of string.’
Track 7 - A Mother’s Grief
Luba walks downstairs to the flower shop, Hesperides. She sees Hecuba spinning aimlessly and sobbing, in a state of grief. Troy has fallen to the Greeks and the king’s soldiers have sacrificed Hecuba’s youngest daughter, Polyxena.
It's said that the war hero, Achilles, rose from his grave and demanded that she be slain in order to join him in the afterlife.
Track 8 - The Sacrifice of Polydorus
Luba manages to calm Hecuba and takes her towards her bedroom. On the way, they climb the stairs next to the tenement courtyard.
Hecuba looks over at the far end of the yard and sees the body of her son, Polydorus, wrapped in a large sheet.
​
​In the original play, Polydorus is washed up on the shore and discovered by Therapaina, ‘I bring this pain for Hecuba. It’s hard to speak, and hard to keep silent. O queen of woes, more wretched than you imagine. I bring you news.’
Hecuba howls out in pain and anger, ‘He was meant to protect him.’ Luba struggles to pull her away and drag her to the Aphrodite room.
Track 9
Hecuba falls onto the bed and Luba doesn’t know what to do. She watches helplessly as Hecuba works herself into a mad panic, reeling and throwing herself against the huge clamshell headboard. Eventually she collapses to the floor.
Luba hears Polymestor coming and urges Hecuba to calm down. Hecuba crawls on her knees and hides behind the headboard.
Polymestor enters, full of swagger and arrogance. He flirts with Luba and she bows her head, intimidated. He takes off his shirt and sits on the bed, gesturing for her to fetch the jewellery box from the top of the wardrobe. He lifts the lid and plays with his treasure, putting on a head piece and then putting it on Luba.
He lies face down on the bed and Luba whips him gently with a necklace, satisfying his demands for gratification. He gets up and nods for her to fetch a mirror so that he can bask in his glorious reflection.
Behind him, Hecuba crawls out from her hiding place. She looks defeated, but she confronts Polymestor. They have a bitter exchange and he denies any wrongdoing. She knows what he’s done, but she doesn’t let on.
She demands to know if her son is safe and in a fit of anger, she picks up the mirror and lifts it above her head. She wants to bludgeon him, but he holds her back with the help of Luba. The three of them hold the mirror and Polymestor screams into the glass.
The two women back off and Polymestor calms down. Hecuba asks again ‘Is my son safe?’ and he replies ‘Your son is safe’. She flinches and heads to the office next door in a rage.
Polymestor glares at Luba and she looks away. He’s unnerved by Hecuba’s accusations and irritated that he couldn’t enjoy his treasure in peace. Luba clears up the jewellery as he scowls, ‘You work for me’. He puts on his shirt and walks to the hotel stairs as Luba finishes tidying.
Track 10 - Come, Spirits of Vengeance
Next door in the office, Hecuba is kneeling on the desk and praying. She mumbles in Greek, chanting incantations and summoning the Furies, the sinister forces of vengeance.
Luba calmly unties her fluorescent apron and pulls off her overalls. She walks down the hotel corridor and enters the storeroom next to Polymestor’s office, where she finds a dark corner to change into a sparkly black dress.
Hecuba’s cries grow louder and Luba looks up and straightens her dress. She enters the office as performers start to emerge from different directions. Cassandra approaches and puts an arm on Hecuba’s shoulder. Luba joins them and the three of them embrace. They run to the window and look through the glass, surrounded by a red neon glow.
Loud techno music is playing in the night club and Polyxena and Macaria are pulling people onto the dancefloor. Kampe is topless and drinking from a cocktail glass as Polymestor shimmies through the crowd, enjoying the party.
Luba and Cassandra push through the door and hit the dancefloor, as Hecuba prowls the outskirts of the room. Polymestor stands on the seating and struts his stuff, as the other dancers form a circle and perform an elaborate routine around the huge Minotaur logo.
Polyxena and Cassandra grab Polymestor and pull him into the middle of the circle. The dancers stroke his cheeks and spin him round. Luba kisses him on the lips and strokes his eyes.
The women disorientate him and drag him to the ground. Luba helps to pin his legs as Hecuba stands over him. The music and lighting collapse into a chaotic breakdown as she takes a deep breath and plunges her nails into his face, ripping out his eyes. He screams and rolls on the floor, crawling through the audience to get away, howling in pain.
The other performers crash out and stumble away. Most of them head through the office and Luba walks through to the storeroom, where she washes her face in a bowl. She staggers down the hotel corridor and heads for the stairs.
Zagreus
Georges Hann, Jahmarley Bachelor, Luke Murphy, Milton Lopes, Mitch Harvey, Ryan O'Neill, Seirian Griffiths, Theo Arran, Timothy John Bartlett, Will David Thompson.
​
​Zagreus is the bartender at the White Cyprus sake bar. He signs himself ‘Z’ and dresses like the Harrison Ford character ‘Deckard’ in Blade Runner. He wears a gaudy, wine-coloured shirt and a narrow tie, and a long brown leather trench coat with the collar turned up. Like Deckard, he often has a bottle of spirit to hand.
The outside of his bar is adorned with Japanese paper lanterns hanging from the ceiling, decorated with Linear B script in the calligraphic style used for Kanji. Near the bar, a sign on the wall indicates that this part of town is ‘Yoshiwara’, a nod to the red-light district in Japan made famous in ‘Metropolis’. The address of the White Cyprus is 6th–C / 3rd Division / UW, putting it in the 6th circle of the underworld.
The bar sells bottles of sake named after the rivers of the underworld. The drinks are listed in Linear B script on blackboards and the menu offers five different drinks - Styx, Lethe, Acheron, Phlegethon and Cocytus. Alongside the bar is a small tap-room with dozens of plastic kegs containing the same dreaded waters.
Behind the bar is a shrine to Dionysus, the god of the grape-harvest, wine-making and orchards.
Track 1
Zagreus heads for the White Cyprus and opens up for the day. He sets up the bar with trays of sake and tiny fake bonsai trees, making sure everything is in its right place. He takes a bottle of sake from under the bar and has a quick shot before writing a note to Eurydice, the waitress at Ciacco - ‘Well here I am. What are your other two wishes!’
He folds the paper in half and smiles to himself. Grabbing the bottle, he heads off to deliver his note with a spring in his step.
On his way through town, he sees a number of Narcissus flowers that someone has left lying around the square. He picks one up and walks to the café. He stops outside and leaves the note, bottle and flower on one of the tables.
​
Eurydice is behind the counter and sees him through the window. He smiles and winks, before heading back to the White Cyprus, where he continues to sort out his bar, arranging flowers and bowls on the counter and making sure that each one is set up perfectly.
Track 2 - Sake Bar
He takes a napkin and stares at an audience member. Beckoning her in, he says, ‘All we have in life are things we regret, and things we are grateful for’. At the same time, he writes on the napkin. He hands the woman a pen, ‘What do you regret?’ She writes something down, but Zagreus doesn’t look at it.
He says, ‘What are you grateful for?’ She writes something else and again he doesn’t look. He folds the napkin, walks around the counter and approaches a board covered with dozens of similar napkins, ‘I’ll take care of this for you.’
He pins her napkin to the wall and whispers the famous Roy Batty line from Blade Runner, ‘All these moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain.’ The napkins are all marked with handwritten notes and some of them contain messages of guidance and advice, like a bar-room version of the Orphic Gold Tablets.
He turns to the shrine behind his bar and picks up a small pot of powder. He funnels the powder into a bottle, turning the liquid blue. Behind him, Polymestor passes by the open window and reaches in to steal some sake.
Zagreus pockets his new concoction and returns to Ciacco to look for Eurydice.
Track 3
Hecuba and Polydorus have just left the café and Eurydice is behind the counter. She’s busy drying glasses and Zagreus sits at a table near the window.
She walks over, smiling, and he grabs the bottle that he’d left previously, adding a few drops of his blue mixture. He pours her a drink, making sure to fill it to the brim. She laughs and grabs the bottle, pouring him an equally large measure. They gaze into each other’s eyes and talk intimately as Lee Hazlewood croons on the radio, ‘Your sweet love sees me through’. The two of them empty the bottle and get gloriously tipsy.
Track 4
He takes her by the hand and they skip through the square. They head through the backstreets, dancing and giggling. Eurydice jumps onto the window ledge of the White Cypress and they share a kiss. They end up in a seedy part of town full of arcade games.
Zagreus climbs onto a ‘Dance Dance Revolution’ machine and dances a few clumsy steps on the platform. It looks like he’s play-acting and fishing for a dance lesson. Eurydice climbs up and they perform an endearing routine to ‘Fire’ by The Fat Rat. They embrace and kiss and run off through the streets again.
Zagreus puts his head round the door of Hesperides, and, seeing that there’s no’one there, he pinches a bouquet of pink flowers from the table. He presents them to Eurydice, bowing theatrically, and she accepts them with a grin.
They walk over to the shrine for Apollo and Eurydice leaves the flowers above the statue. They perform a short ritual with a candle, in between kisses.
Suddenly, they hear a commotion in the distance. The lighting dims and a loud, prolonged drone sounds out like an air raid siren. They look at each other in a state of panic and take off towards the town square, but they get separated in the confusion.
Track 5 - The Breach
Eurydice makes her way to Ciacco and Zagreus runs past a flower cart and down a side street next to Alighieri’s. He stops by a door, anxious and looking to escape. Turning to face an audience member, he holds out his hand and unlocks the door.
He pulls the women through and locks the door behind them. The room is completely dark and he takes off her mask and holds her hand tightly.
He whispers, ‘The city is being besieged. After ten long years, she will fall. But fear not, you're safe. Safe in here with me. So long as we have faith. Faith that they be on our side. The gods, of course. Trust in me. Trust, and let us pray.’
He prays to Apollo and asks for protection, ‘Blessed Apollo, hear my prayer. Let us choose power when men appear.’
The woman is standing against the wall and he turns her around and leads her down a pitch black corridor. He lies her down on what feels like a stone altar and prays again, ‘Oh great Apollo. Be our dawn through this endless night. Step forth, out of the darkness. Manifest thyself.’
He turns the woman’s head towards a yellow glow in the darkness. She watches as Apollo emerges from the ceiling like Spiderman. The light goes out and Zagreus whispers, ‘Oh, great Apollo, son of Zeus, slayer of monsters. Take this sacrifice, take this as my offering. Hear. My. Voice.’
The light comes on dimly and Apollo’s face is inches from the woman. The whites of his eyes glow in the darkness and she screams. Apollo reaches out his hand and the light goes out again. They remain in darkness for a moment until Zagreus helps her up and leads her out of the room, checking to see if she’s ok.
Track 6 - The Sacrifice of Polyxena
Zagreus and Apollo leave the room through different doors and Zagreus darts through the backstreets. He runs around the back of Ciacco and peers into the square. The Greeks have taken over the town and have sacrificed the princess, Polyxena. She’s been strung up in the middle of the square in a barbaric display of conquest and Zagreus is appalled.
He slips away and decides to head for the border and escape Troy. He runs through the corridors and finds his way to Mycenae, where he stops briefly outside no-man’s-land. He sees the steel girders in the distance and stumbles down a dark passageway.
He finds himself in a strange, cavernous room filled with large wooden crates. There’s a crate used for a soldier’s barrack and one that contains a white horse lying on the floor. Another crate contains hundreds of arrows pointing up from the ground.
Milton Lopes
Will David Thompson
Track 7
Zagreus pauses to take a bottle from his pocket and have a swig. He falls back against a crate and says a prayer to Apollo. Just then, Apollo appears above him, on top of the crate, but Zagreus doesn’t see him. Apollo crouches down and stretches his hand towards Zagreus.
He moves his hand to the left and Zagreus is pulled the same way. Apollo jumps to another crate and now Zagreus sees him. They battle back and forth amongst the crates, like a pair of tomcats, as Apollo chases him around the room.
Apollo catches him and clutches him by the neck. He lets go and disappears as Zagreus catches his breath. Shaken and confused, he looks pitifully at an audience member. He holds out his hand and leads her into a locked crate.
The crate is filled with straw and sacks of cloth. There are shelves containing various bric-a-brac, including a clay head of Apollo.
He takes off the woman’s mask and talks solemnly, ‘In a world of gods and monsters, what is a god, but a story? A story I choose to believe. But which god? Which story? A choice. A very important choice.'
As Zagreus talks about gods, the bust of Apollo behind him glows red.
He continues, ‘I'm like a man in a chariot, going faster and faster, losing control of the horse, plunging towards. I don't know what. I barely have the strength to hold onto the reins.'
'Therefore I pray. I pray for that perfect moment. A moment that can last forever. Will you pray with me?’
He takes out a small leather binder, containing six vials of liquid. He explains that they contain water from three different rivers of the underworld. He asks the woman to choose one - Styx for death, Phlegethon for chaos or Lethe for forgetfulness.
She chooses Styx and he pours two shots. They knock them back and he leads her out of the crate, ‘Be safe.’
Track 8
He leaves the crate and bumps into the Watchman. She shines her torch at him and he curses and holds up his hands. But then, he takes a second look and smiles.
Zagreus: ‘Oh! It's you!’
The Watchman: ‘It's you!’
Zagreus: ’Yeah.’
The Watchman: ‘You shouldn't be here.’
Zagreus: ‘Sorry.’
The Watchman: ‘Still making sake?’ Zagreus nods.
Zagreus: ‘Still making whisky?’ The Watchman nods.
The Watchman: ‘Look, you should get outta here.’
Zagreus: ‘See you around!’
Zagreus walks back towards Troy, stopping at the Troy border cabin on the way. He sees that it’s empty and he steals a couple of permits from the desk.
He walks into the town square and sits on a chair at the bottom of the huge pile near the Palladium.
In the distance, he sees Iphigenia and Patroclus, dancing around the tables in Ciacco. On the other side of the square, Polyxena is crawling on the floor of Alighieri’s. Between them, Eurydice is standing outside Hades’ office, reaching up towards a flickering blue lamp on the wall, twisting her fingers and playing with the light.
Zagreus knows that he should leave Troy for good, but he needs Eurydice to come with him. He heads back to the White Cyprus with the stolen permits. He gets behind the bar and sees that someone’s cluttered up his counter. He wipes away a mess of paper and sand and blood.
Track 9
Hades walks in and takes a seat in the corner. Zagreus gives him a drink and he makes a long, rambling speech about the passing of time and the meaning of life, ‘Gather the rosebuds while you may, don’t wait until tomorrow’. He tells Zagreus to enjoy life in the moment.
Before he leaves, Hades locates a note tucked under a bottle and passes it to Zagreus. The note is from Eurydice and Zagreus is suddenly animated.
Dear Zagreus
The city's burning
Come and find me. I’m still waiting
E x
He grabs a suitcase and fills it with a few items including papers, a bottle, some vials and a small statue. He looks back at the bar as if he’s leaving for good and makes his way to Ciacco.
Track 10
He runs into the café and drops the suitcase firmly on the bar. Eurydice is startled and he shows her the stolen permits.
She’s nervous, but excited. He runs around the café grabbing things that they might need, such as packets of powdered food, and puts them in the suitcase. He grabs the little statue of Apollo from the shrine, but Eurydice takes it from him and puts it back in its place. She’s having second thoughts about leaving.
Zagreus holds her by the shoulders. He’s desperate to escape, but it’s risky and they need to concentrate. He’s witnessed the Greek invasion and understands the will of the gods, but he sees that Eurydice needs more time.
He leaves the suitcase behind and lets her know that he'll be ready when she is. They agree to meet in the square later and he goes back to the White Cyprus for the last time.
He sorts out a few items on the counter. He’s anxious, but he doesn’t want to rush Eurydice and he spends time serving his last customer. He pushes a menu towards an audience member and waits for her to choose a drink.
She points to one and he nods that it’s a good choice.
1. Styx
Concentrated and powerful, with a bitter character and an alluringly acidic aftertaste. A drink to be sipped slowly and savoured over the course of an evening.
2. Lethe
A flavour so complete and remarkable it is hard to recall. Innate power pairs with superb darkness evoking total cleansing properties across the palate and beyond.
3. Acheron
A seductive and profuse melange of despairing flavours. Deep, dark and intense with subtle, lingering melancholic notes.
4. Phlegethon
Fleshy, dense and smokey, with incredible layers of charred black fruits and sweet ashy undertones. Dangerously drinkable – Will leave a gentle, persistent heat on your tongue.
5. Cocytus
A mouth coating saline tang tempered by a distinctive bitter murmur. It has a woefully expressive release finishing on a long and lamenting note.
Zagreus clears away the empty glass, closes the blinds and leaves the bar.
​
Track 11
He returns to the town square and sees Eurydice waiting for him in a smart hat and coat, carrying the suitcase. They embrace passionately and it feels like they’re finally leaving.
But then, the reset music plays and the two of them stop still for a moment. They seem to forget who they are and take a step back. They look at each other awkwardly, unsure why they were embracing. Eurydice smiles shyly and Zagreus is overly formal. He picks up the suitcase and they politely nod goodbye.
Eurydice heads off to open up the cafe and Zagreus returns to his bar.
Eurydice
Brenda Lee Grech, Chihiro Kawasaki, Eléonore Cabrera, Mallory Gracenin, Miranda Mac Letten, Sharol Mackenzie, Stefanie Noll, Stephanie Nightingale, WenHsin Lee, Yen-Ching Lin.
Eurydice is a waitress at Ciacco and she wears a loose green dress and white apron. Ciacco is a pretty bistro in the town square with red and white checked tablecloths. Sitting on the shelves are dozens of packets filled with a powdered food substitute. There’s a bottle of wine chilling in an ice bucket on the counter and behind the bar is a clear acrylic box containing a strange, jewelled mask.
The menus in Ciacco are dated ’15 September 1922’ – a likely reference to the Burning of Smyrna. The name ‘Ciacco’ comes from a glutton in Dante’s ‘Divine Comedy’.
On the wall near the counter is a small shrine to Apollo containing an origami bird. This is one of a number of origami figures scattered throughout the set, mostly of birds and horses. They seem to be a nod to ‘Blade Runner’, in which the character Gaff makes origami figures, one of which has great significance at the end of the film.
Start of Loop
The hotel maid, Luba, enters Ciacco briefly and collects a large, colourful overcoat that’s hanging on the wall. As she leaves, she passes Eurydice, who’s arriving for work in a smart hat and coat. Eurydice turns the sign on the door to ‘Open’ and gets ready for the day. She does some rummaging under the counter, wipes the bar and dries a couple of glasses.
Polyxena and Polydorus pop in briefly to have a shot of something strong. The two siblings giggle and Eurydice smiles at their innocence. They’re excited about Polyxena’s birthday and they run outside and head for the clothes shop, Alighieri’s.
Track 1 - A Birthday Party
Queen Hecuba arrives in the square and Luba helps her into the colourful coat. She climbs to the top of a pile of broken chairs and sits on a makeshift throne, looking regal, albeit in somewhat dilapidated surroundings.
Polyxena climbs up to join her and her mother gives her a ring. She opens a gift box from her brother and inside is a leather jacket. The family climb down from the chairs and the party gets underway in the square. Eurydice prepares a tray of drinks on her counter and pours whisky into a decanter.
Polymestor arrives, bowing to the young princess and presenting her with a flower. Eurydice brings out the tray and they all raise a glass to the birthday girl. Luba stands on the Palladium balcony and sings an aria from Offenbach’s opera, ‘Les Contes d'Hoffmann’.
As the party draws to a close, Eurydice returns to Ciacco. A strange wind echoes in the square and she turns to see what’s happening, as Polydorus is pulled away from Hecuba’s grasp by Polymestor, Polyxena and Macaria. Hecuba reaches out to stop him, but they disappear and the square empties.
Hecuba experiences a terrible vision as a storm rages above. Strobe lights flash in the sky and Luba has a demonic fit on the balcony.
The storm passes and Luba carries on with her aria as normal.
Track 2
‘Night Life’ by Willie Nelson plays on the radio and Eurydice continues with her work. She approaches the little shrine to Apollo and places a flower above it, before tidying away some glasses. She stands on a chair and cleans the window with a cloth.
Outside in the square, Zagreus, the barman at the White Cyprus, is holding a bottle of sake and a flower. He casually leaves them on one of the tables outside the café and approaches the window. He has a note stuck to his forehead and he smiles goofily at Eurydice from the other side of the glass.
The note says ‘Do you have a map? I keep getting lost in your eyes' and she laughs. He leaves it on the table and heads off. Eurydice watches him cross the square as the radio plays ‘One More Kiss, Dear’ by Vangelis.
Sharol Mackenzie
Stephanie Nightingale
Track 3 - A Vision
Hecuba approaches the cafe and hands Eurydice her large coat, which Eurydice hangs on a hook. The queen sits at a table outside and Eurydice serves her a glass of water, before taking her order. She’s suitably deferential to her royal customer and Hecuba asks if she can borrow her pad and pen. Eurydice disappears through a door at the back of the café and the lights dim.
Polydorus comes through the same door moments later and appears before his mother as a ghostly vision. He dances around her as she writes a letter to her husband, Priam.
Suddenly, she stops still and suffers a harrowing nightmare that convinces her that Polydorus is in terrible danger. The two of them head off to find Polymestor.
Track 4
Eurydice returns to her counter and carries on with her work, wiping the countertop and tucking chairs under tables.
Zagreus pays another visit and saunters up to the bar, as Eurydice smiles bashfully. He joins her behind the counter and she shakes her head, suggesting that it’s inappropriate for him to be there. Zagreus grabs a bottle and a single shot glass.
He pours too much alcohol into the glass and Eurydice laughs before knocking it back. She does the same for him and the two of them get tipsy together. They flirt and dance around the shop before running out into the square.
They run through the backstreets of Troy and end up in an arcade area full of old video games and funfair machines. One of the machines says ‘Test Your Skills’ and others have slogans that reference the Greek gods. There’s a pick-up machine with a claw and two tiny figures in a wasteland of sand.
Another machine has an intricate model of a cliff face, including caves and terraces and statues. At the bottom, is a track for a ship to endlessly loop around the island, possibly referencing the Odyssey.
There’s a ‘Dance Dance Revolution’ machine which has a detailed map of the underworld. ‘Fire’ by The Fat Rat plays through the speakers and Zagreus performs a couple of clumsy dance steps on the platform. Eurydice climbs up and joins him, but doesn’t do much better.
They laugh and run down a corridor, stopping briefly to share a passionate kiss against the wall. They wander the backstreets of Troy, holding hands and giggling, and occasionally hiding from passing characters. They walk past the flower shop, Hesperides, and Zagreus has a quick look inside. He sees that it’s empty and steals a small bunch of flowers from the table.
He presents them to Eurydice with a theatrical flourish and she laughs. They carry on to the tenement courtyard and Eurydice places the flowers above the small shrine for Apollo. They share a flirtatious moment at the shrine, and Zagreus puts on Eurydice’s hat.
Track 5 - The Breach
Suddenly, they hear a loud drone echoing like a siren and look at each other nervously. They hurry back to the town square to see what’s happening.
In the confusion, they split up and Zagreus rushes down an alleyway, while Eurydice heads back to Ciacco. Hecuba is with her daughters and Eurydice warns them that something’s happening. Hecuba realises that the walls of Troy have been breached and she steels herself. She leads her girls out into the square and they wait nervously.
The music rises and a bright light burns through the Palladium doors as King Agamemnon and the Greek soldiers march into Troy. Eurydice retrieves the jewelled mask from behind her counter and passes it to Hecuba. She walks back to her café and watches through the window as the Greeks take control of the square.
Track 6 - The Sacrifice of Polyxena
The Trojan women stand firm but are ultimately defeated. Polyxena is to be sacrificed as a gift to Achilles, to ensure that the Greek army can sail home. She’s brutally stabbed by one of the Greek soldiers, Neoptolemus, and her body slumps to the floor. Eurydice is devastated as she watches through the window, with her hand on the glass.
Track 7
The crowd disperses and Eurydice makes her escape through the backstreets of Troy. Looking for refuge, she enters the back door of a decrepit tenement. The room is a jumble of shoes and dirty dishes and family photographs, with drying stockings and underwear hanging from washing lines. There’s a copy of ‘Married Love’ by Marie Stopes on a side table and an unfinished jigsaw in the kitchen. There’s a bath filled with bowls and buckets and trays that all have holes in them.
The tenement belongs to the Danaids, forty-nine brides who killed their husbands and were punished to a torment for eternity. They were forced to carry jugs of water to fill a basin that was perforated, and would only be released from their punishment when the basin was full of water.
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Eurydice stands in a corner, frightened and cowering. Troy is an occupied territory and all she can do is wait for the invaders. She stands completely still and listens to the commotion outside.
Suddenly, Neoptolemus bursts in. He’s tense and restless, and Eurydice is terrified. She sees that he’s the soldier who killed Polyxena. He leans over a sink and stares at himself in the mirror. His eyes are darting and his hands are still stained with blood.
He turns towards the kitchen and doesn’t notice her at first, but when he does, he calms down and gestures that he’s not going to hurt her. He stumbles over to the table as the radio plays, ‘Where Have All the Flowers Gone?’ He slumps onto a chair and puts his head in his hands.
Eurydice is shaking, but she manages to pour him a drink which he greedily knocks back. She gives him a cloth to wipe the blood from his hands and he staggers out of the room.
Track 8 - The Sacrifice of Polydorus
Eurydice goes upstairs and walks along the balcony over-looking the tenement courtyard. She hears a disturbance in the space below and leans over the handrail. Polymestor is pushing a large trunk through the square. He turns it over and the body of Polydorus rolls out. A door opens and a bright light shines through the square as Kronos appears and drags the body into his home.
On the other side of the balcony, Hecuba is with her maid, Luba. She’s in state of hysteria, having seen her son dumped and swallowed up. Luba holds her back, trying desperately to calm her down, and she finally takes her away.
Eurydice moves towards the stair. She sees Polymestor coming up and hides behind a column as he heads towards the greenhouse room.
Track 9 - Fury in the Streets
She rushes down the stair and slows down as she approaches tenement IIIIIII. She knocks on the door and Polydorus falls out, collapsing to the floor. ‘Someone Crazy’ by The Insects plays in the background, as Eurydice kneels down to cradle him. He lies motionless and she holds him tenderly. Crying, she places a pink flower in his hand and runs away, heading for the sake bar to look for Zagreus.
Instead of Zagreus, she finds Kampe. Standing behind the bar, Kampe pours her a drink, but Eurydice is distracted. She writes a note for Zagreus and slides it under a bottle, ‘Dear Zagreus. The city is burning. Come find me. I’m still waiting. E.’ She rushes off and Kampe smiles and has a quick peek at the note.
Eurydice returns to Ciacco and stands behind her counter, unsure what to do next. Looking at an audience member, she holds out her hand and leads him to a locked door at the back of the café, pulling him inside.
She takes off his mask and crawls into a little shelter at the back of the room. The doors are made of cardboard and there’s a bed on the floor. There are tin cans of food, and postcards on the wall of the sun and a beach.
She turns to the man and says that she’s been waiting for him. ‘It didn't used to be like this. The sun used to shine. I used to play outside the city walls, in the orchard. Dappled light would dance through the branches, making the apples glow red.’
‘But they don't glow anymore. They don't grow anymore. You see. Nothing does. It's all fake. Nothing is real. Just a forgotten dream. But, should you dare to dream. Well, impossible things could happen.’
She produces two grapes and offers one to the man, encouraging him to eat it. She puts the other in her mouth and savours the taste. After a moment, she coughs and spits out a small gold leaf that looks like a milagro charm. Looking surprised, she hands him the leaf and says that it’s good luck for the fall.
She replaces his mask and hugs him tightly, before escorting him out of the shelter and into the corridor behind the cafe.
Track 10
Eurydice returns to her duties, wiping tables and putting out menus.
Suddenly, Zagreus rushes in, carrying a suitcase. He tells Eurydice to get ready and he wraps her coat around her. He’s got them both travel permits which he reveals with a flourish. He opens the suitcase on the bar and starts to fill it with essential items.
He can’t hide his excitement as he collects food packets and clothing. He picks up the tiny statue of Apollo, but Eurydice shakes her head. She doesn’t want him to move the statue and she’s unsure about leaving.
Zagreus closes the suitcase. Eurydice runs her fingers down Hecuba’s jacket which is hanging on the wall and Zagreus sees that she’s reluctant to leave. He understands and reassures her, ‘It’s okay, I’ll wait.’ He kisses her and tells her to meet him in the square later. He leaves the suitcase behind and heads back to his bar.
Eurydice is conflicted. She has another look at the permit. Zagreus has filled it in and the handwriting is familiar. Standing behind the counter, she considers her options.
Suddenly, Apollo appears in the doorway. He’s carrying the jewelled mask and he looks at Eurydice knowingly as he places it on the bar. He disappears again and Eurydice carefully drops it into the perspex box under the counter.
Loop 2 / Track 11
Her mind is addled and she picks up a silver tray, shining it with a cloth. Outside in the square, Hades is crooning, ‘It’s a Lonesome Old Town’. Eurydice walks to the window and holds up her tray, mouthing the words to the song. She tilts the tray slightly and catches the eye of an audience member. Holding his gaze, she whispers, ‘It's a lonesome old town, when you're not around. I'm lonely as I can be.’
As she sways to the music, a spotlight shines through the window and she tilts the tray to reflect the beam back outside, towards a small, wooden well on the far side of the square.
Moments later, Persephone bursts through the top of the well, soaking wet and gasping for air.
Something clicks and Eurydice puts on her hat and coat and picks up the permit and the suitcase. She turns the sign on the door to ‘Closed’ and heads out. Persephone is wandering aimlessly in a T-shirt and shorts, but Eurydice pays her no mind.
She waits in the middle of the square for Zagreus and he arrives moments later. They share a long, passionate embrace under a spotlight and it feels like their troubles may soon be over.
But then the reset music plays and they slowly lose any sense of who they are or what they’re doing. They look at each other, slightly confused, and behave as if they hardly know each other. Zagreus picks up a brooch that Eurydice has dropped and politely returns it to her. She thanks him and they look at each other blankly.
They move apart and go their separate ways. Zagreus heads back to the White Cyprus carrying the suitcase. Eurydice walks to Ciacco, turning the sign on the door to ‘Open’ and hanging up her coat. She walks behind the bar and arranges the glasses on her counter.
Loop 3 / Track 11
After Loop 3, Eurydice’s story has a different ending.
She’s reluctant to leave Troy and Zagreus gives her some space to consider his plan. She wanders out into the square and stands by the door to Hades office, under a wall-mounted lamp. Hades arrives and can see that she’s upset. He whispers, ‘Don’t tell anyone’, and ushers her into his room. He sits her down on one of the low chairs and tries to console her.
She’s badly shaken and cries softly in the dark, as Hades places a cloth against her cheek and dabs away her tears. He waits until she’s calm and leaves her alone in the office.
She closes her eyes and sits for a moment, recovering. Eventually, she gets up and wanders to the back of the office, where she approaches the Bouts painting on the wall. She stares wide-eyed at the tormented souls being dragged into the underworld.
She looks away and sees half a pomegranate on the desk. She picks it up and eats a couple of seeds, delicately at first, before devouring the fruit in large bites. She experiences a moment of elation, before composing herself and heading back to Ciacco.
She returns to her spot behind the counter and thinks about her next move. She tears a page from her notepad and writes, ‘Nothing is Real? Forever?’
Suddenly, Hades enters and approaches, looking concerned. ‘There's a crack,’ he says carefully. ‘A crack. In the square.’ He looks at her, but she doesn’t seem to understand. ‘Closing time’, he says.
He nods towards a bottle and cups his hands, and she fills them with liquid. He rushes out and Eurydice follows on behind. He walks to the middle of the square and pours the liquid onto the ground, over the cracks in the concrete.
He seems to be pouring a libation. At the same time, Hecuba is summoning the Furies to take vengeance on Polymestor. Hades moves away and walks backwards with his arms outstretched, down a dark alley next to the cafe.
Hecuba appears and the citizens of Troy start to converge on the square. Eurydice answers the call and joins the other performers in a wild, demonic dance, which climaxes with the blinding of Polymestor.
The performers pull away and disappear into the crowd, leaving Hecuba alone in the dark. Eurydice takes the hand of an audience member and leads them through the Palladium doors, towards the Mycenae finale.
Kronos
Folu Odimayo, Harry Price, James Finnemore, Jonathan Savage, Juan José Tirado Pulido, Louis J Rhone, Milton Lopes, Mitch Harvey, Morgan Bobrow-Williams, Steven James Apicello.
​
In Greek mythology, Kronos was a Titan, the divine descendent of Gaia and Uranus. He ruled over the cosmos during the golden age until he was overthrown by his son Zeus and imprisoned in Tartarus.
In The Burnt City, Kronos is a caretaker who looks after a series of tenements over-looking a shabby square in the backstreets of Troy. The doors are marked with a series of ones – III, IIII, IIIII and so on. Kronos occupies room IIIIIII on the ground floor, where he accepts gifts of young humans.
The tenements represent Tartarus, the part of the underworld where the worst offenders are sent.
Some of the tenements have a set of rules pinned to the wall. They include timetables setting out the activities for the day – ‘Alarm call. Exercise. Labours. Lunch. A meal will be placed outside your door. Exercise. Labours. Laundry day is Friday. Leave your laundry outside your door.’
Possibly some of the characters in the show are trapped in their loops as part of a Sisyphean punishment.
Kronos wears a muscle suit, loose dungarees and a necklace made of red thread, which he sometimes drops into his mouth like a sword swallower. In early shows, he would carry a broom and sweep the streets. He spends most of the night in and around the tenements.
Start of Loop
Kronos walks through the tenement courtyard. He stares at the audience members around him, moving his head robotically up and down and side to side, as if he’s scanning them for information.
He walks through a door to the graffiti corridor, where he sits on a stool under the stairs. He pulls out a pair of dice from his dungarees and starts to roll them on an upturned bucket, over and over. He gets more and more frustrated with each roll, until he rolls an eight and stares at the dice with great intensity.
He walks slowly back to the tenement courtyard and shines a torch against the wall, pausing for a moment at a chalk drawing of Moloch. He notices a red cable winding along the wall and follows it with his torch to a door marked IIIIIII. He turns around and looks at the audience members behind him, shining his torch on each of them, before choosing one and pulling her into the room.
He leads her to another door at the back of the room, hidden by a beaded curtain, waiting for a moment before unlocking it and pulling her inside. He removes her mask and hands her his torch. Guiding her hands so that the beam picks out a red wire, they follow it up the wall and along the ceiling to another door, which Kronos unlocks.
The cables and wires that Kronos follows represent ‘Ariadne’s thread’ from the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. In the myth, the Minotaur is killed in the furthest corner of a huge labyrinth by Theseus, with the help of the monster's half-sister Ariadne. Ariadne gives Theseus a ball of thread which he ties to a door as he enters the labyrinth. Having slain the Minotaur, he follows the thread back through the maze and is able to make his escape.
Kronos takes his torch from the woman and leads her into a very dark garage, possibly an offshoot of Ferry's Autos. They stop at the carcass of a car and he invites her to lie down next to him on a garage-style creeper poking out.
The two of them lie flat out on the creeper. He turns towards her and says cryptically, ‘If I can find her, I can save her. Until then I must feed it’. A mechanical pulley moves them backwards, gradually revealing the metal plating on the underside of the car and beyond. On the plating is a model of a labyrinth.
Within the labyrinth are several small human figurines and a Minotaur. Kronos points out some of the figures, ‘Here it is. That's you. Your loved ones. And that's him’. The creeper stops and Kronos helps the woman up from under the car. He pushes her firmly by the shoulders, through a dark maze of PVC curtains, still following a red cable pinned to the wall.
The lights go out and they stop still in the darkness. Kronos stands behind the woman and tells her to close her eyes, but she keeps them open. He spins her around and there’s a momentary flash of red neon and the outline of a bull's head appears.
He flicks on his torch and for a second, they’re standing face-to-face with a huge taxidermied Minotaur head, before the light goes out again. He replaces her mask and ushers her through a metal gate along-side the unbuilt ‘Souk’.
Track 1 - The Gift of Prophecy
Kronos reappears in the tenement courtyard and sees Apollo and Cassandra dancing. They seem to be falling for each other and Kronos is curious. Cassandra moves towards the graffiti corridor and Apollo is lured away.
Kronos drags a couple of benches into the middle of the square, before entering tenement II. The room belongs to the Danaid’s and is filled with hanging washing, dirty dishes and the detritus of forty-nine young women.
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He wanders about the room, stopping every now and then to study an object and fall into a moment of reverie. He takes a white nightie that’s hanging in the wardrobe and smells it, clutching it to his chest. He takes it to the kitchen table and lays it over a chair as if it was sitting down for dinner.
On the table is a jigsaw puzzle and Kronos sweeps the pieces to one side to start afresh. Concentrating hard, he forms a square border with random pieces. He’s agitated and jumpy and he moves the pieces quickly. Furrowing his brow, he starts to form a strange labyrinth inside the border.
He moves the pieces around obsessively, getting more and more anxious. Once the shape of a labyrinth is formed, he moves his fingers along the various routes, trying to make sense of it. Exasperated, he leans back with his head in his hands. After a moment, he puts his hand on the jigsaw and messes up the pieces.
He gets up suddenly, nearly upending his chair, and exits past the bathtub. He walks down a short corridor to tenement I.
Track 2 - Prayer to Apollo
This room contains an over-sized bed and posters and books about astronomy. There’s a high shower and large sponges on the floor, and many of the objects in the room are designed for a giant. There’s a huge cup containing a tea bag and a mallet hanging on the wall.
One of the drawers is full of spectacles, many of them broken in half, and it’s clear that the room belongs to a cyclops – a one-eyed giant. There’s a letter to ‘Galatea’ from ‘Cyclops’ in a box by the bedside, suggesting that the room belongs to the cyclops Polyphemus.
Kronos takes off his toolbelt and unfurls it on the table. He spends time taking out various tools from their pockets and inspecting them, doing everything with meticulous care and attention. It’s repetitive and banal, but strangely compelling.
The mood is tense and he suddenly spins around, holding a vicious looking chisel. He stares at an audience member with terrible intent, before returning to his toolbelt and wrapping it up.
He walks to the side of the room and peers out of a small window. In the distance, Hecuba and Polymestor are talking by the Apollo shrine and Kronos watches them carefully. They appear to be praying and he waits until they’re gone before venturing out.
He approaches the Apollo shrine and there’s a small box on a shelf with a slot in the top. He opens it up, taking out a parchment that’s tied with red string and putting it in his pocket.
He walks back towards his own tenement and sees Polymestor approaching. They have an argument and Polymestor becomes increasingly upset. He wants ‘more time’, but Kronos isn’t interested and he shrugs his shoulders. He disappears behind the door, slamming it in Polymestor’s face. Polymestor bangs his fists on the door, but Kronos is gone.
Track 3 - A Curse
Kronos wanders to the graffiti corridor, stopping at the bottom of the stair and inspecting it, as if he’s never seen one before. He walks up a couple of steps and climbs through the metal balustrading. He stands on the handrails, straddling the stair and looking back at his followers. He continues to the top landing and begins a tour of the upstairs tenements.
The first room belongs to Tantalus and includes a medieval-looking chair with manacles. In front of the chair, just out of reach, is a pile of tinned tomatoes, and behind it are dozens of bottles of water. There’s a badly-assembled gripper lying on the floor.
The next room is full of destroyed cutlery and more tins that can’t be opened, a possible reference to the story of Phlegyas who was tormented in Tartarus. Phlegyas was entombed in a cave and, like Tantalus, starved in front of an eternal feast which he was unable to feed on.
Kronos spends time wiping the cutlery and arranging it on the table, making sure everything is in its right place.
He enters the next room and again adjusts the objects on the table so that they’re just right. He does everything slowly and with purpose. Every now and then, he suffers a moment of frustration or impatience for no obvious reason.
He storms into the next tenement which belongs to King Salmoneus. Salmoneus was famous for trying to make himself like the gods. He imitated Zeus and was struck down by a bolt of lightning for his hubris. The room is filled with wires and cables and faulty electrical sockets. A hair dryer hangs over the bathtub.
Kronos picks up a knife and in a fit of anger, he stabs it into a toaster.
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He exits the tenement and walks out onto the balcony. He looks over the edge and sees Apollo and Cassandra dancing around the benches in the square below. Leaning against a column to watch their battle, he notices Laocoön emerge from a dark corner and reach up to grab hold of a rope.
Track 4
Kronos turns and goes back inside. He proceeds to retrace his steps through the tenements, but this time he walks backwards.
The sight is surreal. Kronos is a huge man with long bedraggled hair and dungarees, and he walks backwards through a room full of broken cutlery as Lee Hazlewood sings ‘Your Sweet Love’ on the radio.
He picks up a fork from a table and violently throws it to the ground. In Tantalus's room, he spends time sitting in the sinister chair with manacles.
Track 5
He makes his way through the first room and suddenly runs full pelt towards the hotel corridor, crashing through a series of doors. He runs into Polymestor’s office and stops still behind the desk. With a dramatic change of pace, he sits in the chair calmly and lifts his enormous boots onto the table.
Polydorus is on the other side of the office, looking through a window. Kronos sits motionless and watches him, as Polydorus watches Polymestor and Kampe in the night club next door. He tries to copy their dance moves, but he’s crude and clumsy.
Polydorus senses something behind him and turns around to find Kronos staring. Polydorus moves towards him and they eyeball each other, until Kronos stands up and Polydorus quickly backs off. Kronos slaps his back and almost knocks him over.
Polymestor and Kampe are still dancing next door, as the music grinds to a halt and the lights go out. Kronos walks in and stands in front of Polymestor, so that when the lights come back on, he appears from nowhere and Polymestor jumps back in shock.
Kronos takes centre stage, much to the annoyance of Polymestor, and performs an intense solo routine. Polymestor and Kampe look on in bemusement. They’re wary of him and unsure what to do.
Kampe joins him on the dancefloor and they push and pull each other across the room. She drags him to one side, but he escapes her clutches and charges at Polymestor, who leaps onto the seating next to the window. Kronos jumps after him and gets in his face.
Kronos is full of intimidation and menace and Polymestor is nervous. After a moment, he climbs down and points at Polydorus through the window, before returning to the office.
Polymestor is shaken and tries to laugh it off, and Kampe puts a comforting arm on his shoulder. Kronos approaches Polydorus again and this time he takes off his red thread necklace and places it around the boy’s neck. Polydorus reacts badly and his body spasms.
Track 6
Kronos leaves the office and walks through the hotel, heading downstairs to the graffiti corridor. He enters the tenement courtyard and shines his torch against the wall. He finds the image of Moloch and hovers over it for a moment, before following the red cable back to tenement IIIIIII. He turns around and reaches out for an audience member, pulling her into the room and locking the door.
Louis J Rhone
Mitch Harvey
Track 7
Kronos emerges sometime later and returns to tenement IIIIIII. This time, he allows all of his followers to join him.
The room belongs to Kampe and has a vanity table covered in masquerade masks and feather boas. There’s a series of notes pinned to the wall about the local residents – the Danaids, Tantalus, Sisyphus, Salmoneus – names of people who were famously punished for various crimes. Each note describes the residents physically and sets out their term of punishment, which is typically noted as ‘eternity’.
Kronos sits at the dresser and stares at the mirror. He seems to be questioning who or what he is. Every now and then, he glitches and jerks his head robotically.
‘Where Have All The Flowers Gone’ by Marlene Dietrich plays on the radio and he holds up a feathery mask. He slowly places it in front of his face and smiles manically, as if he’s trying to imitate a smile and overdoing it.
He holds up a small hand mirror and catches the eye of an audience member in the reflection. He tilts the mirror and stares at each one of his followers individually.
He gets up and walks next door to tenement IIIIIIII. Opening the door, he pulls out a large white sheet. Leaving the sheet in a pile, he traps one end of it under the door, and disappears inside.
Track 8 - The Sacrifice of Polydorus
Polymestor enters the courtyard, pulling a large trolley. He leaves it at one end of the square and approaches tenement IIIIIIII. He sees the white sheet and unravels it so that it stretches out across the yard, mimicking the cape that Agamemnon wears in Mycenae. He pulls a trunk from the trolley and throws it open, as the body of Polydorus rolls out onto the sheet.
Kronos opens his door and a bright light blazes behind him, silhouetting his enormous frame. He reaches down for the sheet and drags Polydorus into his room, accepting the young boy as a sacrificial offering. ‘2049’ by Hans Zimmer plays in the background and upstairs on the balcony, Eurydice watches in horror, clutching her chest.
Polymestor disappears and the square is empty, as Eurydice comes down the stairs, cautiously approaching the door to the tenement. It swings open and Polydorus falls out, hitting the ground. Eurydice is overwhelmed with grief and kneels down to cradle him.
James Finnemore
Jon Savage
Track 9 - Fury in the Streets
Kronos re-emerges from his room, once again wearing his red thread necklace. He sits on a rusty old chair and watches as Polydorus starts to jerk awake and stumble about the square, resurrected as a Fury.
A short while later, Polyxena joins him and they share a loving embrace, as the two of them are reunited in death. They take off through the backstreets of Troy, resurgent and feral.
Track 10
Kronos wanders into the middle of the courtyard and approaches the benches. He stretches out his arms and, with an impressive show of strength, lifts one of the benches and drops it against the side of the stairs. He moves the second one in a similar fashion and clears the square. He picks up a red flower from the ground and holds it tenderly, smelling it and clasping it to his chest.
The reset music plays and he spins around and looks up at the sky. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the parchment paper that he’d collected at the start of the night. He walks over to the Apollo shrine and drops it in the slot of the prayer box.
With a heavy heart, he returns to the Danaid’s tenement and sits at the kitchen table to grapple with his jigsaw.
Laocoön
Ali Goldsmith, Ferghas Clavey, Fred Gehrig, Georges Hann, Harry Price, Mitch Harvey, Omar Gordon, Robert McNeill, Ryan O'Neill, Timothy John Bartlett.
​
Laocoön is a seer. He runs Divine Deities, the pottery shop next to Alighieri’s. He looks like a vagrant and carries a rugged grey bag, and sometimes holds a staff. He wears a tattered hooded jacket, a grey shirt and trousers with braces.
He was referred to as Calchas in the early shows. Calchas was a seer that received knowledge of the future from the god Apollo.
​
Laocoön lives on the outskirts of Troy in a scruffy tent, full of old magazines and pictures of birds. The tent is cramped and shabby, but there’s a certain order to his belongings.
The references to birds are another nod to Calchas, who was a ‘bird-savant’, able to see future events based on how the birds flew.
His shop ‘Divine Deities’ includes a wall of shelves containing hundreds of small clay sculptures. There are little horses and rows of tiny figures of Poseidon and Athena. On the counter is a commission from the ‘6th Circle’ for a statue of Poseidon. There are chalk scrawls and sketches of serpents on the wall.
At the back of the shop is a small studio, where Laocoön spends time carving figurines at his worktop. The shop was labelled ‘Rotwang Studio’ on early plans for the show, named after the character from ‘Metropolis’. Laocoön has a small shrine to Hephaestus, the Greek god of craftsmen, artisans and sculptors.
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Laocoön spends time lurking in the shadows, blending in with the background, hiding around corners and sneaking through the alleyways unseen. He foreshadows future events and has a penchant for smearing blood and sporadic doodling. He sometimes carries two wooden eggs, which he clicks together in moments of anxiety.
Start of Loop
Laocoön is in his pottery shop, Divine Deities, shaping a figure of clay at his worktop. He stops for a moment and sees a vision of someone floating in water. He runs his hands through his hair as if shaking out water.
He puts on his coat and walks out into the town square where Hades is singing ‘It’s a Lonesome Old Town’. He sits on a chair next to a market stall, facing a small wooden enclosure against the wall. The box is unremarkable, but Laocoön stares at it.
The music rises and a young woman dramatically emerges from the box, soaking wet and gasping for air. The woman is Persephone and the box is a well leading to the rivers of the underworld. She drags herself out and shakes the water from her hair, as Laocoön had done moments earlier.
Track 1 - The Gift of Prophecy
He wanders to the tenement courtyard and watches from the shadows as Cassandra dances with Apollo. The two of them fight a strange battle, sharing a mutual attraction while vying for dominance.
Track 2
Laocoön wanders very slowly through the graffiti corridor, stopping to stare at the image of an eye. He stumbles as if he’s drunk, seemingly predicting a drunken rampage by Neoptolemus later in the night.
Track 3 - A Curse
He returns to the tenement courtyard and sees Apollo and Cassandra dancing again. This time there’s a bench in the middle of the square and the two of them are far more aggressive. Apollo appears to be controlling Cassandra and engorging her with energy. The square is filled with dramatic, flashing lights as Cassandra has terrible visions of the future.
Laocoön walks to a dark corner and lies face down on the floor. Apollo approaches and he gets up. A rope hangs down from a pulley, attached to the underside of the balcony, and Laocoön lifts himself into the air. He spins upside-down and Apollo gives him a push so that he swings back and forth.
As he swings gently in the darkness, Cassandra sees it as a vision of her sister’s death and covers her mouth in horror. Laocoön is helped down by Apollo and the two of them go their separate ways. Cassandra is left alone, struggling to understand what happened. She approaches an audience member, holding out her hands, appealing for reassurance.
Fred Gehrig
Harry Price
Track 4
Laocoön walks through the graffiti corridor and wanders the backstreets of Troy. He passes Zagreus who asks him, ‘Do you still believe?’ and Laocoön nods. He walks upstairs to the hotel, stopping briefly to smear blood on a vending machine.
He returns to the backstreets, along the dark corridors, tapping on the walls and tapping on lamps. He takes two eggs from his pocket, one of which has holes in it like an ocarina. He holds the egg to his mouth and whistles through the holes. He bumps into Polydorus and warns him that he’s in danger. Polydorus recoils and moves away.
Track 5 - The Breach
Laocoön returns to Divine Deities and sits at his desk. He takes a piece of paper and pencil and closes his eyes, before drawing three silhouettes in graphite. Outside in the town, sirens are sounding and Troy is under siege.
He leaves his shop and enters the square, where a crowd is gathering. Holding up his picture, he looks towards the Palladium doors and moments later, three Greek soldiers burst through. The soldiers are silhouetted against a bright light, and they look just like Laocoön’s sketch.
He turns away and heads for the White Cyprus. Seeing that it’s empty, he jumps through the window.
He stands behind the bar and rearranges a few items on the counter. He props up a couple of matches to create a tiny model of an anti-tank obstacle, before crushing a black ball between his fingers and turning it to ash.
He pours the contents of a jar into a cup of liquid and the liquid turns blood-red. Draining it onto his creation, he smears it in the ash and forms the shape of an eye. He dips his fingers in the blood and smears a stripe of red down his cheek. Outside, Polyxena is murdered by the Greek soldiers and hung upside-down in the town square.
Track 6
Laocoön takes the jar and makes his way upstairs to Polymestor’s office. Opening a cabinet at the side of the room, he reveals an imposing, golden statue of Moloch.
A receipt in his shop downstairs suggests that the statue is one of his own creations. The ‘Particulars of Article’ are noted as a ‘Moloch sculpture with gold leaf’, and attached is a cheque from Polymestor.
An enormous statue of Moloch appears in the film ‘Metropolis’. The character Freder witnesses an explosion of a huge machine that kills and injures several workers. He hallucinates that the machine is a temple of Moloch and the workers are being fed into it.
Laocoön places his hands on the hands of the statue and prostrates himself before it. Cassandra walks in and they eyeball each other in recognition.
Track 7 - To the Victor the Spoils
Laocoön walks through to the night club next door and Cassandra stays in the office. Troy has fallen to King Agamemnon and Cassandra is to be his concubine. She sits and waits for him in a low chair.
Through the glass, Laocoön can be seen performing strange movements on the dancefloor. Cassandra is holding a jewelled mask and Laocoön mimes putting it on, as Cassandra follows suit and puts on the mask.
Agamemnon enters the office and sits at the desk, putting his feet up and pouring a glass of whisky, as ‘Ghost Poet (Schlepp Geist Remix)’ plays in the background. Cassandra dances for him and the king is mesmerised.
On the other side of the window, Laocoön performs a ritual in the middle of the dancefloor with his jar of blood and a silver ring. The ring includes a small skull, like a tiny version of the jewelled mask. He places it on the floor next to the jar and dances around it.
His movements are bestial and animalistic, reminiscent of Moloch, the bull-headed idol. He beats his chest in a movement that’s repeated during the Mycenae finale. Every now and then, he mimics Cassandra’s seductive moves as if he’s powering her.
Agamemnon sits on the low chair, with his back to the night club, and Cassandra straddles him. Through the window, she sees Laocoön pouring blood from his jar and dashing it against the glass.
In this moment, she understands that the king will be killed.
Track 8
Agamemnon pulls Cassandra from the room and they begin their journey to Mycenae. Laocoön lurks for a moment in the corner of the night club. Neoptolemus stumbles in, drunk and angry, and Laocoön sneaks away unnoticed.
He walks through Polymestor’s office and stops on the short bridge that leads to the Aphrodite room. He peers over the handrail and sees Patroclus dancing with Iphigenia in the Elysium yard below. He pulls out his sketch of the three soldiers and smears a bloodstain on the first soldier. It seems that Patroclus’s days are numbered.
The two lovers move on and Laocoön jumps off the side of the bridge, landing on the roof of the White Cyprus. He jumps to the ground and bumps into Kampe, who blows smoke over him.
Track 9
He walks through the backstreets and returns to his shack, where he sits at his table. Taking a picture of a snake from his bag, he starts to sketch it, as a broadcast about palm-reading comes through the radio. He puts down his pencil and looks up at an audience member. Staring at her anxiously, he pulls her into his tent.
He locks a rickety gate behind them and takes off the woman’s mask. He sits her down on a stool next to his desk and massages her hand with a look of concern on his face, ‘You have a kind soul. If you were a bird, you’d be. You’d be a dove. Pure. Pure and full of peace. Just like my little ones.’
There’s a photograph of his two sons on the desk and he talks about a time when they were at the beach, ‘Many years ago. They were playing out in the sea. Whilst I lay on the black sand bathing in the sunshine.’
He pours a small amount of black sand into the woman’s hand, ‘In the distance I saw two serpents with huge coils over the waves, their crested heads topping the sea, their eyes burning with fire and malice.’
He runs his fingers up the woman’s arm, ‘Two serpents swam towards my two boys with such great speed. They entwined their tiny limbs, wrapped around their tiny bodies, they thrusted about wildly and I cried out to the heavens! Cried out to the gods! Shaking, I swam to their aid. And the boys weren’t there anymore. The serpents had taken them down. They plunged them down.’
There's a basin hidden under the table and he removes a cover and plunges her hand into the water, ‘Down, into the sea.’ He moves her hand towards two little clay figures at the bottom. She pulls them out and he holds them, ‘They lay there still, my tiny boys, in the dark, dark depths of the ocean, where their souls are free to soar the sky.’
He dries her hand with a towel and says quietly, ‘Your eyes remind me of my son. They are of the forest. Kind. Curious.’ He replaces her mask and ushers her out through the gate.
Track 10 - Come, Spirits of Vengeance
Laocoön wanders back to Divine Deities and sits at his worktop making clay figurines, rolling the clay into a ball over and over, before cutting it in half and forming a couple of small child-like figures. He traces a snake around them with some water and drifts into a state of melancholy.
He makes a small cup from the clay and fills it with a few drops of water from a bottle marked ‘River Lethe’. He raises the cup to his lips, but catches the eye of an audience member and stops himself. Utterly dejected, he washes his face and hands in a basin as the reset music plays.
Loop 3 / Track 11
At the end of the final loop, Laocoön walks out into the middle of the main square. Something strange is brewing and Laocoön knows what’s coming. He takes a piece of chalk from his pocket and draws a spiral of concentric circles on the concrete floor.
He gets up and Hades walks past, shooting him a glance. He gathers a cluster of audience members in a circle and makes them reach out to hold hands, one on top of the other. Hades comes back, cupping his hands, holding some sort of liquid. He drips it over the hands of the audience members.
Laocoön whispers, ‘Around’, and the five of them walk in a tight circle, like a pinwheel, still holding hands. Thunder roars overhead and the square is illuminated in a sinister blue glow.
Laocoön walks away, but the human wheel keeps turning. Nearby, Hades has created another circle of audience members, spinning around in the opposite direction. Hecuba arrives in a fur coat and huge black boots with murder in her eyes. The pounding techno beats of ‘Confusion’ blast out of the speakers and the town square is a whirlwind.
Kampe
Andrea Carrucciu, Carl Harrison, Dafni Krazoudi, Fania Grigoriou, Fred Gehrig, Jahmarley Bachelor, Maya Milet, Omar Gordon, Pin Chieh Chen.
​
In Greek mythology, Kampe is a female monster and a guard in Tartarus.
In The Burnt City, she wears a long snakeskin jacket over a black mesh PVC cat-suit. She has long black nails and wears knee-high boots, and is played by both male and female performers.
Kampe is partly inspired by the Weimar cabaret dancer, Anita Berber, as well as 'Robot Maria' from Metropolis.
Start of Loop
The reset music plays and Kampe wakes up on the floor of the Klub night club.
She’s groggy and discombobulated. Next to her is a cocktail glass containing a couple of eyeballs, which she drinks greedily.
She locates a wet cloth from behind the bar and mops a few bloodstains from the floor. She moves over to the window and wipes blood from the glass. An audience member is sitting on the other side and she sticks her tongue out at him. She picks up a fur coat and walks to the office next door.
Polymestor is sitting behind his desk in a black suit jacket and appears to be recovering from an ordeal. Kampe sits across from him and they smile flirtatiously, as she hands him the fur coat. They have an unspoken understanding and he chuckles as he pulls it on. Re-energised, he heads off, leaving Kampe alone in the office.
Track 1
She opens up a drinks cabinet, revealing a red neon glow, and pours a drink into a tumbler. She knocks it back and pours another couple of drinks, leaving them on the cabinet. Sitting at the desk, she sorts out some papers and a leather portfolio, making sure that everything is in its right place. She flicks through a series of headshots of children and closes the drawer.
Track 2 - Klubbing
Cassandra and Apollo walk through the office and Cassandra stops briefly to take a swig from one of the glasses. She continues through to the night club with her muscular god in tow, and the two of them perform an intense duet to ‘Ghost Poet’ (Schlepp Geist Remix).
Kampe stays in the office and sits in a low chair, wheeling herself to the side of the room, so that she’s sitting under a wall-lamp. She wheels herself back to the middle of the room and spins around, pausing for a moment to watch Cassandra and Apollo through the window.
Suddenly, Polyxena, Polydorus and Macaria burst in, looking for a party and Kampe hands everyone a glass. The four of them dance together and knock back their drinks. Kampe has a wicked glint in her eye and she flirts with Polyxena and Macaria. Polydorus elbows his way in and they all spin in a circle, holding their glasses in the air.
Cassandra finishes her battle with Apollo and walks back through the office. She tries to warn Polydorus about some impending danger, but he doesn’t take her seriously. She gestures towards Apollo, but no’one else seems to notice him. Polyxena dismisses her and pushes her away, and Cassandra is exasperated.
Polyxena, Macaria and Kampe move to the night club and continue to party. Kampe spins on the dancefloor with her arms outstretched, and makes a show of the other two girls, encouraging them to dance together. They embrace and Kampe raises her cocktail glass. She passes the glass to Polyxena who takes a swig.
’Feel the Sunshine’ by Alex Reece plays as Polyxena and Macaria get more intimate. Kampe leaves the two of them on the dancefloor and heads through a pair of doors that take her downstairs to Peep.
Track 3
She walks in and a cabaret singer, Kat, is performing with a live band, singing ‘Sweet Love’ by Anita Baker.
The two hosts, Dyo and Cici, are camping it up on stage, making innuendos and having a rare old time, ‘Money can’t buy you love, and neither can dignity, but it can buy you a drink! Sweet love! Now, that’s what you call a big finish!’
Kampe disappears through a low door to a backstage area near the bar, where she prepares for her first performance.
Dyo and Cici keep the audience entertained, ‘Don’t you love love? Love can taste sweet, indeed. Love can make you lose yourself, and show you the most private parts of yourself, or of someone else, if you’re lucky. Love can split you down the middle, make you someone’s other half, their better half, not even their whole. And before you know it, you’re…’ ‘Finishing each other’s sentences.’ ‘And wearing the same dresses! Coincidence!’
Suddenly, Kampe pops her head through a trap-door on the stage. The hosts give her a big introduction as she climbs up, ‘But real love is light, and we love the light! It lights the way and shows us who we are. But it is the darkness that shows us the stars, and it’s time to uncover our first star. They’re the Queen of Peep. They shine the darkest. So dark it might scare you. Ultraviolet means ultraviolence. So, please welcome to the stage, your trajesty, Kampe!’
Kampe is wearing a pair of elbow-length, red PVC gloves and she performs an outrageous routine to ‘Liquid Smoke’ by Infected Mushroom. She holds out her bright, red arms and marches with a manic energy.
Some of her moves are reminiscent of a scene in ‘Metropolis’ where the ‘False Maria’ performs an erotic dance for a room full of lustful men in tuxedos. She moves her hips in a circular motion as if to hypnotize the audience.
Kampe climbs off stage to a smattering of applause and a lively send-off from the hosts, ‘Give it up for Kampe! They really glisten when they move, don’t they? Spiky, sharp and shiny. Just like all stars should be.’
Kampe heads back through the little half-door to change.
Track 4
Meanwhile, Hades enters the bar and is introduced to the crowd. He gets on stage and sings a strange, grandiloquent version of Leonard Cohen’s, ‘If I Didn’t Have Your Love’. Persephone is sitting in the audience, lost and confused.
Kampe emerges through the half-door and makes her way back to Klub. The room is dark and empty and she sits by the long window, surrounded by tubes of red neon. She looks at the glass, but the curtains are closed.
Track 5
‘Nature Boy’ by Dennis Cruz starts up and a row of lights blaze in the ceiling above. The curtains open and Polydorus is sitting on the other side of the window in a low chair. His eyes open wide and Polymestor stands behind him, grinning wickedly. Polymestor has been entrusted by Hecuba to look after her son.
Kampe stands in the middle of the dancefloor and rocks her hips from side to side. She performs a slow, sultry dance, dropping her shoulders and jerking to the beat. Polydorus gets up and puts his hands on the window, transfixed by this beautiful creature.
He sits back and Polymestor gives him a drink, before joining Kampe in the night club. The two of them share a flirtatious dance and Polydorus tries to mimic them while sitting in his chair.
Kronos appears at the back of the office and interacts with Polydorus, as Polymestor and Kampe get more seductive in the night club. They continue to dance provocatively as the music intensifies and eventually the lights go out.
Kronos enters and places himself in the middle of the dancefloor. The lights come back on and Polymestor jumps in surprise as a huge man appears in front of him. He looks at Kampe and nods as if to say, ‘Who does he think he is?’ Kampe tries to calm him as they watch him perform an intense solo dance.
Polymestor sits next to an audience member and leans back. Kronos runs at him and he darts across the dancefloor to escape. Kronos charges at him again and Polymestor jumps up onto the seating next to the window. Kronos steps up and they’re face-to-face, inches apart. They eyeball each other and Kronos backs off, smirking as he walks back through the office. Polymestor is shaken and Kampe puts a hand on his shoulder.
He returns to the office to collect his charge. Kampe watches through the window as he puts his arm around Polydorus and tells him what’s next on the agenda. He lifts up the corner of a rug and reveals a square of glass floor which looks down onto the audience bar below. Polydorus bends down to see the view and Polymestor turns to Kampe and shrugs, ‘What can you do?’
Polymestor heads into the storeroom and disappears through a secret door, leaving Polydorus alone in the office, confused. He sees Kampe through the window and she beckons him into the night club. She greets him warmly and directs him towards a door that will take him to Peep. He wanders off uncertainly and Kampe waves him goodbye.
Track 6 - The Sacrifice of Polyxena
She returns to the office and pours herself a drink, before making her way through the Aphrodite room and into the greenhouse room. She finds Askalaphos sitting at a table, surrounded by strange looking equipment and preparing a potion of some sort with a pipette.
Askalaphos is Troy’s favourite drug dealer and Kampe leans against the wall, waiting for a fix. He takes great care with his product, as he passes it to Kampe and puts it on her tongue. It hits the spot and she slowly crumbles to the ground, where she has a fit of giggles. She rolls under the table, blissed out, and Askalaphos has another satisfied customer.
The angelic voice of Elin Manahan Thomas, singing ‘All The Earth’, drifts in from the town square. Downstairs, Polyxena’s body in being winched into the air, as Kampe wriggles on the floor, laughing. She gets to her feet and bids farewell to Askalaphos.
Suddenly, she sits upright and looks towards a dark corner near tenement IIIIIIII. ‘Where Have All the Flowers Gone?’ is playing on an old-fashioned radio. She takes the hand of another audience member and they walk towards it. Kneeling down, Kampe puts her hand against the speaker to feel the pulse of the music.
There is no pulse and she seems worried. She flicks the switch, turning it off and on, but the music continues uninterrupted. The music is part of the soundtrack to the show, like diegetic music in a film, and coming out of a different set of speakers. Kampe turns to stare at the audience member, her eyes widening in alarm.
She checks her companion's pulse and breathes a sigh of relief. He appears to be real, but then she takes the man’s hand and places it on her own heart. Like the radio, she doesn’t have a heartbeat and she starts to panic again.
She gets up and heads to the White Cyprus. She pulls out a bottle and has a quick shot, before pouring a couple more for audience members. Outside in the alleyway, next to a pile of crates, Polymestor is wheeling a heavy trolley.
Eurydice walks in and sees Kampe, but she’s in a panic and pays her no attention. She writes a note for Zagreus and leaves it under a bottle. Once she’s gone, Kampe has a read of the note and shakes her head.
Track 8
She leaves the bar and stops in the hotel reception. Taking the hand of an audience member, she pulls him through a door into a small, cramped bedroom.
Track 7
She makes her way to the tenement courtyard and sits on a bench in the middle of the square. She drapes her snakeskin jacket over the bench and takes in the night air, still enjoying the effects of the drugs.
Reaching out, she takes the hand of an audience member and pulls her to the bench along-side her. A beam from a spotlight breaks up into hundreds of pinpricks of light, and the two women lean back and look at the starry sky.
Kampe stands up and leads the woman in a quick tango around the square. They spin so fast that the woman gets dizzy and they both fall over. Kampe lies on her back and laughs hysterically.
The room contains a camp-bed and a few books and boxes. There’s a child’s novelty light with fish inside and there are pictures of sea creatures taped to the low ceiling.
Kampe gestures for the man to sit down. She talks about going to the seaside when she was young. While she was looking out towards Greece, she saw something in the water that was half-man, half-snake. She says that she used to be a silent film star and that she would travel all over.
She talks about dreams and tells the man to lie down. She always has the same dream, ‘Every night I pray to Morpheus, the god of sleep, for a new dream, but it never comes. It's always the same dream.’
‘There’s a cage underwater and I’m trapped. And there are fish swimming all around.’ Kampe’s hands weave around the pictures on the ceiling just above them. ‘I’m swimming, deeper and deeper. And I see this cage. Metal bars. And inside is a gigantic snake. And the cage opens.’
As she says this, the lighting dims. ‘The snake slips out of the cage. And it’s massive. And it’s coiling all around me. My arms, my chest, my neck.’ As she describes her ordeal, she caresses her body. She clutches her neck and her eyes flutter. The lights go out and she lies down next to the man.
Shining a UV torch against the ceiling, she illuminates an image of a snake. There’s a long pause. The man can hear her breathing, ‘I always feel a little funny after that dream. Like there was still something in me. Long. Like a slug. Like a snake.’ Kampe leans over the man, ‘I think I’m a snake.’ She turns the light towards her own face and she’s wearing UV make-up and glowing.
After a moment, she sits back and talks more casually. She asks the man if he’s been to the club yet, ‘I still perform there. All the same numbers I did years ago when I was travelling. From the 1920s.’ The man says he’s been. ‘Who did you see? Oh, me? Have you seen the one with the crown yet? You should. It’s about to happen. They have a new singer.’ She gives the man his mask and leads him out of the room.
Track 9
Kampe returns to Peep. The singer on stage is singing Alison Moyet’s ‘All Cried Out’ and Kampe ducks into the small changing area to prepare for her next act. The song ends and the two hosts, Dyo and Cici, entertain the crowd.
Cici pretends to be a mind reader, ‘We all love a mind reader, right?’ He approaches an audience member and stands behind her. Dyo asks the woman to think of a word, ‘Now look at me. Has Cici told you what’s written on this piece of paper?’ The woman shakes her head, ‘No.’ There’s a loud drum roll and Dyo unfolds the paper, yelping as she reveals the word ‘No’ written in bold letters.
They hand out paper and pens and ask the audience to draw four shapes on different sheets. Dyo goes through a convoluted routine where the audience is told to tear the four sheets in half and mix them up, finally throwing six of them in the air and keeping two of them. Everyone joins the two remaining sheets together and a few people find they have a complete shape, ‘Do they make a matching picture? You are our mystics! Have we got any misfits? Quite a few. Oh well. Well done everybody. Misfits and mystics are all welcome here!’
Kampe appears wearing a large, theatrical crown on her head. She’s joined by Orpheus, the resident singer, and Dyo introduces the two of them, ‘Things are starting to align in here! Is it getting hot in here? Two stars are about to crash-land in Peep, which doesn’t happen very often. Except. Every. Single. Night. Put whatever you have together for Kampe and Orpheus!’
Kampe performs an intense, robotic dance to ‘You Should See Me In A Crown’ by Billie Eilish, as a spectacular light show explodes above her. Orpheus stands on a column base at the back of the room, belting out the vocals.
Kampe stares intently at the audience and lip-synchs, ‘You should see me in a crown. I'm gonna run this nothing town.’ She ends the number malfunctioning and having a breakdown, with blood running from her crown and down her face.
The hosts return to the stage, ‘Two stars, two crowns, two queens! Can you feel the power? Power’s a strange thing. It can’t be taken. It has to be given. Like a compliment. But where does power start? With the gods. Can we summon the gods into Peep? But what do we have to offer? Maybe human sacrifice?’
Fania Grigoriou
Carl Harrison
Track 10 - Come, Spirits of Vengeance
Kampe heads back to the changing area. Artemis and Apollo are waiting to be announced as the next act, and they bust some moves at the back of the room. Kampe walks back upstairs and heads for Klub.
Loud techno music is blasting out of the speakers and the women of Troy are gathering on the dancefloor.
Polymestor struts through the door and he’s in the mood to party. The room is shaking to ‘Confusion (Pump Panel Reconstruction Mix)’ by New Order and Polymester sits down to watch the show. The women pull him up and he joins them on the dancefloor, as they surround him and stroke his face.
Hecuba appears wearing a fur coat over a black slip. She stomps around the dancefloor in a pair of huge black boots, looking deranged and terrifying. She gets a cocktail glass from the bar and carries it to the dancefloor, pouring a few drops into Kampe’s eager mouth.
They women smother Polymestor until he’s overpowered and dragged to the ground. The music and lighting rise to crescendo in a chaotic explosion. Hecuba pounces on him, sinking her fingers into his face. There’s an animalistic roar and it could be Hecuba crying in righteous fury or Polymestor crying in pain. Polymestor is blinded and Hecuba holds his jellied eyes in her outstretched hands.
Kampe takes them from her and drops them in the cocktail glass. The other performers disperse in different directions and Kampe is left alone in the middle of the dancefloor. The rest music plays and she lies down on top of the Minotaur logo and falls asleep.
Mycenaeans
Clytemnestra Agamemnon Iphigenia Aegisthus
The Oracle Neoptolemus Patroclus The Watchman
Clytemnestra
Ally Clarke, Brenda Lee Grech, Emily Terndrup, Fania Grigoriou, Maya Milet, Natalie Allen, Omagbitse Omagbemi, Pin Chieh Chen, Yen-Ching Lin.
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Clytemnestra is the wife of Agamemnon and Queen of Mycenae. She rules Mycenae in her husband’s absence, while he’s fighting in the Trojan War.
In the play ‘Agamemnon’, Clytemnestra is driven to murder her husband to avenge the death of her daughter and because of her adulterous love for Aegisthus. She also acts as an agent for the curse on Agamemnon’s family, the House of Atreus.
In The Burnt City, Clytemnestra wears a floor-length brown shimmery evening dress. She changes into a black slip and flowing bronze robe with a bronze shimmery cloak.
Start of Loop
Clytemnestra is upstairs in the royal palace, drying herself with a towel. Behind her, the body of her husband is slumped on the floor under the shower, bloodied and lifeless. She dries her arms and walks away, descending the grand staircase. She wanders around the wilderness of no-man’s-land holding a lantern. There’s a bridal veil wrapped around one of the huge steel girders.
She walks back upstairs and enters a curtained-off area next to the long table, where she sits at a dresser. She brushes her hair and stares hard at her reflection.
Track 1
She gets up and walks over to Iphigenia’s bedroom, where her daughter is getting ready for the day ahead.
Iphigenia is excited to see her and they embrace warmly. The two of them love each other dearly and there’s an atmosphere of optimism and good cheer. Iphigenia sits at her dresser and brushes her hair, as Clytemnestra notices a red dress hanging on the door of the wardrobe. She strokes it and pauses for a moment.
Outside, the Oracle has laid out an enormous bear costume on the long table and is busying herself in the background. The costume is for a coming-of-age ritual called the ‘Arkteia’, practiced by worshippers of Artemis.
The two women help Iphigenia into the costume and stand back in admiration. Iphigenia is transformed and Clytemnestra beams with pride as her daughter pulls a few animal poses and practices some of the moves for the ritual. She’s full of childish glee, but her mother wants her to take it more seriously.
She climbs onto the long table and walks on all fours. She claws the air like a wild animal and Clytemnestra walks along-side, keeping her in check as they head for the grand staircase.
Omagbitse Omagbemi
Ally Clarke
Track 2 - Arkteia
They stop at the bottom of the stairs and Clytemnestra helps her into the head of the suit. She walks ahead, through to the hinterland, a large sandy space full of trees, and approaches a shrine dedicated to Artemis. She picks up a pair of antlers from the floor.
In Greek mythology, the goddess Artemis was associated with deer and considered the animal to be sacred. Her chariot was drawn by four golden-horned hinds.
Iphigenia follows her mother into the woods and falls to the ground on all fours, taking on the behaviour of the bear. Her mother passes the antlers over her body and they perform a sacrificial ritual where Clytemnestra appears to kill the bear for Iphigenia to emerge reborn.
As the two women dance together, a Greek soldier, the Watchman, enters wearing a heavy greatcoat. He’s carrying a field telephone and Clytemnestra picks up the receiver. Her husband, Agamemnon is calling to tell her that Iphigenia is to wed his second-in-command, Neoptolemus. Clytemnestra is delighted and the two women rejoice as they return to Iphigenia’s bedroom.
In the original myth, Iphigenia marries Achilles, but here Neoptolemus takes on the role normally associated with Achilles, his father.
Track 3 - A Wedding Celebration
Iphigenia sits at her dresser applying make-up and Clytemnestra fixes her daughter’s hair. Artemis appears and stands in the corner of the room, watching over proceedings. ‘Sing Sing Sing’ by Benny Goodman plays on the radio and Iphigenia is full of innocent anticipation.
The Oracle is there and she’s placed a box on the bed with a balloon tied to it. Clytemnestra opens it and pulls out a wedding veil. She gently places it on Iphigenia’s head and stands back, beaming with pride.
Iphigenia runs out of the room and finds Aegisthus waiting for her. Aegisthus is Agamemnon’s cousin and he has a small bouquet of flowers tucked into his belt. He pulls it out and bows with a theatrical flourish. The Oracle holds up a tray of drinks and they all perform a joyous swing dance outside the bedroom.
Iphigenia dances on the long table and Clytemnestra and Aegisthus follow her up, the three of them spinning and flipping like Lindy Hoppers. The Oracle loses herself for a moment in the revelry and Artemis dances along at the side of the table.
The music ends and the lighting dims, as the dancers catch their breath. There’s a loud pop and hundreds of strips of confetti pour down from above, covering Iphigenia. The mood shifts abruptly and there’s an air of uncertainty. It’s an unnerving moment and the feeling of joy is replaced by a sense of foreboding.
Iphigenia is to leave her family home and fall under the ownership of her husband. Her smile fades and Clytemnestra looks at her reassuringly. She pulls a bright red cloak over her daughter’s shoulders and she suddenly looks very young and vulnerable. Artemis beckons her forward and leads her downstairs into the gloom of no-man’s-land.
Track 4 - The Sacrifice of Iphigenia
Clytemnestra stay upstairs to witness the ceremony from the balcony. She leans against the handrail, joining a long line of audience members.
In the barren, open space below, Neoptolemus waits for his bride at the top of a steel girder. Agamemnon, Patroclus and the Watchman stand in the shadows. The mood is unusually sombre and downbeat and there’s no sense of celebration.
‘Every Reborn’ from the film ‘V for Vendetta’ plays as Iphigenia climbs the girder to join Neoptolemus, removing her red cloak and revealing her white wedding dress. He places a ring on her finger, but then turns away. His friend Patroclus helps him climb down, leaving Iphigenia alone and confused.
Agamemnon slowly walks up the girder and pulls off her veil. She panics and looks in disbelief as he raises his hand above her head. The orchestral music reaches a dramatic crescendo as he brings his clenched fist down on her neck. She’s struck down and falls against the girder, her white dress covered in blood.
Clytemnestra is stunned and her eyes widen in horror. She throws her head back and screams silently at the sky. Iphigenia lies still as the haunting plainsong of ‘A Storm Over Yaughton’ by Jessica Curry echoes through the building.
Track 5
Clytemnestra stumbles backwards into the royal palace until she hits the long table. She beats her chest over and over and howls in pain. She performs a tragic dance, falling to the ground and against the table.
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At the same time, in no-man’s-land, Agamemnon is also suffering. He throws himself to the floor, flanked by two of his men, while Clytemnestra agonises alone.
Agamemnon’s grief turns to aggression and a lust for war as he picks himself up and marches towards Troy, followed by his lieutenants. Clytemnestra’s grief also hardens and she becomes consumed by a craving for vengeance.
Track 6
Aegisthus enters the palace and approaches discreetly, stroking her arms and trying to comfort her. They dance together on top of the table, rolling around in anguish and despair. He understands her misery and has his own reasons to plot against her husband.
Agamemnon’s father, Atreus, and Aegisthus’s father, Thyestes, had a long-standing feud over the kingship of Mycenae. Each side of the family thought the throne was rightfully theirs and they committed terrible crimes against each other.
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The goddess Artemis is in no-man’s land and she lets out a blood-curdling scream. At the same time, Clytemnestra screams silently to the heavens, as Aegisthus tries to calm her.
Track 7 - Dinner
The Oracle arrives and walks in the shadows around the table, as the two lovers embrace. She approaches a large cabinet in a curtained area at the side of the room and takes out a plastic sheet and two pairs of overalls. Clytemnestra and Aegisthus join her and unfurl the sheet across the middle of the table. Their dancing changes from tragic to aggressive and purposeful, as they both pull on the plastic overalls.
The Oracle proceeds to lay a small plate at either end of the table, with a modest portion of raw meat. ‘Drop In Next Time You’re Passing’ by Elisabeth Welch plays in the background, providing a curiously playful soundtrack.
The two lovers take their seats at either end of the table and tuck into the first course. They eat politely at first, but become less polite with each bite until they’re eating with their hands and wolfing down the slivers of flesh like animals.
The main course arrives and the Oracle places a large plate in the middle of the table containing a pile of bloody intestines and a large animal skull. She picks up a small tube and squirts blood over the intestines and on the table. The two lovers approach the plate and grope at the intestines, smearing their hands in the blood.
They climb onto the table and Clytemnestra lifts up the bloody coil, placing it on Aegisthus’ head like a crown. He strikes a kingly pose and stamps his feet with authority. Their plot to kill Agamemnon is taking shape. Clytemnestra takes the entrails and cradles them like a baby.
The eating of intestines may be a nod to the story of Aegisthus’s father, Thyestes, who was tricked into eating two of his sons by his brother Atreus, the father of Agamemnon.
The two lovers leave the bloody mess on the table for the Oracle to clear up and make their way to the shower, where they wash their arms. They dry themselves and Aegisthus heads off, as Clytemnestra strips off her clothes and reaches for a beautiful golden dress that’s hanging on the wall nearby.
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On the other side of the Aegean Sea, Troy has fallen and the Greeks have won the war. Agamemnon is expected to return and Clytemnestra prepares for his homecoming. She pulls on her golden dress and looks every inch the elegant queen, ready to welcome her king back to the royal household.
She descends the grand staircase, as a column of lights underneath her radiates through the steps. The twin gods, Apollo and Artemis, are at the bottom of the stairs and they walk up, bowing their heads in reverence as Clytemnestra passes between them.
She walks slowly across the desolate, open wilderness of no-man’s-land, stopping to look up at the heavens. A storm is raging overhead and the violent wind tells her that the Greeks are sailing home. Upstairs in the royal palace, Apollo and Artemis throw lightning bolts at each other across the long table.
Clytemnestra climbs the steel girder and waits, unsettled by the storm and apprehensive about her murderous plot. Her long dress hangs over the side of the beam and she stands upright, impossibly tall.
Track 8 - The Conqueror’s Return
Agamemnon appears at the border with Cassandra, his concubine. Cassandra places a jewelled mask over his face, and they turn to look at Clytemnestra.
In the play by Aeschylus, Agamemnon and Cassandra return to the palace in a wagon, evoking a cart that would typically bring home a bride and groom. Clytemnestra, the insulted wife, shows no obvious signs of disapproval, but it provides her with further motivation to kill her husband.
Emily Terndrup
Natalie Allen
Track 9 - The Robe of Glory
Agamemnon approaches his wife and they embrace. They walk back towards the grand staircase where the Oracle is waiting. Agamemnon greets her warmly and the Oracle opens a box to reveal a large, crimson cape. She starts to tie the robe around his neck, but he’s unsure. Clytemnestra reassures him and he allows the Oracle to continue.
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In the original play, a purple rug is laid out for Agamemnon to walk over. He refuses, claiming that it’s too extravagant and sends out the wrong message. It’s something the gods would do, but not a man. Clytemnestra very much wants him to send out the wrong message and she asks him, ‘Wouldn’t Priam walk on the rug?’
Some scholars believe that Clytemnestra was the inspiration for Shakespeare when he devised the anti-hero Lady Macbeth, who manipulated her husband to commit terrible deeds against his will.
Agamemnon climbs the stairs towards Apollo and Artemis, who are waiting for him on the top landing. As he rises, his huge cape covers the whole of the staircase. The two gods gather it up as he enters the palace.
Cassandra follows on behind, distraught and fearful. Bestowed with the gift of prophecy, she understands the fate that awaits Agamemnon.
Downstairs, Iphigenia and Patroclus burst into no-man’s-land and dance around the steel girders.
In the royal palace, Aegisthus lurks in the background, unrecognisable in a strange bald mask. Agamemnon looks at him curiously as he walks towards the long table. He believes the stranger to be a masseuse and so accepts his presence in his home.
Clytemnestra is waiting for him at the other end of the table and Agamemnon walks towards her, his cape dragging behind him. Cassandra walks alongside the table at the same slow pace, a prisoner of war shackled to her captor and an ever-present memento mori.
Agamemnon reaches his wife and takes off the jewelled mask. They embrace and collapse on the table, curling up in a foetal position under the red fabric.
‘Snow Melt’ by Marco Belrami plays as Agamemnon falls asleep. Cassandra carefully lifts the mask from the table and hands it to Apollo.
Track 10 - The Comforts of Home
Agamemnon and Clytemnestra rise together and slowly walk towards the shower at the other end of the table. They kiss and grope each other in a dream-like trance. Aegisthus joins the dance and the three of them roll around each other, a ball of twisted limbs, clawing and stroking. Clytemnestra and Aegisthus eye each other knowingly.
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Aegisthus has prepared a poisoned drink, a ‘kykeon’, and he tips it into Agamemnon’s mouth. The king slumps to the floor, leaning back against the end of table. They strip him naked so that he’s completely vulnerable and at their mercy.
They drag him to the shower, woozy and dazed. Aegisthus stands to the side and peels off his rubber mask. Agamemnon realises too late what’s happening and Clytemnestra grips his head in her hands and smashes it into the wall. He falls to the floor and Clytemnestra wraps her strong arms around his neck. He struggles, but she pulls hard until he stops moving. He lies naked on the ground, blood pouring from him into the drain and Clytemnestra falls back, exhausted.
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Clytemnestra describes the murder in the original play -
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‘I trapped him in a robe and then smote him. At each wound, he cried aloud. Each dying breath flung swift bubbling jets of gore from his breast. And the dark sprinklings of the rain of blood fell upon me. And I rejoiced to feel that dew.’
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Iphigenia appears on the long table, emerging silently out of the shadows in a vivid red dress. Clytemnestra and Aegisthus pay her no attention as they dry themselves and leave Agamemnon lying on the floor. They walk past Iphigenia as she approaches her father.
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Mycenae Finale
At the end of Loop 3, the show ends with the Mycenae finale.
Having murdered her husband, Clytemnestra disappears briefly as the other performers, including several characters from Troy, gather in the royal palace. Most of them find a quiet corner or private space and remove their costumes.
They emerge from the shadows wearing anonymous grey underwear and walk to the curtained area next to the long table, carrying their clothes in front of them. They enter the side entrance and form an orderly queue, emerging through the middle of the enclosure and approaching the table. They place their neat piles on the concrete surface and the jewelled mask is placed on top of one of the piles.
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The performers bend down and lay their torsos on the table, stretching out their arms and spinning around to form a conveyor belt of rotating limbs. By stripping down, the performers have lost their identities and are now a ghostly, shapeless mass of lost souls. They move towards the grand staircase and begin their descent into hell.
Hades walks along the table, towards the shower, stepping over the clothes. Iphigenia walks in the opposite direction towards her bedroom, having had her final reunion with her father. She passes Hades, who shakes his head. She strips in her bedroom and heads towards the metal ladder.
Persephone enters Mycenae and walks through no-man’s-land. She climbs the stairs and the topless dancers fall past her, writhing and struggling against the banisters, forming a haunting death parade. Persephone walks through the throng, shining in her vivid crimson jumpsuit, and enters the royal palace, where she meets Hades on the table. They greet each other without emotion and walk towards the balcony at the far end of the mezzanine.
Clytemnestra appears at the top of the staircase wearing a golden robe, and follows on behind the mass of tortured souls as the unearthly procession plunges into the depths of the underworld.
The scene embodies the catharsis of all the Greek tragedies that have played out across the evening. The dead souls are sculpted in a chilling tableau of communal despair. Thunder crackles in the sky and there’s a spectacular light show high up in the rafters.
Hades and Persephone watch from the balcony, illuminated by a spotlight as they admire the view and share a pomegranate. The display before them resembles the painting in Hades’ office, ‘The Fall of the Damned’.
The bodies gather at the bottom of the stairs and huddle together in a tight throng of writhing flesh. They move towards the centre of no-man’s-land.
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A ball of light on the ground gradually grows in size, as audience members step back to create a larger circle. The performers walk around the perimeter, lurching up and down and staring into the eyes of the watching shades. Some of them reach out and stroke their white masks.
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They run faster, convulsing and twisting, before gathering again in a tight mass of bodies. They move as a single organism, clasping their breasts with both hands and pumping their hearts, a throbbing swell with one heartbeat.
The ‘Agnus Dei’ section of Verdi’s “Cherubini Requiem in C Minor’ plays in the background, a soundtrack that was also used in ‘Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me’.
The heartbeat slows and then stops and the bodies fall away, running in circles again at the edge of the light, inches from the audience. Clytemnestra is in the centre and she spins around, reaching out as the bodies rush past her. Her golden robe spirals as she twists and turns in anguish.
The performers move like feral animals, undulating and hurtling in chaotic synchronicity. Finally, they collapse to the ground, one by one, at the feet of the audience. Clytemnestra stands alone in the centre of the circle, as ash falls from the sky. She collapses to her knees and the lights dim until she’s in total darkness.
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The music fades and a few dim lights come back on. ‘One More Kiss, Dear’, from the Blade Runner soundtrack, plays as the performers each take hold of an audience member and walk them towards the exit.
Agamemnon
Ali Goldsmith, Folu Odimayo, Harry Price, Jonathan Savage, Mitch Harvey, Omar Gordon, Robert McNeill, Vinicius Salles.
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Agamemnon is King of Mycenae and commander of the Greek army during the siege of Troy. He is the husband of Clytemnestra and father of Iphigenia. He is typically described as the ‘King of Kings’, triumphant and doomed, a symbol of pride and the fall of pride.
Agamemnon's family history is tarnished by murder, incest and treachery, consequences of a heinous crime perpetrated by his ancestor, Tantalus. Misfortune has hounded successive generations of his family line, the House of Atreus. His younger brother, Menelaus, was married to Helen, who was stolen by Paris, thus igniting a decade-long war with Troy.
In the original ‘Agamemnon’, Aeschylus considers that every wrong must be justly punished, but as the world turns, every punishment becomes a new wrong, calling for fresh vengeance. And so the cycle of crime punished by crime continues forever, in an endless chain of ‘evil duty’.
In The Burnt City, Agamemnon wears a blue woollen military greatcoat, trousers and braces.
Start of Loop
Agamemnon is in the royal palace, lying naked on the floor under the shower. He gets up and dries himself with a towel, before pulling on his trousers.
Iphigenia emerges from out of the darkness and climbs down from the long table. She walks slowly towards her father and they embrace, as the reset music plays. Agamemnon is full of remorse and buries his head in shame, and his daughter appears to forgive him.
They both dry themselves and Iphigenia takes off a ring and places it on the cill of a round window under the shower. She walks to her bedroom and Agamemnon makes his way down the grand staircase to the hinterland, a wooded area dedicated to the goddess Artemis.
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He's still topless and he pulls on his shirt, as he wanders around the sandy floors. He approaches a shrine to Artemis and sees a large pair of antlers on the ground. He picks up a handful of sand and lets it drop through his fingers.
Track 1 - A Sacred Deer
Artemis enters and dances between the trees. Agamemnon watches from the shadows, entranced.
In the programme notes, it suggests that Artemis, the virgin goddess, catches Agamemnon spying on her in her spiritual shrine. She feels violated by his lustful gaze and she curses his soldiers, trapping them in no-man’s-land and turning them against each other.
Agamemnon approaches and the two of them dance a terrible battle. Artemis climbs the wall and suspends herself from a tether. She grips Agamemnon with her dangling legs, throwing him from side to side as he struggles to get free.
They continue to fight as they move towards the grand staircase. Artemis is seeking redress and Agamemnon continues to resist, but it’s unclear what’s being asked of him.
Track 2 - Low Morale
Artemis moves away and Agamemnon is badly shaken. In the distance, he sees two of his soldiers wrestling. He recognises the men as Neoptolemus and Patroclus and calls out ‘Hey’, before rushing over to break up the fight and pull the two men apart.
Agamemnon sees that the soldiers are getting restless and he’s worried that disorder will spread through the ranks. They’ve been camped at the border for too long, waiting for a strong wind to take them to Troy.
Nearby, there’s a phone mounted to the wall, next to a metal ladder, and it starts to ring. Agamemnon climbs a couple of rungs and picks up the receiver. He lifts it to his ear and the name ‘Iphigenia’ can be heard in a haunting whisper throughout the building. He looks back and sees Artemis sitting on the steel girders near the grand staircase, cackling mischievously.
Agamemnon climbs down. For his army to secure safe passage to Troy, Artemis is demanding that he sacrifice his daughter. He reels back in shock and disbelief. He looks at his men and realises that he has no choice. He starts to devise a plan to lure her to no-man’s-land.
He whispers something in the Watchman’s ear and she runs back to her cabin. He approaches Neoptolemus and puts a hand on his shoulder. He looks at him gravely and tells him that he is to marry his daughter. The young soldier is confused, but doesn’t question his king. The Watchman returns with a pink flower and Agamemnon gives it to Neoptolemus.
Neoptolemus wanders off towards the crate room. Patroclus follows him and Agamemnon stops him in his tracks. He gestures as if to say, ‘Look out for him’, and Patroclus nods obediently.
Agamemnon again whispers something to the Watchman and she retrieves a box containing a field telephone. She heads off to the hinterland to find Clytemnestra and tell her the good news.
Agamemnon walks to the border control cabin and locates a heart-shaped box with a balloon tied to it. He returns to the ladder and this time climbs to the top. He meets the Oracle on the balcony and hands her the box, which contains a wedding veil for Iphigenia. The Oracle whispers in his ear and gives him a silver wedding ring.
Agamemnon climbs down and wanders into no-man’s-land.
Vinicius Salles
Robert McNeill
Track 3 - Torment
Lively swing music can be heard from the royal palace upstairs, as Clytemnestra and Aegisthus celebrate with Iphigenia. Agamemnon is alone and overcome with guilt. He dances around the steel girders, thrashing to-and-fro in tortured angst, in time with the cheerful music.
He believes he’s in an impossible position. In the original play, he fights his conscience -
‘Can I choose either without doing evil. Leave the fleet in the lurch. Shirker. Deserter. Let down the Allies. We’ve all sworn allegiance. They’re asking for blood. It’s right what they’re asking. A virgin’s blood only will calm the wind’s bluster. So be it then, daughter! There’s no other way.’
‘So a father can take his own she-child. Take her and kill her. His she-child. His own flesh and blood. The war effort wants it. The war effort gets it. The war for one woman. The whore war. A virgin’s blood launches the ships off to Troy.’
Neoptolemus and Patroclus return from the barracks. Agamemnon gives Neoptolemus the wedding ring and the plan is set. He convinces him to take a few swigs from a bottle of whisky to steel himself.
Patroclus helps Neoptolemus climb the steel girders and he waits at the top for his bride.
Track 4 - The Sacrifice of Iphigenia
Iphigenia descends the grand staircase, wearing a red cloak and brimming with excitement. Agamemnon stands in the shadows, unable to look at her. She takes off her cloak and walks to the top of the girder to join Neoptolemus, who pushes the ring onto her finger.
Neoptolemus turns and climbs down from the girder, and Agamemnon walks up to take his place. The orchestral piece ‘Every Reborn’ by Dario Marianelli builds dramatically in the background as Agamemnon approaches his daughter.
He holds out his hand to touch her face, taking her veil and pulling it to the ground. She’s scared and confused as he raises his arm high into the air, bringing it down against her neck. Bright red blood explodes over her white dress and she collapses onto the girder, her limbs hanging limply over the sides.
The soldiers retreat and Iphigenia’s body is left on the girder as ‘A Storm Over Yaughton’ plays through the speakers. The soprano Elin Manahan Thomas sings with a haunting, ethereal choir.
Agamemnon moves to the desolate space in the middle of no-man’s-land and collapses to the floor. Neoptolemus and Patroclus run in circles around him, powerless to help and worried for their king. The sky is filled with flashes of strobe lighting as a storm rages. Wind howls around the soldiers as they look up in awe of the gods.
Agamemnon stands and his mood hardens. His grief turns to aggression and he sees that the gods have provided the winds to take his army across the sea. The two young soldiers are emboldened and they march towards the border. Agamemnon follows on behind and the three of them advance to Troy.
Track 5 - The Breach
They march quickly through the corridors and audience members run to keep up. They stop behind a pair of doors, as the music rises and a bright light blazes behind them. The doors are opened by two black masks and the town square is revealed. They push forward and the three of them are joined by the Watchman as they enter the city.
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Four Trojan women - Hecuba, Polyxena, Cassandra and Macaria - stand in the middle of square, staring back at the soldiers. Hecuba has a jewelled mask and Agamemnon takes it from her. He holds it up triumphantly and the Watchman takes it away.
The two groups size each other up and mirror each other’s movements. The men circle their prey before the women take their turn and run fearlessly around the soldiers. They return to a standstill and Agamemnon singles out Polyxena for scrutiny.
Track 6 - The Sacrifice of Polyxena
In Greek mythology, the war hero Achilles is killed at the end of the Trojan War, with a fatal arrow to his heel. As he dies, he proclaims that if the Greeks are to sail home, the treacherous Polyxena is to be sacrificed at his tomb.
Polyxena leaps on top of Agamemnon and wraps her body around him. He’s alarmed and embarrassed and mouths to his men, ‘Get her off!’ Neoptolemus and Patroclus take her by the arms and drop her to the floor.
She falls back and stands before the king, taking hold of her hair and raising it into the air. Agamemnon is unflappable as she flicks it in his face. He’s reluctant to strike her and moves away, gesturing for Neoptolemus to deal with her.
Neoptolemus approaches and Polyxena is contemptuous. She takes of her top and throws it to the floor. He raises his hand and Polyxena encourages him to continue, but he hesitates and she forces his hand into her stomach. Blood pours out of her gut and she collapses to the ground.
A rope is lowered and wrapped around her ankles, as the Watchman places a circular crash mat on the ground. Her body is hung upside down and a haunting, angelic plainsong echoes through the square as she gently swings back and forth.
Neoptolemus is immediately regretful and falls to his knees in despair, as Agamemnon stands upright, with his chin out, in a show of determination and commitment.
He turns his back on the sacrifice and heads off to explore his new territory. Having spent so long outside the city walls, he’s keen to survey his prized acquisition. He walks through the back streets, pointing a torch at the graffiti on the walls. He bumps into Polydorus and they eye each other suspiciously.
He points his torch at a map on the wall. The UV light reveals a labyrinth with a symbol of the Minotaur in the middle. The map also references ‘The House of Asterion’, the story by Jorge Luis Borges.
High up on a balcony, he sees Cassandra float past in a shimmering green dress. He walks into a seedy hotel called the Elysium and shines a light around the reception area, illuminating the various signs and posters on the walls.
He walks up the hotel stairs and barges through a door, startling a terrified maid. She looks away nervously and Agamemnon continues to Polymestor’s office.
Track 7 - To the Victor the Spoils
He finds Cassandra sitting on a low chair in front of a long window. She’s wearing the jewelled mask and is waiting to be claimed. Agamemnon sits behind the desk with a broad grin, clasping his hands behind his head, as she dances seductively for him.
In the original Greek myth, Cassandra is Hecuba’s eldest daughter and is taken by Agamemnon as a concubine after the defeat of Troy.
Agamemnon pours himself a glass of whisky and looks through the detritus on the desk. A letter from Polymestor reads, ‘Welcome Friends, P’. Eventually, he gets up and dances with Cassandra.
Meanwhile, Laocoön is dancing in the night club next door and can be seen through the window, copying, or possibly directing, their movements. Agamemnon sits on the low chair with his back to the night club. Cassandra straddles him and over his shoulder she sees Laocoön smear blood on the glass. From this, she understands that Agamemnon will be killed.
Agamemnon takes Cassandra through the hotel and downstairs to the backstreets of Troy. They run through the alleyways, pulling and pushing each other, on a whirlwind tour of the fallen city.
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They pass through an alleyway full of arcade games. Along the wall are three large windows that look like peep-show booths. A strange man is standing in one of the booths, wearing a creepy, skin-tight mask and Agamemnon looks up at him. The odd creature stares back with contempt.
The man behind the mask is Aegisthus, Clytemnestra’s lover and enemy of Agamemnon. The two men are cousins, engaged in a decades-long blood feud.
Agamemnon and Cassandra continue to Mycenae, dancing and stumbling through the corridors. They pause every now and then to embrace and then push each other away. Agamemnon shines his torch against the wall and they make shadow puppets, forming the shapes of birds and snakes and lovers kissing.
Track 8 - The Conqueror’s Return
As they reach the border, Cassandra turns to face him. She’s still wearing the jewelled mask and she takes it off and carefully places it on his face. They enter no-man’s-land and Clytemnestra is standing at the top of the steel girder, waiting for her husband.
Clytemnestra has ruled over Mycenae in her husband’s absence and, with Aegisthus, has devised a plan to murder him, to avenge the death of her daughter.
She greets him warmly and congratulates him on his victory. Agamemnon is impassive. He’s won the war, but he’s weary, and he walks towards the grand staircase. Clytemnestra turns and stares at Cassandra with a contemptuous look, before following her husband.
Agamemnon meets the Oracle at the bottom of the stairs. She also greets him warmly, but harbours the same resentment as Clytemnestra.
Track 9 - The Robe of Glory
She opens a box and presents Agamemnon with a huge crimson cape, but he doesn’t think it’s appropriate. Clytemnestra convinces him to wear it and the Oracle helps tie it around his neck.
Clytemnestra walks ahead to the royal palace, passing the twin gods, Apollo and Artemis, who are standing on the top landing in their golden breastplates. Agamemnon climbs towards them, as Cassandra and the Oracle stand at the foot of the stairs, unfurling the elaborate fabric from the box.
The cape billows behind him and covers the whole of the stair. Apollo and Artemis greet him and quickly gather up his cape as he enters the palace. Cassandra enters shortly after, unnoticed, a silent memento mori.
Agamemnon approaches the long table and Clytemnestra is waiting for him at the other end. Aegisthus is watching from the side, still wearing his creepy mask, having returned to the palace to assist Clytemnestra in her murderous plot. Agamemnon walks the full length of the table towards his wife, with his cape dragging behind him. Cassandra walks along-side the table at the same slow pace.
Agamemnon reaches Clytemnestra and removes his mask. They embrace and collapse on the table, curling up in a ball under the cloak. ‘Snow Melt’ by Marco Belrami plays and Agamemnon falls asleep under the pile of fabric. Cassandra leans over and takes the jewelled mask, holding it in front of her ceremoniously as she passes it to Apollo.
Track 10 - The Comforts of Home
Clytemnestra wakes her husband and the two of them slowly dance their way towards the other end of the table. Agamemnon is relaxed and Clytemnestra strokes him tenderly. He’s tired and fragile and happy to be home.
Aegisthus emerges from the shadows and joins them on the table, unrecognisable in his mask. Agamemnon believes him to be a masseuse and allows him to join his intimate tryst, not recognising him from the peep-show booth.
The three of them make love and wrestle in a slow-motion dance of sensual seduction. Clytemnestra and Aegisthus massage and stroke the king and he falls into a dream-like state.
Aegisthus holds a cup and tips the contents into Agamemnon’s mouth. The drink is a ‘kykeon’, an Ancient Greek drink with psychoactive properties. Agamemnon is stupefied and falls to the floor. He leans against the table and the two lovers remove his clothes.
They lead him to the shower and Clytemnestra continues to stroke and kiss him. Aegisthus stands on one side of the shower and takes off his mask. Agamemnon recognises him, but is too weak to react. Clytemnestra kisses her husband once more, before grabbing his head and smashing it into a wall. He collapses to the floor and lies bleeding under the shower. She wraps her arm around his neck and squeezes the last breath out of him.
Clytemnestra and Aegisthus move away, leaving the king alone in the darkness. Iphigenia appears on the long table, emerging slowly out of the gloom. The reset music plays and Agamemnon rouses, resurrected for a new day.
Track 11 - The Wheel Comes Full Circle
Iphigenia climbs down from the table and embraces her father. They share a tender moment of reconciliation as he hugs her tight and tells her that he loves her. He pulls on his clothes and Iphigenia stands under the shower and washes blood from her hands.
In the original play, after the murder of Agamemnon, the Chorus wonder who will mourn him, since his closest relation has killed him. Clytemnestra tells them that Iphigenia, his dead child, will greet him next.
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​‘At Acheron Iphigeneia will appear; she’ll greet him as his daughter, lovingly; her healing embrace will restore the stolen years.’
Iphigenia
Dafni Krazoudi, Fern Grimbley, Jahmarley Bachelor, Lou Ditaranto, Sharol Mackenzie, Stefanie Noll, WenHsin Lee.
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Iphigenia is the youngest daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra; a tragic hero, sacrificed by her father to gain advantage in the Trojan War.
Start of Loop
Iphigenia climbs onto the long table in the royal palace, wearing an elegant red dress, and walks slowly towards the shower. She sees her father in the distance, lying on the floor, naked and curled up in a ball. The mood is sombre and she emerges from the gloom without fanfare.
Agamemnon wakes up and pulls on his trousers. Iphigenia steps off the table and they share an emotional embrace. She seems to be forgiving him, and they both wash blood from their hands. Agamemnon grabs his shirt and walks downstairs towards the hinterland. Iphigenia takes off her wedding ring and places it on the cill of a small circular opening under the shower. She dries her hands and heads back to her bedroom.
Stefanie Noll
Dafni Krazoudi
Track 1
Her bedroom is a stand-alone box, surrounded by hanging tassels. The room is charmingly furnished with an ornate bed, a table full of toys and a large doll’s house. She has a floral diary containing love lyrics copied out by hand, and a magazine snippet about June brides.
She’s written about her love for Neoptolemus and drawn a heart encircling their names, ‘Iphigenia + Neoptolemus’.
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Iphigenia changes out of her red dress as audience members peer in from behind the tassels. She puts on a white blouse and white pinafore dress, before sitting at her table and brushing her hair. She’s surprised to see a few red marks on her neck and she frowns and wipes them off.
The Oracle appears outside the bedroom and starts preparing for a special ceremony by laying out a huge bear costume on the concrete table.
Clytemnestra enters and embraces her daughter. They discuss the upcoming ritual, the ‘Arkteia’, that will see Iphigenia come of age. Clytemnestra runs her finger down a red dress that’s hanging on the side of the wardrobe.
The Oracle fetches the bear suit and presents it to Iphigenia. The two women help her put it on and they all laugh as she stands up and imitates a bear. Iphigenia is excited about the ritual and she beams with delight.
She climbs onto the long table and walks on all fours, playing around and having fun with the outfit. She slides off the table for a moment and hides from her mother. Clytemnestra walks along-side her and smiles, but she wants her daughter to take the ritual seriously. They head for the grand staircase and Clytemnestra leads her down, towards the hinterland.
The Oracle stays behind and carries on with her duties. Clytemnestra and Iphigenia stop at the bottom of the stair and Clytemnestra completes the costume by attaching the bear’s head. They walk to the hinterland and head through the trees to the altar of Artemis.
Track 2 - Arkteia
The two of them perform an emotional duet in the sand. Iphigenia moves on all fours and Clytemnestra passes a pair of antlers over her body. Iphigenia climbs out of the costume and emerges as an adult.
In Ancient Greece, the ‘Arkteia’ ritual was performed by young girls at the location of Artemis's shrine at Brauron, Attica. The girls would dance for Artemis, sometimes playing the role of animals, and the goddess would preside over them as they transitioned through puberty.
A Greek soldier, the Watchman, enters the woods carrying a field telephone and approaches Clytemnestra. A call comes through from Agamemnon, who announces that Iphigenia is to marry Neoptolemus. This is wonderful news and Clytemnestra and Iphigenia return to the royal palace full of anticipation.
Track 3 - A Wedding Celebration
The two of them run into Iphigenia’s bedroom, chatting and giggling, and Iphigenia starts to change. The opening toots of ‘Sing Sing Sing (With a Swing)’ by Benny Goodman play in the background, as Iphigenia sits at her dresser and applies some lipstick. Her mother fusses over her hair and sways in time with the lively jazz music.
The goddess Artemis enters wearing an elaborate golden breast-plate. She stands in the corner of the room by an upright mirror, with her hands behind her back. The Oracle has placed a box on the bed with a balloon tied to it.
Clytemnestra stands her daughter up and retrieves a bridal veil from the box. She places the veil on Iphigenia, who looks every inch the beautiful bride, though her knees are still dirty from the bear ritual. Iphigenia rushes out of the room and bumps into Aegisthus who’s waiting with a flower. Aegisthus is Clytemnestra's lover and long-time rival of Agamemnon.
He bows and presents the flower to the princess and they dance by the long table. Clytemnestra, Artemis and the Oracle join in and the five of them twirl to the raucous soundtrack. The Oracle brings out a tray of drinks and everyone takes a glass, spinning around and knocking them back.
Clytemnestra and Aegisthus help Iphigenia onto the table for a quick solo, before joining her and performing a synchronised swing dance. The party ends with an explosion of white, paper confetti that rains down on Iphigenia.
The music stops and the mood gets more serious. It’s time for Iphigenia to meet her new husband and start a new life. Aegisthus takes a red cape and ties it around her neck. Artemis beckons her away and leads her to the grand staircase.
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Track 4 - The Sacrifice of Iphigenia
Iphigenia slowly descends the stairs and walks through no-man’s-land. She passes her father, who looks away. There’s a strange atmosphere and a terrible sense that something isn’t right. Iphigenia arrives at the steel girders and Neoptolemus is standing at the top. As she walks towards him, the circle of light around her gets slowly smaller, until she’s captured by an intense beam and surrounded by a huge, empty darkness.
She takes off her red cloak and it falls to the ground. Neoptolemus places a ring on her finger, but then his friend, Patroclus, helps him down from the girder. Agamemnon walks up and holds her briefly, before pulling off her bridal veil. She’s confused and scared and her father inexplicably raises his fist. The music builds to an unbearable crescendo and Agamemnon strikes her down. Blood pours from her neck and over her dress.
Iphigenia collapses against the girder and lies spread-eagled on the narrow beam. The king walks away devastated. ‘A Storm Over Yaughton’ by Jessica Curry plays and its eerie chorus fills the hall.
In the play ‘Agamemnon’, the Chorus explain that the king had to steel the Greek’s position in the Trojan War -
‘So he sensed the barriers dissolve that kept him from killing his child, from butchering her to steel the Bride-War’s grip; he’d sacrifice her to give good speed to his ships.’
They describe how Iphigenia cried for mercy and was gagged -
‘Once trapped, she wept, called on her father’s name, as if Iphigenia’s maidish scream could move him. He said the prayers, then had them lift her frame, thin as a goat-kid’s, dress splayed in un-seem, head lolling shocked, yet still a lovely child. A silken cincture gagged her pale fine lips lest her last words reverse the spell for the ships, lest her last words be a curse on her father's home. Her saffron satin fell from her, a stream of bright cloth flowing to the wet earth.’
Artemis is standing nearby. She has her sacrifice, but she too is devastated. Clytemnestra is watching from the balcony above and silently cries out in disbelief.
Iphigenia’s limbs dangle loosely over the sides of the metal structure. She lies motionless for an entire scene as Agamemnon spins in agony in the middle of no-man’s-land. He throws himself to the ground as his men pace frantically in circles around their king. A terrible storm rages overhead and cacophonous thunder fills the sky.
Agamemnon picks himself up and is encouraged by Neoptolemus and Patroclus. The winds have arrived to take them to Troy. The three of them look at each other and march purposefully towards the border. They walk past Iphigenia’s corpse without a second glance.
Track 5
Artemis stands in the middle of no-man’s-land, illuminated by a bright spotlight. She looks at the body of Iphigenia and lets out a blood-curdling scream, falling to her knees.
She approaches Iphigenia and lifts her body from the girder. She carries her across no-man’s-land, towards a huge floor-mounted spotlight which creates a powerful silhouette of the two women. The Oracle is near the grand staircase and she looks on in shock.
Track 6 - The Birth of Hecate
Artemis carries Iphigenia into the hinterland and lays her down in a semi-circle of deer antlers. She dances in the sand and climbs the wall, swinging from a tether above Iphigenia’s body. She reaches down, over and over, infusing her with new life.
Iphigenia is reanimated and rises with a demonic determination. She has a new body and she thrashes herself awake, holding her fingers out like horns.
She pulls off her wedding dress and dances semi-naked in the middle of the woods. Artemis leads her to the nearby shrine and she puts on a blood-red dress.
In some versions of Iphigenia’s story, Artemis feeds the evil side of herself into the princess and creates Hecate, the goddess of witchcraft.
Track 7 - Assassin
Iphigenia leaves Artemis alone in the hinterland and walks through no-man’s-land. She walks differently, with confidence and purpose, and everything about her has changed.
She pauses for a moment to face an audience member, taking him by the hand and leading him to the steel girders, where she stops to change her shoes. She locates a new pair on the floor and climbs the girder, gesturing for the man to pass her the shoes one at a time. Her new identity is complete and she heads to Troy.
A pair of black masks open the Palladium doors and Iphigenia enters the town square in dramatic fashion, illuminated by a spotlight. She sees her target sitting in Ciacco and heads over.
Track 8 - Seduction
Patroclus is sitting at a table with his head in his hands. He's recovering from the ordeal of the invasion and Polyxena’s sacrifice. Iphigenia sits down briefly and smiles, before grabbing a bottle of whisky from behind the bar. She pours a couple of shots at the table and they knock them back. They dance around the café, climbing on top of the table and window ledge. Patroclus lifts her up and spins her gently in his arms.
At one point, he kneels at her feet and Iphigenia squeezes a couple of drops from a vial into his mouth. He grins broadly and falls under her spell.
She takes his hand and pulls him out of Ciacco. They run around the side of the café, along a pitch-black corridor and through the backstreets of Troy, stopping every now and then to embrace.
They crash into the flower shop, Hesperides, and Iphigenia pushes him against the counter for a passionate kiss. The shopkeeper, Askalaphos, folds his arms, a little irritated, but the two love-birds are in their own world.
They dance in the Elysium yard and Patroclus lifts her up against the wall and kisses her again. They run through the arcade area and Iphigenia dances a few steps on the DDR machine. They run along the corridors to Mycenae and enter no-man’s-land.
Track 9 - The Sacrifice of Patroclus
In the distance, Agamemnon stands at the top of the grand staircase wearing a huge crimson cape. Apollo and Artemis gather it up behind him, and the three of them disappear into the royal palace.
Iphigenia leads Patroclus to the steel girder where she was sacrificed. They wrap themselves around the beams in a romantic tussle, kissing and stroking each other. Patroclus lies on his back, when suddenly Iphigenia raises her hand above her head. She brings it down on his neck and seems to be mimicking her own murder.
Patroclus lies motionless on the girder, still alive, but fatally wounded. Iphigenia places a vial next to his eye and collects his tears. She climbs down and sees Persephone waiting near the border. She passes her the vial and Persephone moves away.
It’s possible that Iphigenia has murdered Patroclus as a way of punishing Neoptolemus for his part in her own death. The programme notes suggest that she killed him as a sacrifice to Artemis.
Fern Grimbley
Lou Ditaranto
Track 10
Iphigenia turns to an audience member and takes his hand. She leads him past the border control cabin and up a couple of flights of stairs. Putting her arm on his waist, she directs him to a small tent behind her bedroom. She pulls up the zip and gestures for him to crawl in.
There are two sleeping areas laid out and she sits him down on one side. Between them is a small table with a lamp on it. She holds his hand and looks deep into his eyes, as she tells the story of a lost girl, ‘Once upon a time there was a poor child who had no father and no mother and everything was dead and there was no one left in the world.
The words are taken from the ‘grandmother story’ from Woyzeck, and Iphigenia doesn’t avert her gaze for a moment.
‘Everything was dead, and she went searching day and night. And as there was no one on Earth any more, she wanted to go up to heaven, and the moon looked at her in such a friendly manner, and when she finally came to the moon it was only a piece of rotten wood, and then she went to the sun and when she got there it was only a wilted sunflower and when she came to the stars they were just little golden mosquitoes stuck there like when the shrike sticks them on the blackthorn.'
'And when she wanted to return to earth, the earth was an overturned pot and she was all alone. And she sat down and cried and she sits there still and is all alone.'
She speaks quietly and the background music drowns out some of what she says. The scene is intense and the man shifts uncomfortably. She takes a ring from her finger and presses it into his palm, folding his fingers around it. Her hand is covered in blood and she inadvertently smears it on him.
Her voice becomes more impassioned and the lamp between them slowly fades until they’re sitting in darkness. The light comes back on and she opens the man’s hand and takes back the ring. She places it near the end of her wedding finger and gestures for him to push it on. She smiles and unzips the tent, sending him on his way.
Track 11 - The Wheel Comes Full Circle
Iphigenia leaves the tent shortly after and enters the royal palace, climbing onto the long table. She walks slowly towards the far end of the room where her father is lying naked under the shower.
Mycenae Finale
After Loop 3, as Iphigenia is reunited with her father, Hades walks along the table towards the shower, stepping over neat, little piles of clothing. Iphigenia walks in the other direction and they cross paths. He gives her a knowing look and continues towards the grand staircase to wait for Persephone.
Iphigenia goes to her bedroom and takes off her red dress, changing into a grey slip. On the other side of the hall, performers are slowly cascading down the staircase into the depths of hell. Like Iphigenia, they have lost their clothes and their identity.
She walks to the metal ladder and steps onto the landing. Neoptolemus is climbing up and they look at each other solemnly. Iphigenia climbs down the ladder and crosses no-man’s-land. She walks up the staircase and joins the throng of lost souls.
Aegisthus
Ali Goldsmith, Andrea Carrucciu, Harry Price, Luigi Nardone, Paul Zivkovich, Ryan O’Neill, Steven James Apicello, Timothy John Bartlett.
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In the original play, Aegisthus is Agamemnon's cousin and Clytemnestra's lover. He has a long-standing feud with Agamemnon and the House of Atreus.
Aegisthus' father, Thyestes, tried unsuccessfully to seize the crown from Agamemnon's father, Atreus, and was exiled from Argos. Eventually, Thyestes returned to the city and begged for mercy. Atreus pretended to welcome him and then boiled two of Thyestes' sons in a stew. He served them to Thyestes who unwittingly ate his own children.
Aegisthus wears a knitted argyle tank top, white shirt and maroon trousers.
Track 1
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As the reset music plays, Aegisthus walks away from the shower area and along the concrete table. He heads downstairs and makes his way to Troy, where he stops briefly in a seedy alley, filled with coin-operated arcade games. There are three large windows that look like booths at a peep show. One contains an ornate golden chair along-side a glass and decanter.
His hooded jacket is hanging on a hook and he takes it with him as he continues to the small yard outside the Elysium hotel. He stops to rest and leans against a crate.
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The hotel maid, Luba, comes out of reception wearing an elaborate fur coat over her night-club dress. Aegisthus is topless and needs some clothes and Luba seems to direct him into the hotel.
He makes his way upstairs to the Aphrodite room and kneels at the foot of the bed, reaching under and sliding out a small wooden box. He carefully folds his rubber face mask and places it in the box, before pushing it back under the bed.
He gets up and washes his face in the basin, while studying his reflection in the mirror. He pulls a brown shirt from the wardrobe and finally puts on his hooded jacket, before heading out.
Andrea Carrucciu
Paul Zivkovich
Track 2
He enters the flower shop, Hesperides, and rings the bell on the counter. No’one’s home and so he looks at the flowers on the tables and dances around the room. He’s impatient and he rings the bell again. Willie Nelson’s ‘Night Life’ plays on the radio and he climbs a cabinet, reaching up to the flowers hanging from the ceiling.
Unseen by the audience, Askalaphos is above him, leaning over a balcony that overlooks a corner of the shop. He sprinkles blue petals over Aegisthus and they fall around him like raindrops. Aegisthus reaches up and grabs a small bunch of flowers that Askalaphos is holding.
He climbs down and stands behind the counter to add tissue and a bow to his bouquet. The radio soundtrack switches to ‘One More Kiss Dear’ by Vangelis.
Happy with his acquisition, Aegisthus walks through the Elysium yard and bumps into Kampe. They exchange a few words and he continues through the corridors, back to Mycenae, whistling ‘One More Kiss Dear’ as he goes.
He climbs the stairwell and walks along the sentry balcony towards Iphigenia’s bedroom. He sees Agamemnon at the top of the metal ladder and pauses to consider him for a moment. Agamemnon is troubled, but Aegisthus is unmoved and pays him no mind. He continues around the back of Iphigenia’s bedroom and approaches the long table.
Track 3 - A Wedding Celebration
Loud swing music is playing and Iphigenia is getting ready for her wedding. Clytemnestra and the Oracle are helping out and the goddess Artemis is observing proceedings with a watchful eye. Aegisthus waits outside the bedroom, leaning on the edge of the table, with the flowers he snatched from Askalaphos tucked in his trousers.
Iphigenia dances through the tassels that hang around her bedroom and Aegisthus is waiting for her. He offers his congratulations, bowing and presenting her with the bouquet. Everyone is excited for the wedding and they have a lively party for the bride-to-be. The Oracle fetches a tray of drinks and they all grab a glass.
Iphigenia is helped onto the table and she spins under the lights. Clytemnestra, Aegisthus and Artemis climb after her and the four of them perform a joyful, synchronised swing dance. The Oracle knocks back a drink and shimmies along at the side of the table.
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The music reaches a climax and hundreds of strips of confetti rain down from the sky. Suddenly, the mood shifts and there’s an air of uncertainty. Iphigenia is leaving the palace to start a new life and the gravity of the occasion hits home.
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Clytemnestra hugs her daughter and dresses her in a bright red cape. Aegisthus nods farewell as Artemis leads her towards the stairs.
Track 4 - The Sacrifice of Iphigenia
Clytemnestra remains on the balcony to watch the wedding and Aegisthus walks towards the shower. He approaches a door in the corner of the room and turns around. Holding out his hand, he pulls an audience member through the door and locks it behind them.
The room is small and square and filled with strange looking pipework. He gently takes the woman’s mask and hangs it on the wall, before gesturing for her to sit on a low stool. He moves to the opposite corner and crouches down to pick up a long black rope from the floor. Still crouching, he pulls on it and it seems to be attached to something through a hole in the wall. Eventually, a large box appears through the hole and he slides it along the floor, placing it in front of the woman.
Outside, the wedding is taking place and ‘Every Reborn’ from the ‘V For Vendetta’ soundtrack plays. The song builds to a dramatic climax as Iphigenia is sacrificed.
The same music plays in the room and swells intensely as Aegisthus slowly opens the box. The woman sees only the lid of the box as it opens towards her and the contents light up his face. He takes out a short, black cloak and throws it around his shoulders. Then he gently pulls out a cardboard crown and drops it on his head, mouthing the words ‘It’s mine’.
There are dozens of lights behind the pipework, in the walls and the ceiling, and they flash intermittently. Aegisthus stares at the woman and the lights blaze on and off, as he slowly moves towards her, his face getting closer and closer to hers. He’s inches away when the lights go out and an image of his silhouette is burnt into her retina.
She blinks and the lights return, but Aegisthus has gone. He’s suddenly in the far corner of the room, crying out and clawing at the walls like a madman. He runs at the woman screaming and stops still in front of her. He holds her face and leans in to whisper in her ear, ‘I. Will. Be. King.’
The lighting and music relent and he stands her up. He quietly returns her mask and ushers her out of the room.
Luigi Nardone
Ryan ONeill
Track 5
Aegisthus emerges from the room and sees Clytemnestra grieving the death of her daughter, collapsed on the long table, throwing her body against the concrete and performing a terrible dance of anguish.
Aegisthus’s father, Thyestes, believed that the throne of Mycenae belonged to him and not to Agamemnon’s father, Atreus. The feud between the two families lasted for generations, part of an endless curse that haunted the House of Atreus. It is Aegisthus’s intention to kill Agamemnon and take back what’s rightfully his.
Track 6
Aegisthus approaches Clytemnestra and they perform a powerful duet, pushing and pulling each other around the room and falling in and out of each other’s arms. She falls from the table and he catches her.
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In no-man’s-land below, Agamemnon and his soldiers march towards the border, en route to Troy. Aegisthus will take advantage of the king’s absence and seduce his queen.
Track 7 - Dinner
The Oracle appears and walks to a curtained area at the side of the room. She opens a cabinet and starts to prepare for dinner. She retrieves a tray, some overalls and a large, folded sheet of plastic. She sets it all down and Clytemnestra and Aegisthus drag the plastic sheet over the middle of the table.
The Oracle holds up the protective overalls and helps the two lovers pull them over their costumes. She places a small plate at either end of the table, and Clytemnestra and Aegisthus take their seats.
They tuck into a modest starter, which looks like a few pieces of raw flesh. They eat politely at first, with a knife and fork, but gradually become less civil, until they’re grabbing at the flesh with their hands and wolfing down the red slithers like animals.
The Oracle lifts a large silver cloche in the middle of the table to reveal the main course - a portion of bloody intestines and the skull of an animal. The cheerful cabaret music of ‘Drop In Next Time You’re Passing’ by Elisabeth Welch plays in the background.
They start to devour the intestines, covering each other with blood. They rub the blood around the plate and all over the plastic sheet. Clytemnestra lifts the pile of meat and crowns Aegisthus by placing it on his head. He stands proud and stamps his feet with the authority of a king. The bloody meal is possibly a nod to Thyestes, who ate his own children.
The two lovers wash their hands under the shower at the far end of the room. After drying himself, Aegisthus marches along the table towards Iphigenia’s bedroom. He passes the Oracle and she stares at him with disdain. He runs down the stairs and heads back to Troy.
He enters Troy and stops near the peep-show windows in the arcade area, unlocking one of them and climbing inside. He takes off his shirt and opens a small case which contains a strange, rubber mask. He pulls on the mask, over his long hair, and is transformed into a terrifying bald monster.
Askalaphos appears briefly in the neighbouring booth and passes him a small packet, which he receives gladly. Askalaphos disappears and Aegisthus flexes his muscles and performs a strange robotic dance.
He looks like he’s having a breakdown. His movements are glitchy, like a broken machine and he repeatedly bangs his head on the glass. He jerks towards members of the audience as if goading them into a fight, and then laughs hysterically.
Towards the end of his dance, Agamemnon and Cassandra walk past. The Greeks have taken over Troy and Agamemnon is heading home, taking Cassandra as his concubine. The king is wearing a jewelled mask and he shines a torch at Aegisthus, who stares back impassively. Unnerved, Agamemnon moves on, towards Mycenae.
In some versions of the story, while Aegisthus is living with Clytemnestra and avoiding the war, he sends out spies to track Agamemnon’s movements, so that he won’t be surprised by the king’s return. Possibly, he has a similar objective in his peep-show booth.
Track 8 - The Conqueror’s Return
Aegisthus stops jerking and gets his breath back. He exits the booth and follows Agamemnon to Mycenae, to prepare for the king’s homecoming. He climbs the stairs and passes the metal ladder on the way to the royal palace.
He’s still topless and wearing his creepy skin mask as he enters Iphigenia’s bedroom and lies on the bed.
Track 9 - The Robe of Glory
Agamemnon is in no-man’s-land below, being greeted by Clytemnestra on the steel girders. The king walks towards the grand staircase and the Oracle places a long crimson cloak around his neck. Clytemnestra walks ahead and climbs the stairs towards the palace. She sits at the head of the long table, waiting for her husband.
Meanwhile, Aegisthus gets off the bed and sits at the dresser at the side of the room, where he prepares a poisoned drink. He mixes a few drops of liquid with the seeds that Askalaphos has given him.
Outside, Agamemnon walks slowly along the table towards his wife. They embrace and lie down under his enormous cloak. As Agamemnon falls into a deep sleep, Cassandra steps forward to retrieve the jewelled mask.
Track 10 - The Comforts of Home
Aegisthus exits the bedroom and joins the king and queen. His identity is hidden by the rubber mask and Agamemnon believes him to be a masseuse.
Clytemnestra and Aegisthus both massage the king, kissing and stroking him, back and forth, sending him into a blissful stupor. The three of them drift slowly down the table. Aegisthus hands the king his poisonous mix and Agamemnon cups the glass. He moves slowly, in a trance, and Aegisthus pulls off his shirt, throwing it to the floor. They claw and pull at each other, sliding around the table. The two lovers strip Agamemnon until he’s completely naked.
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He's almost unconscious and they lead him to the shower. He stands under the water and Clytemnestra continues to kiss him. Aegisthus stands to the side and dramatically removes his rubber mask, revealing his true identity. Agamemnon is startled, but powerless to do anything. Clytemnestra grabs his head and smashes it hard against the wall, killing him instantly.
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Track 11 - The Wheel Comes Full Circle
Aegisthus walks away, leaving Clytemnestra washing blood from her hands. He steps up onto the table and walks towards Iphigenia’s bedroom. He jumps off at the far end and makes his way to Troy.
The Oracle
Ally Clarke, Brenda Lee Grech, Eric Jackson Bradley, Fania Grigoriou, Fionn Cox-Davies, Georges Hann, Jane Leaney, Kathryn McGarr, Lily Jo Ockwell, Maya Milet, Nathan Kiley, Steven James Apicello, Valentine Giannopoulou, WenHsin Lee.
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The Oracle is Clytemnestra’s maid and performs housekeeping duties around the royal palace. She wears a fabric Greek-style headband and a long orange-brown, silky dress with a geometric pattern.
In Ancient Greece, the oracles were considered human mouthpieces of the gods, receiving divine guidance and whispered warnings. They were able to foretell the future with the power of prophecy.
Start of Loop
The Oracle climbs the staircase near the border and walks towards Iphigenia’s bedroom. She walks around the outside of the room and sees Iphigenia in an elegant red dress. She holds out her hand and helps Iphigenia onto the long table and they continue to hold hands as Iphigenia walks slowly towards the shower area.
The Oracle lets go and Iphigenia continues towards the shower where Agamemnon is lying naked on the floor. She sits on a bench and watches as the two of them reunite.
Track 1
Iphigenia returns to her bedroom and changes into a white dress. Clytemnestra appears and they discuss the ‘Arkteia’ ritual that Iphigenia is due to perform to celebrate her initiation into womanhood.
Outside, the Oracle leans over the balcony near the long table. Below her, a black mask pulls a huge bear suit out of a crate and attaches it to a rope. The Oracle winches it up, using a pulley wheel, and hauls it over the handrail, before laying it out on the table, pulling it straight and smoothing it down.
She heads towards Iphigenia’s Bedroom and picks up a wide broom to sweep a mess of confetti that’s covering the floor.
Clytemnestra fetches the suit and the Oracle helps Iphigenia put it on in the bedroom. They stand back to admire the costume and Iphigenia laughs innocently at the strangeness of it all. She crouches on all fours and moves around like a bear, swatting at them playfully with a furry paw.
She climbs onto the long table and Clytemnestra leads her towards the grand staircase. The Oracle watches proudly as the two of them disappear, and then carries on with her duties in the royal palace.
In no-man’s-land below, Agamemnon has been struggling with the goddess Artemis. He has offended her and as a punishment, she is demanding a sacrifice. A phone rings and Agamemnon climbs a few rungs of a metal ladder to answer it. The name ‘Iphigenia’ is heard throughout Mycenae and the Oracle whispers it at the same time.
Track 2
She walks towards the ornate, Art Deco shower area and starts to clean the tiles around the shower. She focuses on a small circle of stained glass under the shower head and waves her hand across the window. Suddenly, a bright light shines through the colourful glass and beams across the room. A vision strikes her like a blow to the head. Her eyes roll back and she receives some sort of divine instruction.
She reaches up and feels around the cill of the window. There’s something there that’s required to move things along. She picks up a small, silver ring and places it on her finger for safe keeping. In the background, Artemis looks on approvingly.
She walks back towards Iphigenia’s bedroom and continues towards the metal ladder. Looking down, she sees her king, Agamemnon, climbing up, holding a box with a balloon tied to it. The balloon is filled with helium and it floats above him as he rises, hemmed in by the hooped cage.
He reaches the top and passes the box to the Oracle. She removes the ring from her finger and gives it to him. She takes the box to Iphigenia’s bedroom, placing it on the bed.
Track 3 - A Wedding Celebration
Clytemnestra and Iphigenia return from their ritual, having learnt in the hinterland that Iphigenia is to wed Neoptolemus. Chatty and excited, Iphigenia sits at her dresser to prepare for the wedding. The two older woman help her get ready and they’re joined by Artemis who appears at the side of the room and observes from a distance.
‘Sing Sing Sing (With a Swing)’ by Benny Goodman plays in the background as Iphigenia puts on some lipstick and brushes her hair. The Oracle fusses over her as she gets into her wedding outfit and it’s clear that she’s very fond of the young princess. Clytemnestra stands her daughter up and pulls out a bridal veil from the box on the bed. She puts it on Iphigenia and everyone pauses to admire the blushing bride.
Iphigenia walks through the hanging tassels around her bedroom and is greeted by Aegisthus, her father’s cousin, who bows and gives her a flower. The guests dance to the jazz soundtrack and the Oracle passes around a tray of drinks.
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Clytemnestra, Iphigenia, Aegisthus and Artemis perform a glorious, synchronized swing dance on the long table and the Oracle dances more modestly at the side.
The upbeat music ends and an explosion of paper confetti rains down on Iphigenia. The guests look up at her and for a moment there’s a feeling of trepidation. She’s about to begin a new life and there’s a solemn quiet. Aegisthus wraps a red cape around her and Clytemnestra smiles reassuringly, as Artemis leads her towards the grand staircase.
Track 4 - The Sacrifice of Iphigenia
Iphigenia walks slowly down the stairs into no-man’s-land. The Oracle walks to Iphigenia’s bedroom. She’s distraught, knowing what will happen at the wedding. She takes the empty case with the balloon attached to it and a bowl of water and a cup. She walks down the staircase near the metal ladder and makes her way to a shrine behind the border cabin.
The shrine is surrounded by sandbags and has a statue of a woman, Gaia possibly, or Hecate, the three-faced Titaness. One of the Greek soldiers, Patroclus, is there and she looks at him mournfully. He also understands why the wedding is taking place and he drops a pink flower on the shrine, before heading off to join the ceremony.
The Oracle leaves the box and the balloon next to the shrine. She picks up her bowl of water and walks behind the border cabin and down a narrow path between the tent encampment and no-man’s-land, fenced in on one side by tall mesh fencing. Terrible things are happening behind her, but she keeps her head down and keeps walking.
Track 5
She enters the hinterland and starts to prepare a corner of the woods for a new ritual. She collects antlers from a pile near Artemis’s cabin and carries them to a wall with a rope hanging from it. She carefully places the antlers on the ground and forms a semi-circle. She crosses the room to collect more antlers and gets more and more anxious as she arranges them in the sand.
The Oracle knows that Iphigenia has been sacrificed, but she also knows that she will be resurrected. She prepares the space for Iphigenia’s rebirth, a process that will see the princess completely transformed.
She finishes the semi-circle and stands under a bright blue spotlight, looking to the heavens. She holds out her arms as if awaiting deliverance. She turns to an audience member with her arms still outstretched and the man holds them in sympathy.
She embraces another audience member, holding him tightly and whispering in his ear. She says that she foresaw the sacrifice, but couldn’t prevent it. She talks about spectres and ghosts, ‘They’re always watching.’ Looking into the distance, she seems to predict the future, ‘They sailed across the waves, but the war came home.’
She walks to the bottom of the grand staircase and falls to her knees. In the distance, Artemis is lifting Iphigenia from the girder. She carries her to the hinterland, towards a tower of lights, passing the Oracle who can’t bear to look at the corpse of her beloved charge.
The Oracle stands up and steadies herself, brushing down her smock. Behind her, in the hinterland, Artemis will infuse Iphigenia with new life. The Oracle climbs the stairs and returns to her duties in the royal palace.
Track 6
She finds Clytemnestra and Aegisthus dancing passionately on the long table, falling in and out of each other’s arms. She doesn’t react to the sight of the queen and her lover, and starts to prepare for dinner.
She approaches a curtained area at the side of the room, which contains a couple of chaise lounges and low tables and a large cabinet. She takes a large, transparent sheet and some plastic overalls from the cabinet and places them on the table. Clytemnestra and Aegisthus pull the sheet over the middle of the table and the Oracle helps them into their overalls.
Track 7 - Dinner
The two lovers take their places on either side of the enormous table and the Oracle retrieves a couple of plates for the first course. She serves them both a small portion of raw flesh and they pick at the fragments, licking their lips with impish glee.
For the main course, the Oracle lifts the lid of a large platter and reveals a mound of bloody intestines. Alongside this is an animal skull and a gravy-boat full of blood. She delicately pours the blood over the intestines and over the table.
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Clytemnestra and Aegisthus walk to the middle of the table and eat the intestines with relish, smearing blood all over each other. ‘Drop In Next Time You’re Passing’ plays in the background, as Clytemnestra lifts the intestines and places them on the head of Aegisthus, anointing him the new king.
The two of them plot to kill Agamemnon and the Oracle is all too aware of their intentions. They head for the shower to wash off the blood.
The Oracle clears the table and wipes away a few bloodstains. She’s harried and upset as she puts everything back in the cabinet.
Clytemnestra goes downstairs and Aegisthus walks along the table towards Iphigenia’s bedroom. He’s heading for Troy and he gives the Oracle a knowing look. She stares back at him disdainfully as she pulls the plastic sheet off the table and throws it in a dark corner.
She walks back towards the shower area and approaches a locked door. Turning around, she reaches for an audience member and pulls him into the room.
The walls are lined with a strange collection of pipework. She removes the man’s mask and sits him on a stool, whispering, ‘I chose you because I knew you would understand. I am the oracle of this palace’.
She has a secret that she wants to share with a confidant, someone that she feels she can trust, 'Thank you for sharing my burden.' She gestures to the walls, ‘The water in these pipes tell me prophecies of the future. I see it all.’
She asks him if he believes in the power of foresight, prophecy or divination, telling him that she’s been planted in the palace and that it will, ‘end with blood’. The queen and the vengeful cousin are full of rage and want to seize the crown.
Thunder roars outside and she finishes by saying, ‘Revenge. Blood begets blood. You must remember this.' She replaces the man's mask and shows him the door.
She walks back to Iphigenia’s bedroom and is suddenly melancholic. Lying on the bed, she cuddles a pillow, smelling the bedsheets and mourning the loss of her innocent princess. But she has work to do and she gets up and composes herself.
Track 8 - Battle of the Twins
She walks back to the shower area and cleans the bloodstains from the wall. She scrubs the tiles in exaggerated strokes while grunting her disapproval.
The twin gods, Apollo and Artemis, walk up the grand staircase and climb onto the long table. They proceed to have an almighty battle, throwing thunderbolts and lightning at each other, across the length of the room. A storm rages in the sky and the Greek soldiers will soon be returning from the war.
Fionn Cox Davies
Nathan Kiley
The Oracle fills a bowl with water from the shower and takes it downstairs. She descends the grand staircase backwards, completely unsighted, one step after the other, without putting a foot wrong.
She enters the hinterland, where she gestures for an audience member to sit with her on the sand. She whispers in his ear and he nods along.
She rises and approaches Artemis’s cabin, leaving the bowl behind. She picks up a large wicker basket and straps it to her back, before carrying it to the semi-circle of antlers beneath the tether.
She puts the basket down and sits in the middle of the antlers.
She sings a beautiful, sad version of the lullaby ‘All The Pretty Little Horses’ while kneeling in the sand.
‘Hush-a-bye, don't you cry, go to sleep you little baby. When you wake, you will have cake and all the pretty little horses.’
As she sings, she sees Iphigenia’s white dress lying on the ground, covered in sand. She picks it up and cradles it in her arms. She sings for her princess, as she must have done a thousand times before.
Suddenly, Cassandra appears in the darkness behind her. She’s been brought to Mycenae by Agamemnon as his concubine. The king is in no-man’s-land, reuniting with his wife.
Cassandra sits next to the Oracle and they hold hands. They have both been cursed with the gift of prophecy and it brings them nothing but pain. The Oracle stands up and collects the antlers lying in the sand, throwing them angrily into the basket. She leaves Cassandra sitting under a spotlight and carries the antlers back to Artemis’s cabin.
She drops the basket violently and the antlers spill over the sandy floor with a clatter. She takes her bowl of water and walks towards the grand staircase. There’s a large box nearby and she pulls it into position.
Track 9 - The Robe of Glory
Agamemnon and Clytemnestra are walking through no-man’s-land and they approach the Oracle. Clytemnestra climbs the first step and turns to look at her husband, who’s wearing a jewelled mask.
The king is tired and emotional and happy to be with his beautiful wife. He turns to the Oracle and greets her like an old friend, holding her face and kissing her. He’s exhausted, but in good spirits.
The Oracle opens the large box and presents him with a glorious crimson cape. He doesn’t want to wear it, it’s ostentatious, but Clytemnestra convinces him, and he lets the Oracle tie it around his neck. Clytemnestra climbs the stair ahead of her husband, who is dressed now for a hero’s homecoming.
In the original play, Clytemnestra is eager for her husband to walk across a beautiful purple rug, so that he appears grandiose and self-important. She needs to turn the people against him before she kills him.
Agamemnon climbs the stairs and his huge cloak billows behind. Artemis and Apollo are waiting at the top, beckoning him up, and Cassandra and the Oracle kneel at the bottom, unfurling the elaborate material. Cassandra follows him to the royal palace. The Oracle clutches an audience member by the shoulder, ‘If you want to see the prophecy, follow the king.’
Track 10 - A Fallen Comrade
She picks up her bowl and walks under the stairs towards the tent encampment. Every now and then she scatters a drop or two of water on the floor. Artemis is in one of the tents and she directs her forward, to the middle of the encampment.
The Oracle finds Patroclus lying dead on the floor. Standing above him, she sprinkles water over his face. Moments later, he twitches back to life and slowly gets to his feet.
The Oracle walks away and continues along the narrow alleyway between the tents and no-man’s-land.
Track 11 - The Wheel Comes Full Circle
She walks up the stairs near the border and heads for Iphigenia’s bedroom. Walking around the outside of the room, she sees Iphigenia approaching the long table. She holds out her hand and helps her up, and they continue to hold hands as Iphigenia walks along the table. In the distance, Agamemnon is curled up in a ball under the shower.
The Oracle leaves her beloved Iphigenia and sits on a bench near her bedroom.
Neoptolemus
Ali Goldsmith, Luke Murphy, Mitch Harvey, Ryan O'Neill, Steven James Apicello, Timothy John Bartlett, Will David Thompson.
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Neoptolemus is Agamemnon’s second-in-command. Like the other Greek soldiers, he wears a blue woollen military greatcoat. Underneath, he wears a pale blue shirt and trousers with suspenders.
In The Burnt City, Neoptolemus is inserted into some of the stories normally attributed to his father Achilles, including his arranged marriage to Iphigenia. He’s a close friend of Patroclus, which is also a role typically assigned to Achilles. Their relationship is sometimes described as homosexual and sometimes a deep, brotherly friendship.
Track 1 – Waiting for a Wind
Neoptolemus lies on the steel girder near the grand staircase, with his friend Patroclus. In the distance, they see a glowing lantern rising out of the gloom. The Watchman is climbing a tall metal ladder and she turns to salute them.
Track 2 – Low Morale
The two of them walk across no-man’s-land. They have a close bond, but they start to squabble. Their fighting is playful at first, but the argument escalates and they wrestle with increasing aggression. It’s clear that it’s no longer playful when Neoptolemus hurls his friend against the metal fence and lays into him.
In the original story, the Greek soldiers are stranded at Aulis for weeks, waiting for a favourable wind to take them to Troy. Discontent and disease spread through the ranks, and their leader, Agamemnon, struggles to maintain order. His priests persuade him that the goddess Artemis must be satisfied to get the army moving, or the king will lose control of his men.
Agamemnon runs over and pulls the two soldiers apart. He’s shaken up, having just been confronted by Artemis. A telephone rings nearby and the men watch as the king climbs a few rungs of the ladder to answer it. The name ‘Iphigenia’ is whispered through the line. He replaces the receiver and stares into the distance, in a state of disbelief. In order to appease Artemis, he must sacrifice his youngest daughter.
He starts to devise a plan to lure her to no-man’s land. He whispers something to the Watchman, who runs towards her cabin. He turns to Neoptolemus and tells him that he is to marry Iphigenia. The young soldier is surprised, but he nods in agreement. The Watchman returns with a pink flower and Agamemnon turns to his lieutenant and pulls it into his buttonhole.
Ali Goldsmith
Luke Murphy
Track 3
Neoptolemus and Patroclus return to their barracks to prepare for the wedding. They enter a nearby room filled with large wooden crates. One of the crates contains a basin and a couple of chairs, and they sit and wash their faces.
Neoptolemus pulls the flower out and they chat solemnly as they shake sand from their clothes. The mood is bleak and they understand that the wedding is fake. Neoptolemus tries to button his cuffs, but his hands are shaking. Patroclus kneels before him and gently finishes the task. He tries his best to comfort his friend and fills a couple of mugs with whisky.
Their spirits lift a little after the whisky and Patroclus steals the flower from the table, rushing out of the crate as Neoptolemus runs after him. Patroclus climbs the side of a crate and they chase each other high up in the rafters. The flower is exchanged back and forth as they dance, and the men express a deep love for each other. Neoptolemus strokes Patroclus on the cheek, before kissing him tenderly.
They move outside and see Agamemnon near the border area. With a heavy heart, he hands Neoptolemus a silver ring. He explains the terrible demands that are being made of him and the atmosphere is deathly. He persuades Neoptolemus to have a few swigs from a bottle to numb his senses. Patroclus helps his friend climb the steel girder and he waits for his bride-to-be.
Track 4 - The Sacrifice of Iphigenia
In the distance, Iphigenia walks slowly down the grand staircase wearing a vivid, red cape. She crosses no-man’s-land and walks up the girder to join Neoptolemus. Removing her cape, she reveals a white dress and veil. They share a gentle embrace and he kisses her sorrowfully, as he places the ring on her finger.
The atmosphere is cold and rigid and there’s none of the usual cheer that a bride would expect. Neoptolemus crouches down and Patroclus helps him jump from the girder. Agamemnon walks up the beam and approaches his daughter. He holds her head tenderly and pulls off her veil. She’s wide-eyed and confused as he raises his hand and brutally kills her.
She collapses on the beam, covered in blood, and Agamemnon staggers away, overcome with guilt and sorrow.
He rages and spins in no-man’s-land while Neoptolemus and Patroclus watch over him. Lights flash and thunder rumbles as they look up at the sky. The two young soldiers circle their king, unsure what to do, as he thrashes about.
Track 5 - The Breach
Eventually, he recovers himself and his grief turns to aggression. The storm has brought the winds he needs to set sail. A sense of duty and resolve takes over and he orders his men to advance on Troy. They march forcefully towards the border and Agamemnon follows on behind.
The three of them march through the corridors and audience members run to keep up. They stop still behind the Palladium doors and the music builds. The doors are held open by a couple of black masks and a bright light silhouettes them as they enter the town square.
The soldiers find themselves face-to-face with Queen Hecuba and her daughters.
The two camps size each other up in a tense showdown. The women circle the men like pack animals and the soldiers remain resolute and cold-hearted. The men respond in turn and intimidate the women, finally affirming their dominance.
Track 6 – The Sacrifice of Polyxena
They single out the young princess, Polyxena, and demand that she be offered as a blood sacrifice to honour the war hero, Achilles. She approaches Agamemnon defiantly and leaps onto his shoulders. He’s infuriated by this and mouths to his men, ‘Get her off’. Neoptolemus and Patroclus take an arm each and lift her to the ground.
She uses her long hair to show her contempt, repeatedly flinging it at Agamemnon, before stripping and standing topless before him, ready to die. The king stands back and orders his second-in-command to come forward. Neoptolemus steps up and Polyxena straightens her back, goading him to kill her.
In the original play, Neoptolemus is described as ‘both unwilling and willing in his pity for the girl’, as he prepares his weapon. The young girl’s courage and nobility win the admiration of all those watching and he's reluctant to strike her.
As he hesitates, she grabs hold of his hand and pulls it into her body. Blood bursts over her naked chest and she falls to the floor.
The Watchman lays out a crash mat and ties her feet to a rope. Her body is winched into the air and it hangs upside down, gently rocking back and forth. Immediately, Neoptolemus is grief stricken. He holds onto her body and cries out in anguish.
Polyxena’s body is slowly lowered to the ground and Neoptolemus cradles her. Next to him, Hecuba is crouched down and sobbing. He gets up and barrels through the crowd, maddened by what he’s done and fleeing the scene of the crime.
Track 7
He runs to an alleyway and falls back against a wall, under a flickering light. The alleyway is pitch-black and the lamp shines only briefly. Each time Neoptolemus is lit up, his face is a picture of agony, as he curses himself and his terrible deed. He stares at his bloody hands, uncomprehending, and smacks them against the wall.
He runs through a door and crashes into the Danaid’s tenement. The space is chaotic and filled with hanging washing and dirty dishes. He’s lost and unstable. He washes his face in a bowl and stares into a mirror.
Suddenly, he notices a young woman, Eurydice, behind him. She’s standing in the kitchen, watching with fear in her eyes. She sees that he’s also nervous and jumpy, and caught up in the chaos of the invasion.
‘Where Have All The Flowers Gone’ by Marlene Dietrich crackles on the radio, and the words hang heavy in the air, ‘Where have all the young men gone? Gone to soldiers, every one.’
Neoptolemus doesn’t want to hurt her and looks apologetic as he slumps into a chair, exhausted. She pours him a drink and quickly retreats, as he gulps it down eagerly. He nods his appreciation and tells her to stay safe, as he exits the room.
He runs aimlessly through the corridors and finds himself upstairs in the Hotel Elysium. He walks into the Aphrodite room, grabbing a bottle of liquor from a table. Looking over the balcony, he reels back in horror. On the floor below, in the clothes shop Alighieri’s, Polyxena’s body is laid out on the counter and covered with a shroud. He holds his head in despair and staggers out of the room.
Track 8
He rages through the hotel and Polymestor’s office, drinking from the bottle and becoming more and more demented. He falls into the night club and ‘Law of Life’ by Farah pumps out of the speakers.
The Lebanese singer, Farah, sings blankly over a dark, hypnotic bassline, ‘You make me wanna die. On the countryside.’ Neoptolemus performs a manic solo routine on the dancefloor.
Castigating himself, over and over, he falls to his knees and begs forgiveness. He rolls on the floor and curls up in a foetal position. He sits up and holds his knees like a naughty schoolboy, crying and wailing and holding his head as if it’s about to explode. Looking up to the heavens, he cries ‘Come on then’, as if goading the gods to rain down more misery.
He closes his eyes to escape the reality of what he’s done. He holds his stomach and grimaces as the soundtrack becomes a mantra, ‘This is the law of life. This is the law of life.’
Track 9
He leaves Klub and runs downstairs, raging through the graffiti corridor. Stopping under the stair, he notices a spray can on the floor. He picks it up and paints a red ‘M’ with an arrow running through it, marking the Greeks newly acquired territory. The same symbol can be found on the soldier’s greatcoats.
He crashes through the corridors and makes his way to Mycenae, where he enters the crate room and sees the ‘M’ symbol stamped on one of the crates. He slaps it triumphantly and grunts as if to say, ‘I’m home’.
He washes his face in his barrack and walks through the crate room towards the border area. The Watchman is there and she looks at him grimly. She nods towards the girders and Neoptolemus sees the body of Patroclus lying motionless at the top of the beam. Iphigenia has just left no-man’s-land, having dealt him a fatal blow.
Track 10 – A Fallen Comrade
Neoptolemus approaches the girders. He’s already blind drunk and mad with grief and seeing his friend sends him deeper into despair. Patroclus is fatally wounded, but still alive. He rises slowly and the two of them dance around no-man’s-land, wiped out, sweating and crazed.
In ‘The Iliad’, the ghost of Patroclus appears before Neoptolemus and asks him to complete his funeral so that Patroclus may pass into the world of the dead. Patroclus asks for his bones to be buried together with his dear friend Achilles, so that they may never be separated.
Neoptolemus carries Patroclus to the tent encampment and gently lowers his body to the ground. He walks away and the Oracle appears moments later to sprinkle sacred water over him.
Track 11
Neoptolemus stumbles towards the border and approaches a large pile of wooden crates. He performs a wild, frantic dance, throwing himself to the ground and castigating himself. He stabs himself in the stomach over and over, re-enacting the terrible punishment he meted out to Polyxena.
The crates are stacked haphazardly up to the heavens and he climbs to the top before falling dramatically from the top and barrelling over as he hits the ground. He stops just short of the watching audience and lies exhausted at their feet.
He staggers to his sleeping quarters nearby, a caged room opposite the border control cabin. He climbs into his bunk bed and curls up in a ball, twitching restlessly, tortured and contorted.
The reset music plays and he slowly disappears, as the bed swallows him up. His hand reaches out from the bedsheets and he dissolves into the mattress.
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Loop 3 / Track 11
At the end of the Loop 3, instead of going to his sleeping quarters, Neoptolemus limps to the girders near the grand staircase and continues to fall apart, punishing himself in a dance of despair. He climbs up the girder and slides down, over and over, grasping the web of the beam with his last ounce of energy. He makes one final attempt to climb up and points a feeble arm towards the top of the grand staircase. The dead souls begin their decent and Patroclus is the first to tumble down.
Neoptolemus climbs down from the girder and makes his way to the metal ladder. He climbs up and meets Iphigenia on the top landing. They look at each other grimly and Iphigenia climbs down. Neoptolemus continues to the royal palace, where he strips off his clothes. He leaves them on the long table, before joining the tail of human flesh falling down the staircase.
Patroclus
Fionn Cox-Davies, Folu Odimayo, Harry Price, James Finnemore, Juan José Tirado Pulido, Ryan O'Neill, Steven James Apicello, Theo Arran, Timothy John Bartlett.
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Patroclus is a high-ranking serviceman. He wears a navy woollen military greatcoat, dark trousers with braces and a pale blue shirt.
In ‘The Iliad’, Patroclus is a close friend and confidant of Achilles, who leads the Greeks in the war against the Trojans. Patroclus acts as Achilles' emotional support and the two of them share an intense bond.
In The Burnt City, Patroclus is instead a friend of Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles.
Track 1 – Waiting for a Wind
Patroclus and Neoptolemus are laid out on the steel girders. In the distance, they see the Watchman patrolling the border area, in the middle of no-man’s-land. They watch as she climbs the metal ladder carrying a glowing lantern. She turns around and they salute her.
Track 2 – Low Morale
The two soldiers climb off the girder and start to wrestle. They share a brotherly affection and their fighting seems playful at first, but it becomes more and more aggressive, until they’re pummelling each other in a ball of flailing limbs.
In the original play, the Greek soldiers camp for weeks on the coast of Aulis, waiting for a strong wind to take them to Troy. The encampment gets more and more restless as soldiers fight amongst themselves and disease spreads through the troops. Eventually, their leader King Agamemnon is willing to do anything to get the army moving.
Agamemnon marches up and pulls the two soldiers apart. The men look embarrassed, but the king is distracted. He climbs a couple of rungs of the metal ladder to answer a telephone that’s mounted to the wall. Nearby, the goddess Artemis is sitting on top of the steel girders and laughing. She mouths the name ‘Iphigenia’ and the word carries on the wind throughout the vast, empty space.
Artemis is demanding that the king sacrifice his daughter, Iphigenia, if he wants his troops to sail to Troy. Incredibly, he agrees and devises a plan to lure her to no-man’s-land. He tells the Watchman to fetch something and then turns to Neoptolemus. He tells him that he must marry his daughter and the young soldier is confused, but he nods in agreement. The Watchman returns with a pink flower and Agamemnon gives it to Neoptolemus, pulling it into his buttonhole.
Theo Arran
Timothy John Bartlett
Track 3
The two soldiers walk to a barrack near the border, filled with large crates, to prepare for the wedding. One of the crates is fitted out as a small living area and they wash their faces in a bowl, as audience members peek through the gaps in the wooden slats. Neoptolemus plays with the flower and the two men gossip.
Patroclus places his hand on his friend’s shoulder and they express their affection for each other. He teases him about the wedding and whistles a couple of notes of ‘Here Comes the Bride’. Grabbing the flower, he runs out of the crate and Neoptolemus runs after him. They chase each other around the crates, climbing and leaping above the audience.
Track 4 - The Sacrifice of Iphigenia
They return to the border area and meet Agamemnon again. This time, he gives Neoptolemus a ring. Patroclus watches as his friend climbs to the top of the steel girder and waits for his bride-to-be.
Patroclus turns away and wanders briefly to a shrine behind the border control cabin. The shrine contains a statue of a woman with three aspects, surrounded by sandbags and Patroclus drops the pink flower as a lament for Iphigenia.
The Oracle appears carrying a small case with a balloon tied to it. They exchange mournful looks and Patroclus returns to no-man’s-land.
He sees Iphigenia approaching from out of the gloom, wearing a red cloak. She takes off the cloak and underneath she’s wearing a white dress and bridal veil. She seems tiny in the huge, open expanse and terribly exposed.
She walks up the steel girder to be with Neoptolemus, who places the ring on her finger. For a moment she’s filled with happiness, but then he backs away and climbs down, helped by Patroclus who lowers him to the floor. Agamemnon appears next to his daughter and pulls off her veil.
Iphigenia might expect her veil to be pushed aside by the groom, so that he can look at his bride. Agamemnon removes it to emphasise that this is not a wedding, but something else altogether.
Iphigenia is painfully confused and he raises his fist above her. Patroclus stands motionless in the shadows as Agamemnon murders his daughter.
Her lifeless body is left alone on the girder and the soldiers move away. Agamemnon collapses between the two sets of steel girders and performs an agonised dance of despair. Neoptolemus and Patroclus run around him, unsure what to do. They watch their king go mad with grief, throwing his body to the ground, as strobe lights flash in the sky and a storm crashes around them.
Track 5 – The Breach
The howling wind means that the time has come to advance on Troy and Neoptolemus and Patroclus march towards the border. Agamemnon follows on behind, and they storm past the checkpoint and through the corridors with aggressive determination. They reach a pair of doors outside the centre of Troy and the soundtrack builds to an ominous drone. The doors are opened by a couple of black masks and the town square is revealed.
The men are met by a group of four Trojan women, led by Queen Hecuba, and flanked by a small army of white masks. The men have their own army of followers and they march into the square.
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The two groups face each other and perform a curious dance-off, mirroring each other and baring their teeth. The women move in an elegant choreography of sweeping arm motions and rhythmic swaying. Hecuba violently drums on her chest, typically a gesture of mourning, but in this instance, a gesture of defiance.
Track 6 - The Sacrifice of Polyxena
The Greek soldiers take charge and the young princess, Polyxena, is singled out. Hecuba’s daughter is to be sacrificed to ensure a favourable wind for the invading army to return to Mycenae.
Agamemnon stands in the middle of the square and she suddenly runs at him and leaps on his shoulders. The king is alarmed and tells his men to remove her. She’s lifted off and then taunts him by flicking her hair in his face.
Having killed his own daughter, Agamemnon isn’t prepared to kill another young woman, and he summons his second-in-command, who hesitantly steps up. Polyxena steels herself and, seeing that Neoptolemus is reluctant, she fervently pulls his weapon into her stomach.
Neoptolemus immediately feels remorse, dropping to his knees and cradling her body. The Watchman lays out a crash-mat and ties a rope around her legs. Patroclus moves to a dark corner, full of oil drums, next to a workshop, Ferry’s Autos. He operates a winch that pulls Polyxena into the air and she hangs upside down above the square, as a haunting, celestial chorus plays through the speakers.
The performers disperse and Patroclus lowers Polyxena to the ground. Hecuba is on her knees, face down on the ground with her arms stretched out before her. She staggers away and collapses into a clothes shop, Alighieri’s. Polyxena’s lover, Macaria, is left alone to untie her feet and cover her torso.
Track 7 – Funeral of a Princess
Patroclus watches as Macaria wipes away the blood. She tries to lift her, but she’s too heavy. Patroclus wants to help and lifts her body over his shoulder. He carries her to Alighieri’s and lays her out on the counter. He leaves Macaria to mourn her and walks back to the square.
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Patroclus is badly shaken. The invasion has been brutal and he watched his friend kill an innocent child. He enters an empty café, Ciacco, and sits at a table, with his head in his hands, staring into space.
Track 8 - Seduction
On the other side of the square, a spotlight shines on the Palladium doors. Iphigenia enters in a provocative red dress, a vision of beauty and temptation. She walks slowly towards the café.
She enters Ciacco and eyes Patroclus. He’s intrigued as she grabs a bottle from behind the bar. She pours a couple of shots and adds something from a vial to one of the glasses. Patroclus knocks it back and they dance around the tables. She jumps from the window-sill and he spins her around in his arms. She pulls him by the shirt into her embrace and he falls under her spell.
The two of them burst out of Ciacco and run around the back of the café, through a pitch-black corridor. They dance through the streets of Troy and fall into the flower shop, Hesperides.
Askalaphos is working behind the counter and seems to be expecting them. He’s cleared his counter and Iphigenia pushes her man on top of it and kisses him. They spin around the shop, before continuing through the backstreets.
They dance in the Elysium yard and end up in the arcade area, where Iphigenia performs a few steps on the DDR machine. She jumps off and they run through the corridors, heading for the border.
Track 9 – The Sacrifice of Patroclus
They enter Mycenae and dance around the girders, climbing to the top and rolling off the sides. For a moment, Iphigenia hides in the web of the beam. They kiss again, but then she raises her hand above her head and brings it down on his neck. She seems to be mimicking her own sacrifice and Patroclus is stunned.
He lies motionless on the girder, fatally wounded, but still alive. Iphigenia places a vial next to his eye and collects his tears. She climbs down from the girder and moves away.
Loop 3 / Track 9
In the final loop, when Iphigenia and Patroclus enter Mycenae, they run to the middle of no-man’s-land and stop under a circle of light. Patroclus falls to his knees, on the verge of death.
Nearby, Persephone bursts out of the tent encampment with four audience members behind her. Patroclus breathes his last and Iphigenia collects his tears in a vial. He collapses on the ground and Iphigenia gives the vial to Persephone who puts it around her neck.
Persephone heads back to Troy, and Iphigenia takes the hand of an audience member and leads him upstairs.
Track 10 – A Fallen Comrade
Neoptolemus enters no-man’s-land and approaches the girder. He sees his friend struggling on top of the beam and carefully carries him down. The two of them dance between the two sets of girders. Patroclus falls to the ground repeatedly and Neoptolemus tries to revive him, but it’s no use.
Patroclus takes his last breath and Neoptolemus is heartbroken. He carries him to the tent encampment nearby and lays him down. Already driven mad by Polyxena’s sacrifice, Neoptolemus is broken and alone. He staggers away towards no-man’s-land.
Loop 1 / Track 11
The Oracle appears next to Patroclus, having been led to him by the goddess Artemis. She sprinkles water on him from a bowl as he lies on the ground. The droplets bring him to life and he rouses, but he’s jerky and unsteady. He stumbles into a nearby tent with a number of hammocks tied to a large metal column. He climbs into one and performs an acrobatic dance while wrapping himself around the swaying canvases.
He swings violently back and forth, his feet brushing the ground and his body just missing the watching audience. He starts to spin around in circles, over and over, wrapping himself in the hammock with one leg protruding from the mass of fabric. The spectacle is surreal and disturbing.
He falls out of the hammock and lies on the floor, exhausted. He sits hugging his knees and staring at the wall of the tent, as the silhouette of a muscular body emerges on the other side of the large white canvas. Patroclus stretches his arms and places his hands on the sheet. Artemis is on the other side and she does the same, as they clasp each other’s hands in a forceful embrace.
Artemis disappears and Patroclus staggers back through the tents. He washes his hands in a bowl of water and takes off his blood-stained blue shirt. He changes into a clean one that’s hanging at the base of a column, and heads back towards the steel girders to meet with his dear friend.
The Watchman
Eric Jackson Bradley, Ferghas Clavey, Ingrid Kapteyn, Jahmarley Bachelor, Milton Lopes, Miranda Mac Letten, Sharol Mackenzie, Theo Arran, WenHsin Lee, Yilin Kong.
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The Watchman is the first character to appear in the original play, ‘Agamemnon’. He sits on the roof of the Greek palace waiting for a beacon to signal the fall of Troy. Clytemnestra is governing Argos in her husband's absence and the Watchman accepts her command, noting that she has ‘male strength of heart’. However, the absence of the king concerns him and he’s demoralized by the long wait for the war to end.
In ‘The Burnt City’, the Watchman is played by both male and female performers and like the other Greek soldiers, wears a heavy woollen greatcoat. She’s described as the ‘keeper of the beacon’ and starts her loop with a glowing lantern. She is low down in the pecking order, but always loyal to King Agamemnon.
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She occupies a small border control cabin near no-man’s-land, where she has a bottle of whisky tucked away and a number of wind chimes hanging from the ceiling. These are a reminder that the Greeks are waiting for a strong wind to take them to Troy. There’s a second border control booth in the corridor in Troy, which contains a similar collection of wind chimes.
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Track 1 - Waiting for a Wind
The Watchman emerges from her cabin carrying her lantern. She walks slowly to the tall metal ladder nearby and climbs to the top, looking out across no-man’s-land. She sees a couple of Greek soldiers, Neoptolemus and Patroclus, on the steel girders in the distance and they exchange a couple of mock salutes in recognition. She climbs down slowly and her lantern glows dramatically in the darkness.
She returns to her cabin and tidies a pile of playing cards on her desk, splitting the pack in two and gesturing for an audience member to pick a pile. He picks one and they play a game of snap.
Track 2 - Low Morale
Outside her cabin, on the other side of the mesh fence, Neoptolemus and Patroclus are fighting. The Watchman is startled as Patroclus is thrown into the mesh fence and she shakes her head.
King Agamemnon arrives to break up the fight and reprimand the two soldiers. As he does so, a telephone attached to the metal ladder starts to ring. He climbs a few rungs to answer it and is taken aback by the message, freezing for a moment in disbelief.
He recovers and looks solemnly at his men. He needs them to help him with a plan and the Watchman approaches to take instructions. These a sense of urgency and confusion as the king gives his orders. He tells Neoptolemus that he is to marry his daughter, Iphigenia, and the soldiers are to prepare for the wedding. The Watchman retrieves a pink flower from her cabin and gives it to Agamemnon who hands it to Neoptolemus.
Jahmarley Bachelor
Lee WenHsin
Neoptolemus and Patroclus head off to their barracks and the king again whispers something to the Watchman. She returns to her cabin and retrieves a box containing a field telephone. She remains calm, unfazed by the drama, and carries out her duties unquestioningly.
She takes the box and walks to the hinterland, a nearby wooded area. Iphigenia has just performed a coming-of-age ritual with her mother, Queen Clytemnestra, and there’s a large bear suit lying on the ground. The Watchman approaches with the phone and the queen receives a call. A message comes through that her daughter is to be wed and she beams with excitement. She celebrates with Iphigenia and the two of them rush back to the royal palace.
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Track 3
The Watchman tidies up the bear suit, unhooking the head and gathering up the body. She’s loyal, but bored and resigned to her life as a lowly private. She stores the costume in a dark corner.
Fed up, she ambles towards a small wooden shed, tucked away behind the trees. She turns around and holds out her hand for an audience member, pulling him into the shed and locking the door.
The shed is her secret bolthole with a work desk and bench, and shelves full of tools and wooden bric-a-brac. She takes off the man’s mask and places it on a shelf, before guiding him to sit on the bench. On her desk is a small drawing board with a sketch of a labyrinth in a garden. She sits beside the man and talks about a time of peace and tranquillity when Gaia created the Earth, ‘Our ancestors worked the land. The shrines were beautiful. Green. Verdant.’
She takes his hand and slides it onto a tray covered by a piece of cloth and rubs his hands against some grass. ‘Civilisation grew. Plants were plentiful. But the Titans and the gods fought. They became troublesome. Encouraged all of the worst parts of human nature. And now this.’
She puts his other hand under the cloth and this time he feels a bowl full of ash. She closes his hand around the ash and pulls his fingers open to let the ash fall back into the bowl, ‘This is all that’s left. Dust. Rubble.’ She gestures towards the gardening tools on her workbench, ‘All these tools. They’ll become the antiquities of the future.’
She says that everything will eventually turn to dust, including humans and she talks about the war that’s happening, ‘out there’.
‘But human beings are resilient.’ She takes hold of the man’s shoulders and pushes him backwards through a small opening. The room next door contains an elaborate moonshine distillery, surrounded by copper pipes and flasks. ‘We all have our secret ways of coping. For the rains that we lost. For the Earth that we scorched. For what it was. And for what it still can be.’ She pours two shots of whisky and raises a toast to the resilience of men.
They return to the first room and she opens a small tin box filled with seed. She picks out a couple and folds them into a piece of paper, ‘I can trust you. You see I, uh, I came by these seeds. I can’t quite remember how. It’s, it's foggy. I just have this feeling. This strong feeling. That the right seeds. With the right person. With the right care. At the right time. That maybe someone can get something to grow!’
Pressing the packet into the man’s hand, she tells him, ‘Take these to the bar named Peep in Troy, and they’ll give you something for your troubles.’ She gently places his mask back on and ushers him out of her shed.
The man takes the packet to Peep, where he’s rewarded with a free whisky.
Track 4 - The Sacrifice of Iphigenia
The Watchman returns to the border area and sees Agamemnon talking with Neoptolemus. The king whispers something to her and she retrieves a bottle of whisky from her cabin. He convinces Neoptolemus to take a few swigs to steady himself for the wedding. Placing his hands firmly on the soldier’s face, he urges him to follow the plan. Neoptolemus climbs the steel girder and waits for his bride.
Iphigenia appears through the gloom of no-man’s land wearing a red cloak. She takes off the cloak and walks up the steep slope of the girder towards Neoptolemus. He kisses her mournfully and turns away, climbing down from the beam.
Iphigenia is confused, but still smiling as Agamemnon climbs the girder and takes his place. ‘Every Reborn’ plays in the background and the music swells dramatically as the king approaches his daughter. He raises his hand and slowly brings it down on her neck, as blood pours over her chest and down the side of her dress. She collapses and the soldiers look away.
The Watchman is solemn, but less distraught than the others. She leaves behind the horror of no-man’s-land and heads for the quiet of the crate room, a large room near the border filled with wooden crates. One of the crates contains a large, white horse lying on the ground.
Nearby is a heavy metal container on wheels and the Watchman takes hold of it and pushes it out of the room, gesturing for an audience member to help her. They push it down the corridors towards Troy.
They drive through the double doors of the Palladium and enter the town square. Hecuba is there with her daughters, and they look anxiously at the Watchman before turning away in a panic. A strange siren-like drone echoes through the town.
The Watchman is the first of the Greeks to enter Troy and her cart could be seen to represent the Trojan horse.
She opens the cart and reveals a fold-up circular crash-mat, a long pole with chalk on the end, a bowl of water and some cloths. She takes the chalk and draws a large, white circle around the middle of the square.
The drones get louder and more sinister and Hecuba and her daughters return to the square. They understand that the city walls have fallen and they wait side-by-side for the invaders.
Track 5 - The Breach
The double doors of the Palladium open dramatically and Agamemnon appears with Neoptolemus and Patroclus. The Watchman joins his comrades and the four of them confront the women of Troy.
Hecuba holds out a jewelled mask and Agamemnon looks at it dismissively. He gestures for the Watchman to take it away, and she places it carefully on a hook on the side of her metal cart. The two opposing groups mirror each other in a tense face-off. They take turns to circle each other before the Greek soldiers take control.
Track 6 - The Sacrifice of Polyxena
Hecuba’s youngest daughter, Polyxena, is singled out for attention. Having killed his own daughter to reach Troy, Agamemnon now demands the murder of another young princess.
In the play ‘Hecuba’, Polyxena is sacrificed as an offering to the ghost of Achilles, in order to secure a strong wind to take the Greeks back to Hellas.
Agamemnon steps back and orders Neoptolemus to carry out the sacrifice. The young soldier does so reluctantly and Polyxena expedites the deed by pulling his weapon into her stomach. She collapses and Neoptolemus falls to his knees in shock.
Again, the Watchman is unsettled by the scene, but not unduly so. She prepares for Polyxena to by pulled into the sky as an offering to the gods, and a warning to the conquered Trojans. She unfolds the crash-mat and ties a tether around her ankles. Her body is winched into the air and the Watchman turns away. ‘All The Earth’ by Jessica Curry plays as her body swings back and forth above the square.
Eventually, Polyxena is lowered back to the floor and her lover, Macaria, cradles her body. The Watchman hands her a cloth and she uses it to wipe the blood from Polyxena’s chest. She replaces her top and tries to lift her, but she’s too heavy. Patroclus appears and lifts Polyxena over his shoulder, before carrying her to Alighieri’s, a nearby clothes shop.
Track 7
The Watchman is alone in the square. She clears up the crash-mat and cloth, loading them into her cart, carrying out her work with a sense of resignation. She pushes the cart back through the Palladium doors and down the corridors to Mycenae.
She enters the crate room and parks her cart for a moment, before shining her torch about the space, checking the dark corners and crevices. She senses that someone’s there and she looks in the crate containing the horse.
Persephone is crouching on the floor. The Watchman orders her out, ‘You’re not meant to be there!’ Persephone exits and stands nervously before her. She demands to see her papers and Persephone hands over her travel permit.
The Watchman reads the name, ‘Judith Kore’ and her eyes widen. Her attitude suddenly softens and she looks at Persephone apologetically, ‘That’s fine.’ Persephone scurries away and the Watchman returns to her cabin.
She sits down and leans back, lifting her big boots onto the desk. She grabs a bottle of whisky and swigs a mouthful. Through the mesh fence, she sees Clytemnestra on top of the steel girder. A storm is raging and Clytemnestra is waiting for her husband to return from the war. She's tormented and seems to be calling out to the gods. The Watchman takes another swig of her whisky, untroubled by the queen’s histrionics.
Track 8 - The Conqueror's Return
Agamemnon and Cassandra appear and stop still outside the cabin. Cassandra is wearing the jewelled mask from Troy, which she ceremoniously lifts from her head and places on Agamemnon. They walk through to no-man’s-land and Agamemnon is reunited with his wife. The Watchman looks on, but even these weighty scenes fail to stir much interest in her.
The royal couple head towards the grand staircase and Cassandra follows on behind. The Watchman wanders out to the girder nearby and climbs up, to lie down and look at the stars.
Track 9 - The Robe of Glory
Agamemnon climbs the stairs wearing a huge crimson cape and the Watchman jumps down from her resting place. She sees Iphigenia's white veil and red cloak lying on the sandbags that surround the girders. Picking them up, she takes them to a dark corner near her cabin. Behind her, Iphigenia and Patroclus burst into no-man's-land, chasing each other and laughing.
The Watchman stops at a shrine with a statue of three women, or a single woman with three aspects, surrounded by more sandbags. Possibly, it’s a shrine to Hecate. On the floor is a small box with a balloon tied to it. The Watchman folds Iphigenia’s cloak and leaves it on the shrine, before placing her white veil in the box. She takes the box and leaves it in the back of her cabin.
Track 10 - A Fallen Comrade
Nearby in no-man’s-land, Patroclus is lying motionless on the steel girder. Iphigenia has disappeared and the young soldier is alone in the darkness. The Watchman looks over and recognises the body.
She needs to tell Neoptolemus and she walks to the crate room, where she finds him in his barrack, with his head in his hands. She nods towards no-man’s-land and Neoptolemus shakes his head in disbelief. He rushes off, and the Watchman heads in the other direction, making her way back to Troy.
Jaded and aimless, she stops at the abandoned border cabin in Troy and sits at the desk. She looks through some papers and fiddles with the objects on the table. She picks up a plastic sphere that looks like some sort of toy and experiences a rare moment of joy as she spins it round.
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She continues towards Troy and stops at a brightly lit shop selling lights and plastic objects. She has a look around and rummages behind the counter.
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She enters the arcade area and stops for a rest next to the peep-show booths.
Suddenly, the twin gods, Apollo and Artemis, appear out of nowhere and approach her from either side. They lean down and whisper something, Apollo on her left and Artemis on her right. She reacts badly and her body spasms as she slumps to the floor.
The two gods disappear as quickly as they arrived, and the Watchman stands up and recovers herself. She heads back to Mycenae in a fragile state. As she walks down the corridors, she becomes slightly frantic, asking an audience member to ‘close off her ears’.
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Track 11
Heading towards her cabin, she stops and looks back at the same audience member, holding out her hand. He takes it and she runs off, pulling him through the narrow corridor of mesh fencing along-side no-man’s-land.
Neoptolemus is leaning on the other side of the fencing, in a terrible condition, and the Watchman stops for a second to register him. She carries on, pulling the audience member through a hole in one of the tents. She stops and says that she’s going to show him a secret, before pulling him across no-man’s-land, towards her hut in the hinterland. She unlocks the door and ushers him inside.
She takes off his mask and sits him at her desk. The scene is similar to the previous 1:1 and she shows him the illustration of the labyrinth, ‘When Gaia created Earth, and our ancestors worked the land. There was an abundance of life and greenery’.
She places the man’s hand under the cloth and he feels the section of grass, ‘With the rise of man, all this was destroyed’. She moves his hand to the bowl filled with fine dirt. The man scoops up the dirt and lets it pour from his fingers.
She cleans his hand with a towel and gestures to the gardening tools hanging on the wall, ‘One day these will be artefacts in a museum.’
She pours two shots of whisky, ‘But humans are resilient, and we all have our own way of getting by.’ They raise a toast to the rebirth of the world, and she releases him back into the hinterland.
She stays in her hut for a moment as the reset music plays, before returning to the border control cabin for the start of a new day.
Gods
Artemis Apollo Hades Persephone
Artemis
Alison Monique Adnet, Ally Clarke, Brenda Lee Grech, Eléonore Cabrera, Jahmarley Bachelor, Jayla O'Connell, Leal ZieliÅ„ska, Maya Milet, Sharol Mackenzie, Yilin Kong.
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In Greek mythology, Artemis is the goddess of the hunt and wild animals and is often depicted with a deer. She’s the twin sister of Apollo and a virgin goddess, typically portrayed as her own master and just as powerful as the male gods. She can be cruel and vengeful, harshly punishing human beings for minor transgressions.
In ‘The Burnt City’, Artemis dresses like her brother, with gold shorts and a military-style bronze breastplate. She sometimes wears a blue, shimmery mesh top.
Start of Loop
At the start of her loop, Artemis is in the hinterland, a large sandy space filled with trees. On one side of the room is a large shrine dedicated to her, with dozens of candles flickering against the wall and a pair of reindeer antlers lying in the sand.
She has a small hut in another corner of the woods, the inside of which is covered with pelts of reindeer fur.
Artemis crawls into her hut and an audience member follows her in. By the time he looks up, she’s exited through the other side. He crawls after her, back out into the woods, but she’s nowhere to be seen.
Suddenly, she appears on the roof of the hut, performing a bewitching dance.
Track 1 - A Sacred Deer
King Agamemnon is nearby, exploring the space. Artemis dances around the room and he watches her from the shadows.
She sees him and draws him into her dance, floating over the sand, bending and twisting. Agamemnon is conflicted, but can’t look away.
In the original story, Agamemnon offends Artemis on his way to the Trojan War by hunting and killing one of her sacred stags. In the story notes for ‘The Burnt City’ it suggests that Agamemnon offends Artemis by lusting after her.
She leads him to a wall at the side of the woods, where she grabs a tether and pulls herself up, as a spotlight shines on them both. She wraps her legs around his neck and pulls him to and fro. He’s distressed and it’s clear that she intends to punish him. Artemis will prevent the Greek army from setting sail unless Agamemnon can meet her demands.
She continues to torment him as they move towards no-man’s-land. He fights his way free and recovers near the bottom of the grand staircase.
Track 2
As he gets his breath back, he hears a commotion in the distance. Two of his soldiers are fighting and he runs over to them.
He pulls them apart and stands between them, tired and exasperated. His men are ill-disciplined and restless and he needs to get them to Troy. Artemis climbs the girders next to the grand staircase and watches as the king tries to maintain order.
Nearby is a tall metal ladder and a phone fixed to the wall. The phone starts to ring and Agamemnon climbs the first few rungs to reach the receiver. Artemis mouths the name ‘Iphigenia’ and a faint whisper is heard throughout no-man’s-land. Agamemnon falls back in shock as he realises what’s being asked of him.
Artemis wants him to sacrifice his daughter and he believes he has no choice but to give in to her demands. The silence is broken by Artemis laughing wickedly.
He instigates a plan to lure Iphigenia to no-man’s-land, by arranging for her to marry his second-in-command, Neoptolemus. The Greek soldiers run around in a swirl of activity and Artemis is amused by the chaos she’s caused.
She spends time watching events unfold, before walking upstairs to the royal palace. She walks languidly along the concrete table towards Iphigenia’s bedroom.
Clytemnestra is already there with her daughter, excited about the wedding, and the Oracle is helping out. They pamper Iphigenia, fixing her hair and placing a white veil on her head. ‘Sing Sing Sing (With a Swing)’ by Benny Goodman plays through the speakers and Artemis watches from the side-lines, enjoying the celebrations.
Alison Monique Adnet
Jayla O'Connell
Track 3 - A Wedding Celebration
Iphigenia exits her room and is met by Aegisthus, who bows and presents her with a small bouquet. The Oracle passes around a tray of drinks and Artemis knocks one back. The guests dance gaily to the ragtime soundtrack, spilling in and out of each other’s arms. Iphigenia is lifted onto the table and Clytemnestra and Aegisthus follow on behind. Artemis climbs up and the four of them fall into step and dance a joyous, synchronized jive.
The party ends with a loud bang and confetti falls from the sky, covering Iphigenia. The swing music stops and suddenly there’s an uneasy atmosphere. Clytemnestra wraps a red cloak around her daughter and steps back to admire her. Iphigenia is uncertain, but Artemis encourages her and beckons her forward. She guides her towards the grand staircase and Iphigenia descends towards no-man’s-land.
Track 4 - The Sacrifice of Iphigenia
Artemis heads back through the royal palace and walks down the back staircase to join the Greek soldiers near the border. Neoptolemus climbs the steel girder to wait for his bride. Patroclus is disturbed and turns away. The Watchman has work to do and she heads off to the crate room, leaving her greatcoat behind.
Artemis picks it up and puts it on, so that she looks like one of the soldiers. Standing in darkness by the side of the girder, she watches solemnly as Iphigenia approaches.
‘Every Reborn’ plays as the young princess climbs the girder to meet her husband-to-be. He kisses her and for a moment she’s full of joy, but then he drops his head sorrowfully and climbs down from the girder.
Iphigenia turns back and finds her father standing in front of her. He tries to smile, but Iphigenia senses that something’s wrong. He pulls off her veil and she looks at him in confusion as he raises his hand and swings at her neck. She moans and blood pours from her throat as the soundtrack reaches a dramatic climax.
Iphigenia lies motionless on the girder and the soldiers move away. On the balcony above, Clytemnestra reels in shock and falls back into the royal palace.
Artemis dances and a violent wind howls as a storm crashes down on no-man’s-land. Agamemnon is filled with grief and guilt and he collapses to the ground, as his men march in circles around him.
Track 5
The storm subsides and the soldiers march to the border, heading for Troy. Artemis is left alone in the middle of no-man’s-land with Iphigenia’s body. She takes off her greatcoat, dropping it to the floor, and walks to the middle of the space in her golden breast-plate. She lets out a blood-curdling scream and falls to her knees under the beam of a spotlight. She is overcome with grief, even though her own demands brought about the sacrifice.
Some scholars believe that, in the original myth, when Artemis made her dictate, she assumed that Agamemnon wouldn’t go through with it, and by making such an impossible request, she would force him to abandon the war.
So when he does go through with it, Artemis is amazed and horrified. She couldn't conceive that he would put his duty as a king and general before his duty as a father. In other versions of the story, when Iphigenia is offered as a sacrifice, Artemis pities her and takes her away, leaving a deer in her place.
Artemis approaches Iphigenia and weeps. Face-to-face with the brutal reality of her demands, she is torn apart. She climbs the girder and lifts her lifeless body, carrying it slowly towards the hinterland as a tower of lights blaze in front of her, creating a dramatic silhouette.
Track 6 - The Birth of Hecate
She passes the Oracle, who’s on her knees near the bottom of the grand staircase. Artemis enters the hinterland, laying Iphigenia in the sand, in a semi-circle of antlers. She reaches for the tether hanging from the wall and swings back and forth over the princess, dipping down and pulling back, over and over, infusing her with a new life force.
​
Iphigenia rises to her feet and is resurrected. She pulls off her blood-stained white dress and moves robotically in just a grey slip.
She jerks and struts uncertainly, moving from the semi-circle of antlers to the middle of the hinterland. She dances with Artemis and grows in strength and confidence.
They move towards the shrine and Iphigenia takes off her slip and puts on a red dress that’s hanging on the wall. She’s transformed into the goddess Hecate, who presides over magic and spells.
Track 7
Iphigenia leaves the hinterland and Artemis is alone in the woods. She performs an emotional solo dance in the sand, seemingly lost and confused, as if she’s searching for something. She returns to the shrine and lifts a deer skull from the floor. The skull has a pair of long antlers and Artemis places it in front of her face. She walks on all fours and becomes the deer, twisting and crawling in the sand. Finally, she stands upright and reaches to the heavens, illuminated by a blue spotlight.
Making her way towards the grand staircase, she stops briefly to approach an audience member and whisper in his ear. She says that she tries to be good, but she’s impulsive and can’t help herself.
Track 8 - Battle of the Twins
She meets her brother, Apollo, at the bottom of the stairs. Far away in Troy, the Greeks have won the war and the royal household is preparing for the return of the king.
The two gods ceremoniously climb the stairs as a column of bright lights shine through the steps. Clytemnestra descends from above, wearing a long, shimmering dress, and walks between them. The Oracle is in no-man’s-land, watching and waiting, with her hands in the pockets of her long smock.
Artemis and Apollo enter the royal palace and step onto the long table, where they wrestle playfully. Apollo stretches out his arms, flexing his biceps and showing off his huge muscles. The fighting gets more serious as they walk to either end of the table, 22 metres long, and throw thunderbolts at each other.
The two gods bring forth the wind to bring the Greek ships home. Colourful lights rush back and forth along an enormous linear light fitting above the table. Thunder echoes through the speakers and flashes of lightning fill the sky, as Clytemnestra walks slowly towards the border, in no-man’s-land below.
Clytemnestra climbs the steel girder and reaches up to the sky, bathed in a dramatic blue light. The storm rages on, as she waits for her husband. The mood is sinister and there’s a terrible sense of foreboding.
Agamemnon appears at the border. He’s wearing a jewelled mask and is flanked by Cassandra, his concubine. Clytemnestra greets him warmly and Cassandra stands awkwardly in the middle of no-man’s-land.
She looks up and sees the two gods dancing on the table. The twins share a playful moment as they practice curtsying, in preparation for the king’s arrival. They walk to the top of the grand staircase and look down on the royal couple below.
Track 9 - The Robe of Glory
Clytemnestra climbs to the top of the stairs and walks between the gods, as they bow politely. Agamemnon follows on shortly after, wearing a huge, red cloak, and he also walks between the twins. As he passes, they quickly gather his robe and follow him into the royal palace. The king sees his wife at the far end of the room and walks along the table towards her, as his cloak billows behind him.
He takes off his jewelled mask and embraces Clytemnestra. Artemis and Apollo walk slowly on either side of the table, gathering up his cloak for a second time. The royal couple lie down and the two gods cover them with the red fabric, before returning to the middle of the table.
Track 10
Cassandra takes the jewelled mask and carries it to Apollo. Apollo takes it and runs with Artemis towards Iphigenia’s bedroom, with a playful, manic energy.
They rush past on different sides of the room, before coming together and heading for the stairs near the metal ladder. They run through the corridors to Troy, with a couple of audience members in tow, opening doors and grandly waving their followers through. Apollo uses the jewelled mask to point them forward.
They stop in the arcade area where the Watchman is taking a break and leaning against a wall. Approaching her from either side, they both whisper something to her. She shudders and falls to the ground and the two gods run away laughing.
Apollo unlocks a door and they head to Peep through the VIP lounge.
As they enter the main bar, Kampe is on stage finishing her rendition of, ‘You Should See Me in a Crown’. Artemis and Apollo fool around at the back of the room. A woman is sitting on a sofa, looking at her phone, and the two of them lean over to take a peek. She looks up and jumps in alarm to see two magnificent gods bearing down on her.
Track 11
Kampe leaves the room and the host, Cici, calls out, ‘Lets see if we can summon a couple of gods. You can’t ask for more than that!’ She shines a blue spotlight down the centre of the audience and picks out the twins, who are draped over each other, looking godly. ‘Look it worked,’ cries Cici and they climb on stage.
They dance to ‘Blue Monday’, voguing outrageously and showing off their muscles. The singer Orpheus stands at the back of the room, blasting out the vocals, as the twins power through a series of flamboyant god-like poses.
Loop 1 / Track 11
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In Loop 1, Peep is used as part of the entrance to the show. After covering Agamemnon and Clytemnestra with the king’s cloak, the twin gods go their separate ways.
Artemis moves downstairs to the tent encampment. She poses for a while in a tent filled with gardening equipment and tiny greenhouses on a large table. Neoptolemus enters the centre of the encampment nearby, carrying the body of Patroclus. He places him gently on the ground and departs.
The Oracle appears next to Artemis. She’s carrying a bowl of water and Artemis leads her to Patroclus. She sprinkles water from her bowl over his body and he slowly comes to life. Patroclus rises unsteadily, as if waking from a deep sleep.
Artemis returns to the tent with the greenhouses and waits silently in the darkness, as Patroclus performs an acrobatic routine in and around a series of hammocks in the neighbouring tent.
She approaches the wall dividing the tents. A bright light shines behind her and her shadow looms large on the white canvas. She raises her hands and places them on the fabric and Patroclus does the same on the other side, as they clasp each other through the cloth.
After a moment, they release themselves and Patroclus returns to no-man’s-land. Artemis walks to the hinterland and crawls through her fur-lined hut.
Apollo
Folu Odimayo, Georges Hann, Harry Price, Mitch Harvey, Morgan Bobrow-Williams, Seirian Griffiths, Steven James Apicello.
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Apollo is the twin brother of Artemis and one of the few Greek gods to support the Trojans in the Trojan War. In ‘The Burnt City’, he dresses like his sister, with gold shorts and a military-style bronze breastplate.
Apollo is the god of many things, including truth and prophecy. He is also the god of the sun and he struggles to find strength in the underworld where there is so little light. He can sometimes be seen trying to draw energy from the various lamps and beacons around the set.
Track 1 – The Gift of Prophecy
Apollo enters the tenement courtyard and walks tall amongst the debris and disorder. Washing hangs haphazardly from the balconies and one side of the square is full of rubbish and broken pallets. In amongst the dilapidated apartments is a small shrine dedicated to him.
He sees Laocoön looking at the shrine. Laocoön turns around and they eyeball each other. Laocoön isn’t intimidated by this huge god and sits calmly on a battered, old fold-up chair.
Cassandra appears out of the darkness and Apollo circles her, clearly impressed by the young princess. The two of them dance around the square and there’s a powerful attraction between them as they push each other back and forth.
Apollo has a hold over her and manipulates her movements, but he’s also bewitched and stares lustfully at her. In ‘Agamemnon’, Apollo is so taken by Cassandra that he promises her the power of prophecy if she becomes his consort.
Cassandra smiles and leads him down a dark corridor covered in graffiti.
Track 2
They make their way upstairs to Klub, splitting up briefly en route, and coming back together on the dancefloor. Apollo chases her around the room, but she refuses to be intimidated.
‘Ghost Poet (Schlepp Geist Remix)’ by Elfgrin plays in the club and the office next door, as Apollo and Cassandra face each other, inches apart, stroking and pawing. One minute they embrace like lovers and the next, they jostle for power.
In the original myth, Cassandra willingly accepts the gift of prophecy from Apollo, but then rebuts his advances. As a punishment, he curses her, so that her prophecies are never to be believed.
​Apollo runs at Cassandra and she darts to the side, like a matador dodging a bull. He puffs his chest out and she places her hand firmly on his breastplate, pushing him away.
As their battle ends, he touches her gently on the head. There’s a crackle of lightning and she collapses to the floor. He holds his hand out to help her up, but she pushes it away.
Cassandra heads next door to Polymestor’s office and Apollo follows her. Polyxena and Polydorus, Cassandra’s siblings, are enjoying a party with Kampe and Macaria.
Cassandra talks to Polydorus and tells him to be careful, but he’s not interested. She tries to warn Polyxena, but again she’s dismissed. Apollo hovers in the background, resplendent in his golden armour, but only Cassandra seems to be aware of his presence.
She walks away, exasperated, through the Aphrodite room to the greenhouse room.
Apollo takes a different route through the storeroom and down the hotel corridor. He stops briefly and collapses to the floor, before getting up and flexing his muscles as if to show that he’s still standing strong.
Cassandra is frustrated with her siblings and Apollo is frustrated with Cassandra. They meet in the greenhouse room and Cassandra pushes him up against the greenhouse, before spinning away. Apollo spends a moment coming to terms with his failed pursuit. He walks to the balcony above the tenement courtyard and stops still, grabbing the handrail and looking down into the square.
He sees Cassandra descending the stairs and they stare at each other. Apollo walks around the balcony as Cassandra walks down and sits on a bench in the middle of the square.
Laocoön has also returned and is sitting on his old garden chair, watching from the shadows.
Track 3 – A Curse
Apollo confronts Cassandra and they dance. This time, their dance is full of anger and Apollo has the upper hand. He pushes and pulls her about the square, punishing her for spurning him.
Apollo sees Laocoön and approaches him threateningly. Laocoön stands up and takes hold of a tether that’s fixed to the underside of the balcony. He pulls himself up and spins his body so that he’s hanging upside down. Apollo pushes him hard and he swings back and forth.
This bizarre vision is a premonition of Polyxena’s sacrifice and Cassandra’s worst fears are made explicit, as Apollo leaves her in the square to suffer alone.
Track 4
Apollo heads to the flower shop, Hesperides. Askalaphos is behind his counter praying and Apollo sneaks up behind him, gently brushing his cheek. He whispers in his ear as Askalaphos experiences a divine sensation and falls into a blissful stupor.
Apollo disappears as quickly as he arrived and leaves Askalaphos to recover and carry on with his day.
Apollo walks to the centre of Troy and enters the town square, which is deserted and cold. The lights are low and he performs a powerful, aggressive dance in the middle of the square. At the same time, a storm rages across the border in Mycenae.
Cassandra and Polyxena enter the square and Cassandra spins around in a panic. She knows that something terrible is happening and wants desperately for her sister to understand. Hecuba arrives and tries to calm her daughters, but she also feels that something isn’t right.
Apollo floats in the background as the three women agitate in the middle of the square. The music intensifies and Apollo bows down in front of the Palladium doors. The doors open and a Greek soldier, the Watchman, enters, pushing a large crate on wheels.
Hecuba rallies her daughters and takes them to Ciacco. Apollo climbs to the top of a pile of chairs and watches silently as the Watchman unpacks his crate and draws a large chalk circle around the middle of the square.
Georges Hann
Seirian Griffiths
Beyond the Palladium doors, the Greek army is approaching. The loud groans in the background become more sinister, as Apollo climbs down from the chairs and runs down an alley alongside the clothes shop, Alighieri’s.
Track 5 - The Breach
He runs to a locked door opposite Hesperides and disappears inside.
On the other side of the room, Zagreus has pulled a women into the darkness. He talks about Apollo and he leads her through a pitch-black space, lying her down on a stone table. He starts to pray and whispers, ‘Apollo manifest thyself’. A corner of the room glows yellow and Apollo emerges out of the wall like a ghost.
The lights go out and the woman is in total darkness again. Zagreus offers her to Apollo as a sacrifice. A dim, yellow light returns and Apollo’s face is inches from hers. She screams and the lights go out again. Apollo disappears and Zagreus reassures the woman that she’s safe. He returns her mask and ushers her out.
Track 6
Apollo emerges from the room and dances his way through the streets. He stops in the games arcade and turns towards an audience member, taking her hand and placing it on his shoulder. He leads her through the corridors towards Mycenae while she holds onto his shoulder. Their difference in height is significant and she struggles to keep up.
As they approach the border, Apollo reaches up to the ceiling and runs his fingers through hundreds of small, silver foil panels hanging from wires. The foil sheets look like totenpässe, and possibly they represent the sea between Troy and Mycenae.
He tries to enter no-man’s-land, but an invisible force pushes him back, before he finally powers through. He stops near the steel girders and looks back towards the border area. He sees Zagreus disappear down a corridor in an agitated state and he follows him, making sure he isn’t seen.
Track 7
He enters a large room full of wooden containers and walks stealthily down a ramp, before climbing onto one of the crates. On the other side, Zagreaus is leaning against the side of the crate with his eyes closed. Apollo appears above him and reaches down, almost touching the top of his head. Zagreus senses something and spins around. He looks up and sees the great god staring down at him.
Apollo chases him around the room. They climb to the ceiling and push each other to-and-fro against the boxes. For a moment, Zagreus chases Apollo and the hunter becomes the hunted, but Apollo is playing with him. Apollo disappears again and in the blink of an eye, Zagreus is left exhausted and alone.
Apollo returns to no-man’s-land and this time, he enters without a struggle. A spotlight projects a square of light onto the ground near the steel girders and Apollo is drawn towards it. The square is an unusual sight in a show filled with circles of light around every corner. He performs a powerful solo dance on the small glowing patch, as he wrestles with himself and the forces around him.
He walks through no-man’s-land and sees his sister, Artemis, coming out of the hinterland. They exchange a knowing look and stand side-by-side at the bottom of the grand staircase. Looking up, they see Queen Clytemnestra at the top of the stairs. The two gods climb up and a column of bright lights shines through the treads. Clytemnestra walks between them and continues to no-man’s-land where she waits for her husband. Far away, Troy has fallen and the victorious king will soon be coming home.
Track 8 – Battle of the Twins
Apollo and Artemis enter the royal palace and step onto the long table. They wrestle with each other briefly, before walking to either end of the table. For Agamemnon and the Greeks to sail home, a strong wind is needed and the gods proceed to whip up a violent storm.
Suspended above the table is an incredibly long linear light fitting, filled with dozens of LEDs. A dramatic light show plays out as the twins fight an almighty battle, throwing bolts of lightning at each other across the room. Thunder crackles in the air and in no-man’s-land below, Clytemnestra is tormented by the storm.
The battle is fierce and the gods display an awesome power, but there are moments of playfulness. Apollo blows a kiss and it’s fired like a thunderbolt towards Artemis, who catches it in her hand.
Meanwhile at the Mycenaean border, Agamemnon arrives with his concubine, Cassandra. She’s wearing a jewelled mask which she takes off and carefully places on Agamemnon. The king climbs the steel girder to embrace his wife and Cassandra surveys her new homeland. Looking up at the royal palace, she sees the two gods misbehaving on the long table.
The twins practice a theatrical welcome and curtsy towards the stair, showing mock deference for an invisible king. They know what’s in store for Agamemnon and so does Cassandra.
Track 9 – The Robe of Glory
At the bottom of the stairs, the Oracle ties a large, red cape around Agamemnon’s neck. Clytemnestra is the first to climb the stairs and the two gods bow as she enters the palace.
Agamemnon follows on and as he passes, they kneel to gather up his cloak. He walks along the table towards his wife, with the red fabric billowing behind him.
He takes off the jewelled mask and Clytemnestra embraces him. The two gods gather up the cloak again and use it to cover the royal couple as they lie in each other’s arms.
The gods stand near the middle of the table as a masseuse appears wearing a strange, rubber mask. Cassandra gently lifts the jewelled mask from the table and carries it to Apollo.
Track 10
Apollo takes the mask and quickly leaves the scene, along with his sister. They run past Iphigenia’s bedroom, Apollo running one side and Artemis running the other. They crash back together, flying past the metal ladder and down the stairs. Audience members run to keep up as the two gods twist and turn through the corridors to Troy.
Opening a pair of doors, they bow magnanimously, waving their followers through. Apollo uses the jewelled mask to point the way forward. They enter Troy and stop in the arcade area, bumping into the Watchman.
She’s taking a break and leaning against the wall next to the peep-show windows. She looks nervous as they sidle up on either side and whisper in her ear. She spasms and collapses to the floor in shock, as the gods smile at each other and take off again.
Track 11
They enter the audience bar, Peep, via the VIP Lounge and see Kampe on stage dancing to ‘You Should See Me in a Crown’. As they wait for her act to finish, they fool around at the back of the room. The number ends with a cacophony of noise and a frenetic light show, as Kampe walks away holding a crown and bleeding profusely from her scalp.
The hosts, Dyo and Cici, return and applaud Kampe off the stage. In preparation for the next act, they ask the audience, ‘Can we summon the gods into Peep?’ before reciting a wild incantation.
‘An upward spiral. A downward ascension. An arrow through your heart. A lychee in your glass. Our perfect fortune’s here. Sharpen your vision. Knowledge is our misfortune. The source of fever dreams. The sweat. The spit. The tears. Turning into streams, a river, crossed many times before. Suddenly, a door. It’s shiny, gold and bright. So we reach for the knob. And as we turn it in our hands. The gods begin to throb. Oh my gods!’
The opening bars of ‘Blue Monday’ start up and Cici shines a spotlight down the centre of the audience. She picks out the twins, posing loftily in a god-like tableau at the back of the room. She calls out excitedly, ‘What say we bring on a couple of gods for you lovely people.’
Apollo and Artemis climb onto the stage and perform an elaborate routine, full of god-like poses and outrageous voguing, while Cici belts out the vocals.
After their performance, they leave the stage to raucous applause. They split up and Apollo walks through the town square. He’s holding the jewelled mask and he takes it to Ciacco, where he finds Eurydice behind the bar.
She’s in the middle of an existential crisis, deciding whether to escape from Troy, but she stops still when she sees Apollo. He leaves the mask on the bar and disappears. Eurydice is wide-eyed and handles it with great care, placing it in a clear, plastic box under the counter.
Apollo struts through the backstreets of Troy. The reset music plays and he rests on a ledge outside Hesperides.
Hades
Sam Booth, Ali Goldsmith, Carl Harrison, Eric Jackson Bradley, Folu Odimayo.
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Hades is god of the underworld and has control of all its subjects. He’s married to Persephone, who spends half the year with her husband and the other half on Earth with her mother, Demeter.
Hades receives human souls, or ‘shades’, as they’re brought to him and he ensures that no‘one escapes from the underworld, but he doesn’t torture the dead and has little control over the process of death. He doesn’t pass judgement or determine how and when people die. Most of the time, he’s generally uninterested in the shades that he rules over.
In The Burnt City, Hades performs one long loop over the course of the evening. He wears a grey three-piece suit and has a plush office next to Ciacco in the town square.
He interacts with the audience from the first scene, greeting them at the top of the show and playing host to them throughout the evening. He travels throughout the two buildings, witnessing all the major events.
The set representing Troy also represents a nightmare version of Troy that is part of the underworld. The original play, ‘Hecuba’ is set in Thrace, but the first character to appear, the ghost of Polydorus, claims to reside in the underworld, ‘I come from bleakest darkness, where corpses lurk and Hades lives apart from other Gods.’
Sam Booth says that Hades is a spectator of human emotion, fascinated by mortal suffering, not someone who engineers it, but someone who marvels at it with a detached perspective.
His office is a dark, luxurious wood-panelled room with heavy wooden furniture. A letter on his desk shows the address as the 9th circle. The nine circles of Hell come from Dante’s epic poem ‘The Divine Comedy’, which envisions the afterlife in three parts - Hell, Purgatory and Paradise.
Dante's Hell, or ‘Inferno’, is organized into nine different levels, each distributing a different punishment for a different sin. There are several references to Dante throughout the show, including the clothes shop, Alighieri’s.
A map of Troy in the reception of the Elysium hotel also refers to the nine circles. It depicts Troy as a labyrinth and some of the sins appear to be represented by different buildings around the town.
On Hades desk is a bowl of pomegranates and either side of the desk are two large pillars, possibly a nod to Boaz and Jachin, the pillars at King Solomon’s Temple that were decorated with hundreds of pomegranates.
One of the drawers contains a set of ‘MK Ultra’ documents, referencing a CIA mind control exercise from the 1960s.
There are other files labelled ‘Polyxena's Death’, ‘The Pact’ and ‘Iphigenia’s Death’. A few of the drawers are filled with reams of code.
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Hanging near a checkerboard is a painting by Jan Brueghel the Elder called, ‘Juno in the Underworld’.
Loop 1 / Tracks 4 to 10
Hades starts the night by welcoming everyone into the show. Sometime later, he walks through Mycenae and enters the crate room, where he approaches one of the large, wooden crates. Inside is a white horse lying on the ground and Hades crouches down near his head. He takes a coin from his pocket and pushes it into the horse’s mouth. Dusting himself off, he exits the crate and heads for Troy.
He heads upstairs and enters the greenhouse room, where he finds Askalaphos at his desk, practicing his alchemy. He gives him a ball of paper, which contains a travel permit and a miniature wooden horse. Askalaphos is nonplussed and Hades winks, ‘She’ll remember. Same as before.’
He walks back downstairs, through the main square and into his office, locking the door behind him.
Audience members peer through the windows on either side of the door, as he sits in a low chair next to a game of checkers, wearing a pair of headphones.
After a while, he rises and appears at the door. Looking at the lost souls who have gathered outside, he raises his hand slightly.
An audience member moves forward and Hades ushers her into the room and locks the door.
They sit in the low chairs either side of the checkerboard. He stares at her intently before asking, ‘I hope you’re enjoying your visit. Are you cold?’ She shakes her head. He says, ‘I’m cold. Cold and hungry. We’re starved here, without her. Starved for sunlight. Nothing grows. Nothing flows.’ He picks up a plastic pomegranate, ‘See? Fake. Phoney. It’s all just set dressing.’
He looks at her, ‘Do you understand?’ and she nods. There’s a long silence. Eventually, he gets up and invites her to approach the window. Gesturing at the audience outside, he says ‘They think the city was made for them. It’s the other way around.’ He looks at her, ‘It’s the other way around.’
A topless woman, dripping with blood, is hanging upside-down above the town square. ‘You understand, it’s not the real thing. It’s a reflection. A representation. With a beginning and an end. The real thing has no beginning, no end. It never stops.’
After another period of silence, he approaches a cabinet. On top of the cabinet is an old-fashioned record player. Next to this is a record called ‘The Fall of Troy (A Requiem)’ with an elaborate gatefold cover. Inside are images of a labyrinth, a family tree and a list of tracks.
‘The Fall Of Troy (A Requiem)’
Act X
​i. Waiting for a Wind - A Sacred Deer - A Birthday Party - The Gift of Prophecy.
ii. Low Morale - Prayer to Apollo – Arkteia.
iii. Torment - A Wedding Celebration - Love under Siege - A Curse - A Vision.
iv. The Sacrifice of Iphigenia - A Favourable Wind - Safe Haven.
v. The Breach.
vi. The Sacrifice of Polyxena - The Birth of Hecate
vii. Funeral of a Princess - A Mother's Grief - Rites of Passage - To the Victor, the Spoils.
viii. The Sacrifice of Polydorus - Battle of the Twins - The Conqueror's Return – Metamorphosis.
ix. The Sacrifice of Patroclus - Fury in the Streets - A Lust for Power - The Robe of Glory.
x. The Comforts of Home - A Fallen Comrade - Come, Spirits of Vengeance!
xi. The Wheel Comes Full Circle.
Hades points to the record player. ‘I have a mastery of these things. But they’re not what they seem. They’re shadows of themselves.’ He wants to show her the true nature of the world around her. Lifting the lid, he slowly brings his finger down on the record and stops it playing.
At this moment, throughout the show, the music distorts and grinds to a halt. Everything and everyone comes to a stop and wherever they are, the performers freeze like statues. After a moment, Hades lifts his finger and the music restarts and the show carries on.
‘I am the hand. She is the heart. One without the other is no good. She’s coming back. She always comes back. But she never remembers. It’s the waters. I’ll show you.’ He unlocks a door near the back of his office, ‘I built my house above the waters. There’s a reservoir. Come and see.’
​
They enter a small room with a grandfather clock and pictures of pomegranates on the wall. In the corner of the space is the top of a ladder, poking up through a hole. He removes the woman’s mask and they climb down.
He leads her to a dark room with a low ceiling and sand on the floor. There’s not enough room to stand and they crawl to the back of the space on their hands and knees. Hades brushes away some of the sand on the floor and reveals the word ‘Lethe’. He gestures towards a pool of water and holds the woman’s hand over the surface.
‘Careful. It washes away memories. You can feel it. Oblivion. Cold. Sometimes I think, I’d like a taste of that. To lose myself. But I have to remember. I carve it into my mind. For the both of us.’
He lies back in the sand. ‘Lie here. See this. This is my sky. My only sky. And these are my stars. My only stars. I lie here and I watch and I wait. It’s a cold world without her. We’ll be together again, won’t we? She will come back, won’t she? But I wonder. This time, will she love me?’ Hades leads the woman back up the ladder to his office.
He sits down again in his low chair, ‘You’ll have to forgive me. I’m not much company tonight.’ He fades away slightly, looking sad, ‘She’ll be home. Sometime, tonight. But it’s a long, long, long.’ Before he can finish his sentence, he falls asleep.
A melancholy ballad, ‘It’s a Lonesome Old Town’, plays on the radio and Hades wakes up. He starts to croon along with it, ‘It's a lonesome old town when you're not around. How I wish you'd come back to me.’ He stands up and walks to the door.
Loop 1 / Track 11
He exits his office and walks around the square, lovesick and forlorn, still singing the song. He approaches a flower stall and selects a bunch of Narcissus flowers from the cart. Wandering around, he carefully places the flowers in various locations. At first it looks random, but it seems he’s leaving a trail from one end of the square back to his office. He goes back inside and shuts the door.
In the original myth, Persephone is said to have followed a trail of Narcissus flowers before being ensnared by Hades and dragged to the underworld through an opening in the Earth.
Hades sits in his chair and waits in silence. Outside, the reset music plays and Persephone emerges dramatically from a well in a dark corner of the square.
She’s barefoot and soaking wet, wearing a short black dress that clings to her body. She takes a few tentative steps and seems completely lost. Spotting one of the Narcissus flowers, she smiles and picks it up. She spots another and follows the trail to Hades’ office. She knocks on the door and Hades jumps up.
Loop 2 / Track 1
He opens the door and Persephone stands in front of him, dripping and frightened. She’s holding the flowers and Hades is holding a similar bunch. They face each other in a mirror image. Hades is bursting with happiness, but Persephone doesn’t recognise him.
He ushers her into his office and they stand by the desk. He holds her gently by the shoulders and says ‘Welcome Home’ with a big smile. She looks around the room, taking it all in, ‘Home? Sorry, I don’t understand?’ He comforts her, ‘I know, I know, you don’t remember anything. It’s the waters. The waters.’ He fetches a blanket and wraps it around her.
In Greek mythology, there are five rivers encircling Hades: the Styx, Phlegethon, Lethe, Acheron and Cocytus. The rivers are said to criss-cross and flow around each other and the underworld. Persephone has travelled through the waters and in particular the River Lethe, the river of forgetfulness.
It was said that when the shades of the dead entered the underworld, they were required to drink the waters of the Lethe to forget their earthly life.
A haunting piano piece plays in the background, ‘Ogive No. 2’ by Erik Satie. The austere melody creates a dramatic and suspenseful atmosphere.
Persephone walks behind the desk and looks at a framed painting on the wall. The painting is ‘The Fall of the Damned’ by Dirk Bouts and it depicts dozens of naked bodies being dragged into the underworld. Persephone is unsettled and turns away.
Hades sits her on one of the low chairs and shows her a photograph in a small frame. The picture is of the two of them on their wedding day, smiling brightly at the camera. Persephone recognises herself and is taken aback, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t remember.’ Hades holds her hand, ‘It will come back to you. It will all come back to you. Don’t worry.’
She wanders to the front of the office and notices a rack of keys on the wall. As in Bluebeard's Castle, there are seven keys. Hades says, ‘I can help you, but I can't guide you’. She looks at the rack and Hades tells her, ‘The keys to the city’.
He heads for the door and reassures her, ‘Go slow. You have all the time in the world.’ He understands that she needs time to adjust and acclimatise and he leaves her alone in the office.
He walks through the square with a spring in his step and passes Queen Hecuba who’s having a nightmare vision. Luba is on the Palladium balcony having a fit, and Hades stops just beneath her, stretching out his arms. He looks up as a storm rages in the sky. Bowing his head, he walks through the Palladium doors.
He heads for Mycenae and says to himself, ‘She'll be okay. She always is’. He crosses the border and climbs the stairs, walking past the metal ladder. He enters the royal palace, walks around Iphigenia’s bedroom and past the long table.
Loop 2 / Track 2
He makes his way to the shower area which is decorated with ornate Art Deco wall panels. He finds the Oracle, the royal maid, cleaning the tiles around the shower and concentrating on a small, circular stained-glass window under the shower head. A beam of light shines through the window and stretches across the palace. It seems the Oracle is receiving a vision from the gods.
Hades approaches in his three-piece suit, looking villainous. He stands next to her and feels around the cill of the small window. Finding a ring, he hands it to her and whispers in her ear. She’s taken aback and the beam of light burns brighter. Looking worried, she puts the ring on her finger for safe-keeping.
The ring is for her beloved Iphigenia, the princess she helped to raise. In no-man’s-land below, King Agamemnon is formulating a plan to lure her down, so that she can be sacrificed. He’s informed his men that she is to wed his second-in-command, Neoptolemus.
Hades walks towards the grand staircase and stops on the top landing. He takes a pair of opera glasses from his pocket and looks out towards the border area. The Greek soldiers are running around, putting Agamemnon’s plan in motion. Hades is delighted by the flurry of activity.
In the middle distance, he sees the goddess Artemis lying on the steel girders. He turns his gaze to the hinterland and sees Queen Clytemnestra and Iphigenia carrying out a strange ritual amongst the trees.
Artemis jumps down from the girders and climbs the stairs. Hades greets her warmly and passes her the glasses to check out the view. She has a quick look, before the two of them head back to the palace, walking along the concrete table together. They dance a couple of tango steps as Clytemnestra and Iphigenia run past, heading for Iphigenia’s bedroom.
Aegisthus appears and Hades shakes his hand. They wait outside the bedroom as Clytemnestra prepares her daughter for the wedding. ‘Swing, Swing, Swing’ plays through the speakers and there’s a joyous atmosphere.
Loop 2 / Track 3 - A Wedding Celebration
The two women burst through the tassels that surround the bedroom, holding hands and laughing. Aegisthus has a small bouquet of flowers tucked into the back of his trousers and Hades cheekily pinches them and presents them to Iphigenia. He congratulates her mother with a polite bow. The Oracle passes around a tray of drinks and everyone dances with abandon.
Hades joins in with the merriment, performing a nonchalant flapper dance. He dances with Artemis briefly, and the two of them watch over proceedings with an air of detachment.
Towards the end of the party, Hades claps his hands together. A loud bang goes off and confetti rains down from the sky, covering Iphigenia. He’s enjoyed the party, but it’s time to move on and Hades heads back to Troy.
Loop 2 / Track 4
He makes his way to Peep, the audience bar. As he walks, he asks an audience member, ‘Do women like surprises?’ She nods and he smiles, ‘I hope you’re right.’ He enters the bar and sees Persephone sitting in the audience, looking confused. The hosts on stage are delighted to see him and they introduce him as the next act.
He climbs up and looks slightly out of place in his three-piece suit, while the hosts are decked out in their outrageous cyber-punk outfits. They whoop and holler, but Hades remains stoic. There’s a drummer and keyboard player on stage and Hades sings a peculiar version of the Leonard Cohen song, ‘If I Didn’t Have Your Love’.
‘If the sun would lose its light, and we lived an endless night.
And there was nothing left that you could feel.
That's how it would be, what my life would seem to me.
If I didn't have your love to make it real.’
He singing is expressive and earnest, but also strangely cold and robotic. At one point, he picks out Persephone and says, ‘That’s my wife’. The hosts walk amongst the audience holding a couple of colourful spotlights and shining them on Hades.
At the end of the song, he climbs off the stage and embraces Persephone. She’s more confused than ever as he spins her around and pulls her out of the bar.
Loop 2 / Track 5 - The Breach
He ushers her across the square and she’s frightened by the strange drones echoing through the town, a warning of the impending Greek invasion. They stop outside Hades’ office and Zagreus runs past in a panic. He bumps into Persephone and apologises. Hades, the protective husband, calls out, ‘Hey, look where you’re going!’
He sweeps her into the safety of his office and locks the door. She runs to the back of the room and hides behind the desk. Hades closes the curtains and rushes over to calm her down. He locates a pair of headphones and places them over her ears. A meditation tape starts to play and a calming voice comes through the speakers, ‘Close your eyes and picture yourself in a meadow, on a beautiful May morning.’
Hades takes a plastic pomegranate from a bowl and places it in her hands. He leaves her listening to the recording, blissed out and lying under the desk. He sits at the low table and sets up a game of checkers while he waits.
Persephone writhes on the floor as the gentle voice continues, ‘The air is filled with the scents of wild flowers. All around you things are growing, blossoming, bursting with life. Feel the grass between your toes, the sunlight on your skin. Now, open your eyes. And know that the sunlight is with you still. Even in the middle of the darkest night, it shines forth from within you. Awakening life around you. As the world turns, season follows season, everything unfolds exactly as it should. You have all the time in the world. And all you need is here.’
Persephone recovers and stands up, regaining her composure. She looks at the pomegranate in her hand and sees that it’s become real. Unwittingly, she’s given life to the fake fruit and she looks at it in wonder, ‘Did I do that?’
She shows it to Hades and they both pull at it, splitting it in two. Persephone asks, ‘Is it real?’ and Hades says, ‘It is. It is real.’ They’re overjoyed and surprised and they laugh giddily.
In the original myth, Persephone was the goddess of spring and it was said that the world’s vegetation only grew when she was present on Earth for six months of the year.
The two of them stand next to the cabinet with the record player. Hades unlocks the cabinet doors and in a surreal moment, Persephone crouches down and crawls in. Hades gestures for a few audience members to follow her through and he locks the doors behind them.
Loop 2 / Track 6 – The Sacrifice of Polyxena
He takes the pomegranate over to his desk where he studies it intently, picking at the juicy flesh with a pair of tweezers. He removes a single seed and wonders whether he should eat it. He decides not to and ruminates, ‘We haven't had one like this in six months.’
Outside in the square, the Greeks have invaded and Polyxena is hanging from a rope. Hades addresses his followers, ‘It's not the real thing. But it's almost more real.’ He unlocks the door and heads out. Polyxena’s body is being held by Macaria.
Hades walks to the tenement courtyard and sees Kampe sitting on a bench looking up at the stars. He sits on the bench behind, so that they’re back-to-back. He looks up to enjoy the view, resting his head against hers.
He points to the bright light shining down on them and they share a moment of peace. He leaves her gazing at the sky and walks through the graffiti corridor, making his way upstairs to the hotel.
Loop 2 / Track 7 – Funeral of a Princess
He enters the Aphrodite room and has a look around. Leaning over the balcony, he sees Polyxena's body laid out on the counter of Alighieri's. Turning to an audience member, he shakes his head, ‘It’s a tragedy’.
Macaria is preparing her lover’s body and she covers it with a shroud, before standing on the counter and sprinkling ash over it. Hades also crumbles a ball of ash from the balcony and the two plumes intermingle as they float through the air.
Suddenly, Neoptolemus runs into the room and stops still. Hades looks at him and says sorrowfully, ‘What have you done?’ Neoptolemus is already losing his mind and he looks over the balcony and sees Polyxena’s body. He reels in horror and runs out of the room as Hades watches impassively.
Hades walks outside to the bridge overlooking the Elysium yard. He leans against the handrail and sees Polymestor amongst the crates, wrestling with the lifeless body of Polydorus. Polymestor looks up and aggressively shouts ‘Go!’ Hades holds up his hands as if to say, ‘Okay, okay.’
He walks back to the hotel corridor and bumps into Cassandra who’s wearing a jewelled mask. Agamemnon is behind her and Hades beckons the two of them forward. The king grunts and eyes him suspiciously. Hades directs them through a door and they head downstairs towards the hotel reception.
Loop 2 / Track 8
Hades walks back down the graffiti stair and heads for the Danaids tenement. Macaria is alone at the kitchen table, mourning the loss of Polyxena. The Greeks have taken over the town and she’s lost and afraid.
Hades sits down and considers her for a moment. He’s interested in her crying and curious to know what she’s feeling. It seems that he might offer some sympathy, but instead he mimics her frightened body language. He puts his hand on her chest and feels her heartbeat. He feels his own heartbeat and notices that there’s a difference.
He walks over to a mirror on the wall and stands motionless for a while, with his head in his hands. He looks up and adjusts his collar, making sure it’s straight. He leaves Macaria and walks to the town square.
He sees Polyxena stumbling at the entrance to Alighieri’s. She’s come back to life, reborn as a Fury, and is struggling to walk. Hades draws her out into the square with a subtle hand gesture that seems to energise her. She stutters to life like a faulty robot and Hades performs a couple of tango steps with her. He leads her by the hand to the middle of the square, where she starts to walk in circles.
Hades moves on, as Polyxena gets used to being one of the undead. He wanders through the backstreets to the Elysium yard. He sees his beloved Persephone interacting with Laocoön amongst the crates. She’s still confused and Hades is concerned, but he doesn’t interrupt them.
Instead, he enters the White Cypress and takes a seat at the bar. The bartender, Zagreus serves him a drink and Hades shares a few wise words. Zagreus wipes the bar and nods along politely.
‘Don’t let it bother you,’ he says, ‘It doesn’t bother me.’ Zagreus looks at him, not particularly bothered. ‘The dust. Dust, dust, dust dust, dust. Everything turns to dust. Everything. Every. Thing. There’s always changes. Don’t you wish you could make it stand still for a moment. Wouldn’t that be nice. Always. Always.’ He talks about the short cycles of mortal life. He tells Zagreus he has to enjoy life.
Towards the end of their interaction, Hades shows Zagreus a note that’s tucked under a bottle on the counter. The note was left for Zagreus by Eurydice after the Greek invasion, and it says, ‘The city is burning. Where are you? I came to find you but you’re not here. Come find me.’
As Hades leaves, he calls out ‘Enjoy yourself.’ He turns to look at Zagreus, ‘I mean that’. He passes through the bead curtain and whispers to himself, ‘Enjoy yourself’.
On the way back to his office, Hades visits Hesperides. He sees Askalaphos behind the counter and says, ‘I’m looking for a flower.’ Askalaphos points to a fake flower in a small vase on his counter and Hades shakes his head, ‘Nope.’ Askalaphos points to another and Hades gets irate, ‘It’s for a very special woman, do you understand? A very special woman.’
Askalaphos strokes his chin. He turns and reaches up for a plant pot on a shelf, while Hades looks at an audience member and rolls his eyes. Askalaphos plucks out a flower and lays it on the counter. Hades is impressed, ‘Yes, yes, thank you.’ He studies the petals and marvels at its beauty. Satisfied, he heads off, ‘Thank you and good night!’
Loop 2 / Track 9
Hades reaches his office and pauses for a moment at the window, sniffing his flower and swooning like a love-sick teenager. He enters and catches Persephone looking through the rack of keys on the wall. She’s embarrassed and he’s a little disappointed. He was looking forward to giving her the flower, but he just lies it on top of the cabinet.
Persephone feels guilty about snooping around, but she knows how to distract him and she turns on the radio. The delicate trumpet sounds of ‘Will Soon be a Woman’ play and she puts her arms around him. ‘Have we danced to this before?’ she asks and Hades replies, ‘Once or twice.’ Persephone smiles and says, ‘Let’s make it a third.’ She pulls him into a tango and they dance around the office, bumping into audience members.
Loop 2 / Track 10
Hades opens the door to the office and the same music is playing loudly outside. They continue their gentle tango using the square as their own private dancefloor. Persephone floats through the air and Hades sweeps her up and spins her round.
They return to the office and kiss passionately against the wall. While they’re kissing, Persephone surreptitiously reaches up and steals the key that she was looking at earlier.
Hades retrieves the flower from the top of the cabinet and gives it to her. Persephone smiles, but her mind is elsewhere. She has an idea where to take her key and she heads out. Hades calls after her, ‘You will come back here, won’t you?’
Hades clutches his chest, giddy and in love. He looks at the rack of keys and notices that one of them is missing. He smiles at an audience member and shakes his head.
Loop 2 / Track 11 - The Wheel Comes Full Circle
He walks over to the office door and locks it. Turning around, he addresses the handful of audience members that have stayed behind, ‘The book of your life is printed only once, but ours is rewritten. Once a year. If you‘re new to the city. I see it every year. It can be overwhelming. The detail. The sheer quantity of detail. For an enquiring mind like hers. Who pays the same methodical attention. It can overwhelm you. Leading to cataclysm. A cataclysm of interpretation. A total breakdown. The end of everything. But you choose to come here. I can’t choose not to.’
He turns his attention to the record player on the side cabinet. He hands the ‘Fall of Troy’ record sleeve to an audience member, ‘This is an old favourite of mine. I play it over and over again. It’s an old, old story. But it tears your heart out every time.’ The needle is reaching the end of the record and Hades says, ‘Well, what do you think. Shall we. Shall we have it again?’ The audience members nod eagerly. ‘Fine. One more time.’
He lifts the needle and drops it back at the start of the record. The reset music plays throughout the building and the final loop begins. ‘Eternity,’ he says pointedly, ‘is in love with the productions of time.’
Loop 3 / Start of Loop
He looks out of the window and watches the citizens of Troy reset. He’s maudlin and sentimental, ‘Dream of everything you love.’ He looks at his followers, ‘I’m in love with you all.’ He puts his hand on a woman’s shoulder, ‘You feel so deeply, and I love you for it, truly I do.’ He unlocks the door and heads out.
He walks over to Ciacco and sees Eurydice behind the counter. He smiles and orders a cup of tea and Eurydice raises two fingers. Hades shakes his head, ‘Just one, thank you.’
She gives him a cup and he stirs it gently as he walks outside. The circular motion of the teaspoon pleases him and he whispers to himself, ‘Everything is circles. Circles and cycles. Round and round’.
He holds the cup delicately and takes a sip, licking his lips, ‘Yummy’. Luba walks past on her way to give Hecuba her royal coat. Hades sits at a table outside the cafe and watches as Hecuba and her children gather for Polyxena’s birthday party.
Loop 3 / Track 1 – A Birthday Party
He talks amiably to the people around him. He discusses the quality of light in the city and looks for his opera glasses, but realises that he’s left them in his office. He beckons over an audience member and whispers in her ear, ‘‘Could you fetch my opera glasses. They’re in the pocket of my coat that’s hanging on the wall in there. I’ll be here.’ The woman heads off and he continues to chat away.
He knows that the Greeks are preparing to invade, but watching the guests enjoy themselves, he remarks, ‘You'd never know it.’ The woman returns with his glasses and Hades puts them in his pocket, ‘Bless you’.
‘I must show my face’, he announces and gets up to join the party. He congratulates Polyxena and walks amongst the guests, imperious and haughty in his three-piece suit. He dances briefly, smiling and nodding and trying his best to be convivial.
He returns to his table briefly to finish his tea. As the party ends, he sees Hecuba experience some sort of nightmare vision, like she did in the previous loop. Thunder and lightning fill the sky and Luba has a fit on the Palladium balcony. Hades sips his tea and looks on with detached amusement.
He returns his cup to Eurydice and thanks her, ‘If you ever need anything, you know where I am.’
Loop 3 / Track 2
He goes back to his office and stands by the checkerboard, smiling to himself, ‘It’s so much better with her here, isn’t it? What a difference a night makes, eh?’
He proceeds to make a heartfelt speech to his followers, ‘When I’m alone, without her, I see things differently. Everything seems different. Wrong somehow. Unreal. Like a stage set. Fake. So, I observe. The shifting patterns of light. I scrutinise the shadows that come and go. For me, nothing flows. Nothing flows. I run about the city at breakneck speed, but I don’t seem to get anywhere. I’m rooted to the spot. Like a red queen.’
‘My eyes are like the sun. Whatever they see gets scorched, dried up, hollowed out, broken down. I’m like a troglodyte watching shadows on the wall of a cave. I’m a prisoner in a cell. Blacked out windows. Solitary confinement.’
With his talk of caves and shadows, Hades could be referencing Plato’s ‘Allegory of the Cave’ which considers the difference between perception and reality.
Walking around his office, he continues, ‘I used to be a picture in a storybook. Then I came here to the city, where I became a camera. Capturing for posterity the pantomime that plays out around me. A world without end. Where the only future is a repetition of the past. A reflection. A new presentation. Do you understand? Not the real thing. Do you understand? Good. It’s good that you understand. Anyway.’
He walks back to the checkerboard. ‘This is real,’ he says as he grips hold of a chair. He grabs a lamp, ‘And this is real. All manner of things which are real. I can feel everything becoming a frozen river once again.’ He stares blankly for a moment and then heads out.
He marches through the corridors and returns to Mycenae and the border area. He approaches the metal ladder from outside the mesh fencing and Agamemnon appears on the other side. He stares at Hades grimly and climbs a couple of rungs. He’s carrying a box with a balloon tied to it and looks slightly ridiculous
Hades leans into the ladder and holds the king firmly by his face. Agamemnon grunts and pulls away, carrying on up the ladder. Hades twists his head and looks upwards, peering through his opera glasses as Agamemnon reaches the top.
Hades enters no-man’s-land. He watches as Agamemnon descends the ladder and exchanges words with Neoptolemus. The Greek soldiers leave and Agamemnon is alone in the barren wasteland.
Loop 3 / Track 3 – A Wedding Celebration
The king is preparing for the sacrifice of his daughter and he falls against the girders, struggling with his conscience and racked with guilt. Hades walks around him and considers his plight, as he stumbles around aimlessly.
Lively jazz music drifts over from the royal palace and Agamemnon throws himself about in anguish, in time with the music. Hades continues to circle him, skipping around the steel girders and dancing a merry jig. He performs a few playful shimmies and flapper moves, just as he did in the previous loop.
Upstairs, the engagement party comes to an end. Again, Hades claps his hands in time with a loud bang and an explosion of confetti pours down on Iphigenia. On the ground floor, Agamemnon is kneeling down, a broken man.
Hades steps back into the shadows. On the other side of no-man’s-land, Iphigenia makes a dramatic entrance in her red cloak. The Greek soldiers lurk in the darkness near the border. Upstairs, Clytemnestra is watching proudly from the balcony.
Agamemnon looks away as Iphigenia walks past him towards the steel girders. Hades approaches and argues with the king. They grab each other by the lapels, and Agamemnon pushes Hades against the girders near the grand staircase.
‘Don’t do it’, says Hades, but Agamemnon has no choice. He must do the right thing for his army and his country. Hades relents and Agamemnon walks towards his daughter. Hades climbs to the top of the girder and lies back to watch the action through his opera glasses.
Sam Booth
Eric Jackson Bradley
Loop 3 / Track 4 – The Sacrifice of Iphigenia
Iphigenia climbs the other set of girders. She’s met by Neoptolemus who kisses her mournfully. He climbs down from the beam with help from Patroclus and Iphigenia is left alone, punctured and confused. Her father approaches and the music rises dramatically. A progression of chords reaches a terrible climax and he brings down his fist.
There’s a sense of horror and dismay around no-man’s-land, but Hades remains impassive. He climbs down from the girder and Agamemnon staggers back in a state of inconsolable grief. Hades wanders past and looks at him wearily.
He approaches the girders where Iphigenia lies motionless. Her arms and legs hang limply over the sides of the beam and her chest is covered in blood. Hades brushes her fingertips as he passes underneath.
A storm rages and Hades is blown towards the border. He spins theatrically, twisted and buffeted by the wind. He heads back to Troy where another vicious sacrifice will take place. He walks through the Palladium doors and sees the Watchman drawing a large chalk circle around the town square.
Loop 3 / Track 5 - The Breach
Hades returns to his office and finds Persephone waiting. She’s calmer than before and there seems to have been a shift in her understanding. Hades locks the door and Persephone closes the curtains. This time, she knows what’s coming and she has a steely glint in her eye.
Hades takes a seat next to the checkerboard. Persephone joins him and he holds out his closed fists. She taps his left hand and he reveals a black disc, which prompts them to swap seats.
They play peacefully for a while, but the game is given a strange tension by the low, humming drones coming from the square outside. They start to move the pieces more quickly and suddenly Persephone drops a key onto the table. Time freezes for a moment as they both take in the significance of what’s happened.
At first, Hades is amused, but after a moment, Persephone starts to scream. Her mouth is wide open, but no sound comes out, just a silent outpouring of rage and grief.
Hades is deafened and he holds his head, twisting in discomfort. She screams for an age before gasping for breath. The two of them become crazed and writhe around, choking and clawing at themselves.
Loop 3 / Track 6 - The Sacrifice of Polyxena
Persephone moves to the window and pulls open the curtains. She drags Hades to look outside, where Polyxena is swinging from a rope and covered in blood. She wants him to face the reality of his world. Like Judith, she wants all the doors to be open, for light to be let in, for the truth to be confronted. He can no longer keep her in the dark.
Hades is crestfallen and crumbles to the floor, curling up in a ball with his head in his hands. Persephone sits next to him. The power balance has shifted and it’s her turn to offer support and lift him up.
He’s frozen like a statue, paralysed by the horror. She pulls him across the office and he struggles to move his limbs. They perform a couple of steps of tango, awkwardly, with Hades struggling to stand. She pushes him onto the large ornate desk, so that he’s lying on his back like a beached turtle.
She climbs on top of him and reaches for a pomegranate which is sitting in a bowl. She pushes it in his face, force-feeding him, and pips and juice dribble over his chin. He's helpless, but he can’t get enough and laps it up. He gets to his feet and regains his composure. The fruit seems to have reinvigorated him.
Persephone is no longer his subordinate. Having swapped seats to play checkers, the power dynamic has also shifted. Persephone has found herself and become ‘Dread Persephone’, the Queen of the Underworld and the third queen in the show.
Hades seems to accept this new development. He loves her with all his heart and just wants her back. He takes a key from the rack on the wall and says, ‘I’m going to show you everything’.
Loop 3 / Track 7
They leave the office arm-in-arm and walk across the square. Hades picks up a lantern from a market stall and hands it to Persephone.
They walk through the Palladium doors and Hades gives her another key, before pointing her towards the ‘Stage Door’. She unlocks the door and turns around to pick out four of her followers to join her. Beckoning them through, she leads them up the ‘Bartok’ stairs.
Hades returns to the square. He turns and sees Persephone on the balcony holding the lantern. Her four followers are standing in the museum room behind her, one in each window. She has an intense conversation with Hades that can only be heard by the people in the museum room. Hades stretches out his arms and spins around as if basking in the glory of his queen.
Loop 3 / Track 8 – Seduction
Nearby in Ciacco, the soldier Patroclus is recovering from the ordeal of the invasion. A spotlight falls on the Palladium doors, and Iphigenia enters the square, wearing a dramatic red dress. She walks towards Hades and he places his hand on her shoulder, before giving her a vial. He leads her to the cafe and winks as she homes in on her target.
She smiles at Patroclus sitting at his table and gets a bottle from behind the counter. Pouring him a drink, she begins her seduction. Hades sits at a table outside and watches through the window as the scene unfolds.
Iphigenia dances around her prey and he’s smitten. She climbs onto the window cill and he spins her round in his arms. They twist elegantly between the tables, stroking and clawing. As they dance, Iphigenia poisons him with the vial. He falls into a trance, giddy and docile, and she drags him out of Ciacco and down a dark alleyway behind the cafe.
Loop 3 / Track 9
Hades returns to his office. He comments to an audience member, ‘If you think of the city as a machine, and emotion is its product, then the machine has been busy indeed.’
Suddenly, Eurydice appears at Hades’ window. She’s frightened and vulnerable and she knocks on the glass. Hades lets her in and sits her in one of the low chairs. He dabs her tears with a cloth and tries to comfort her. She calms down and he leaves her alone in the office.
​
​He walks to the tenement courtyard and sees Polydorus lying on his back, halfway up the stair, with his head and torso hanging over the side. Hades walks under the stair and slides on his back so that he’s lying on the floor and looking up at Polydorus. Hades takes hold of his upside-down face and kisses him firmly on the forehead. He releases him with a theatrical flourish and Polydorus pulls away.
Hades continues through the graffiti corridor with his arm raised high, upwards and onwards. He returns to the White Cyprus and sits at the end of the bar to have another chat with Zagreus. He talks solemnly and Zagreus listens politely as usual.
‘Well, in the end, where are we? In the dark. We're all in complete darkness. Well, at least I am. I can't make head nor tail of it. Can you? All these events? But then, it's just words isn't it? Words, words, words. They don't quite make up for the specificity of it all. The unique specificity of this. And this. And this.’
Hades points at different items, ‘It's heartbreaking.’ He looks outside the window and sees Neoptolomus rushing past, which seems to excite him. He whips the curtain closed and repeats, ‘Heartbreaking’.
He says that he envies Zagreus’s ephemerality, ‘You don’t know how blessed you are. Not everyone was blessed that way. I wasn’t blessed that way.’
He quotes William Blake’s ‘Auguries of Innocence’ in melodramatic fashion, ‘From every night and every morn, some to misery are born. Every morn and every night, some are born to sweet delight. Some are born to sweet delight, some are born to endless night.’
He says that Zagreus's life is only an hour long and that he’s doomed to repeat it endlessly, but he should see it as a good thing, ‘Now, your brief hour upon the stage is over in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye. But that's your glory. That's your divinity. Don't waste it. Seize the night.’ Knocking back his drink, he exits through the bead curtain, raising his fist, ‘Seize the night!’
He carries on chatting to whoever is in earshot as he heads back to the town square, ‘There must be some order to all this. It has to be planned?’ He talks and moves quickly and there’s a nervous tension building throughout the town. The music rises and there’s an unsettling sense that something significant is happening.
Hades walks through the middle of the square. Laocoön is crouched down on the floor, drawing a strange symbol with his chalk. The symbol includes a series of concentric circles in a labyrinth-like pattern.
Hades has a cursory glance and continues to Ciacco where he sees Eurydice again. Approaching the counter, he whispers, ‘The cracks, the cracks.’ She seems to understand and they both knock back a shot before performing a short ritual. Hades cups his hands together and Eurydice pours liquid from a bottle into his open palms. He walks outside and Eurydice follows.
He takes the liquid to the middle of the square and pours it over the chalk circles that Laocoön has created. The three of them perform a couple of dance steps around the circle, before pausing for a moment of quiet reverence. Hades holds up his hands as if he’s beckoning someone or something.
The ritual of pouring liquid on the ground, also called a ‘libation’, was a common ritual in ancient Greece, often used to invoke the spirits and request their assistance.
Loop 3 / Track 10 – Come, Spirits of Vengeance
Hecuba arrives, dishevelled in a black coat and black boots. She staggers around the centre of the circle as Hades walks backwards past Ciacco, with his arms outstretched. The thumping bass of ‘Confusion’ by New Order plays through the speakers and the citizens of Troy emerge from the shadows and gather in the square for the final reckoning.
Hades continues to walk backwards down the side street next to Ciacco. He approaches the back of his office and opens a locked door, ushering in a small group of audience members.
The room is small and barely furnished, with a tall, green filing cabinet in the centre. The cabinet drawers are labelled with suitably disturbing titles – ‘Grief’, ‘Trauma’ and ‘Pain’. There are two long shelves at high level, on opposite sides of the room, filled with rows of black vinyl records, stacked vertically and sleeveless.
Hades stretches up and runs his fingers along the edges of the records, before unlocking another door which leads to his office. He walks in and finds Persephone lying on the floor.
She’s lifted one of the floorboards near his desk and is looking through the hole. Nestling on a sandy floor below are dozens of small vials lined up in neat rows. Hades sees that she’s found his ‘Lake of Tears’ and exclaims, ‘The history of humanity in teardrops!’ Outside in the square, the Furies have answered Hecuba’s call and are surrounding Polymestor.
Hades lies on the floor next to Persephone. They both look at the vials which are lit up by an eerie, green glow. He looks deep into her eyes and says, ‘Thank you for coming back to me.’ She whispers, ‘I always do. Always.’
Persephone is wearing a necklace with a vial on it, given to her by Iphigenia. She hangs it on a hook on the floorboard, before lowering the board back into place. They stand up and dust themselves off. Hades holds her gently and they share a passionate kiss.
They turn to look at the painting on the wall, ‘The Fall of the Damned’, still holding each other in a tender embrace. They both scream out in mock fear, before laughing hysterically. Hades picks up a cloth which he dips into a bowl of water and hands to Persephone. He asks her if she’s ready and they head out.
Hecuba is standing alone in the square, vulnerable in a thin, black slip. Polymestor is blinded and Hecuba has her revenge, but she’s weary and broken. Hades lifts her coat from the floor and helps her into it. He heads off, through the Palladium doors, leaving Persephone to comfort Hecuba and wipe the blood from her hands.
Mycenae Finale
​
Hades walks briskly through the corridors to Mycenae and makes his way upstairs to the royal palace. He climbs onto the long table and steps over several piles of clothes as he heads towards the shower area. Iphigenia is walking in the other direction in her red dress and they cross paths. She continues to her bedroom where she changes into a grey slip. Hades stops at the other end of the table and waits patiently and impassively for his wife.
Persephone is in no-man’s-land, snaking through the audience towards the grand staircase. The other performers have stripped down to their underwear and are descending the stairs in a chaotic scrum of human flesh. Persephone climbs up and moves through the throng of writhing bodies. She looks exquisite in her burgandy dress, in stark contrast to the featureless souls that surround her. At the top of the stairs, she passes Clytemnestra who’s wearing a black and gold shimmering gown.
She enters the royal palace and steps onto the long table to reunite with Hades. The two of them walk back along the table at a ceremonial, stately pace, befitting the King and Queen of the Underworld. They head for the balcony near the metal ladder and Persephone locates a pomegranate from a pile of boxes. They pick at the seeds as they watch the bodies rolling in circles below, satisfied that a new shipment of shades will be joining them in the underworld.
As the finale reaches its climax, a cloud of ash descends on Clytemnestra.
The music ends and a dim light returns. A jazz song plays as if coming from a radio, ‘One More Kiss, Dear’ by Vangelis. It sounds like a 1920s original, but was written for the film ‘Blade Runner’.
Hades and Persephone eat the last of their pomegranate seeds and head off. They walk arm-in-arm through the corridors to Troy. Stopping at the Elysium hotel, they chose an audience member to join them in the lobby.
Persephone takes the woman’s mask. Hades is exasperated that there’s no’one at reception to help them get a room.
Hades: ‘There’s nobody here!’
Persephone: ‘This is awkward.’
Hades: ‘Well, what are we supposed to do?’ He turns to the woman and apologizes.
Persephone: ‘There’s a phone.’
Hades sits on a small sofa and Persephone gestures for the woman to join him. She nudges her to move a little, so that she can squeeze in. The woman sits awkwardly between the King and Queen of the Underworld, and Persephone gives her an affectionate smile.
Hades gets through to someone and Persephone looks at the woman excitedly. She offers her half a pomegranate and the woman takes it.
Hades: ‘Yes, hello. We’re downstairs at the Elysium. And there’s nobody on the desk. Yes, for tonight. The Aphrodite Suite. For?’ He looks at Persephone, ‘For two?’ Persephone nods.
Hades: ‘Yes, for two’. Persephone whispers to the woman, ‘Sorry.’
Hades: ‘What’s that? Er, one moment.’ He covers the receiver, ‘They want a name. Obviously, I can’t give them our names.’
Persephone turns to the woman, ‘You must have a name.’ The woman says her name and Hades shakes his head, ‘No, no. It needs to be a family name. Just any ordinary kind of name. Oh yes, that will do wonderfully. Thank you.’
He returns to the phone, ‘Mr and Mrs Miller. Thank you. Goodbye.’
Hades hangs up and smiles at the woman, ‘We want to thank you so much for being here on this special night, our reunion night. It wouldn’t have been the same without you.’ The woman offers to return the pomegranate, but Persephone encourages her to keep it and ushers her towards the exit.
Hades: ‘Thank you so much again. We won’t forget it.’
Persephone: ‘Well, I might!’
They both laugh and wave her goodbye.
Persephone
Lily Jo Ockwell, Anna Finkel, Fania Grigoriou, Mallory Gracenin, Stephanie Nightingale, WenHsin Lee, Yilin Kong.
​
Persephone is the daughter of Demeter and Queen of the Underworld. Before becoming queen, she resided above ground and was goddess of spring and vegetation. According to the myth, she was picking flowers one day when Hades was so captivated by her beauty that he took her by force and kidnapped her. Demeter, goddess of the harvest and fertility, searched high and low for her daughter, neglecting the Earth and causing a terrible drought.
Zeus, pressed by the cries of the people, demanded that Hades return Persephone. Before Persephone was released, Hades tricked her into eating pomegranate seeds. It was a rule of the Fates that whoever consumed food or drink in the underworld, was doomed to remain there. As a compromise, it was agreed that Persephone would spend six months of the year with Hades and six months above ground with her mother.
Homer often refers to Persephone as ‘dread Persephone’ and describes her as a powerful and feared goddess. Some scholars say that Persephone, as we know her, didn’t exist until she became Queen of the Underworld. She only became ‘Persephone’, meaning ‘bringer of destruction’, after her abduction.
At the start of The Burnt City, Persephone has amnesia. Later, she discovers that her name is ‘Judith Kore’.
‘Kore’, meaning maiden, is what Persephone was called as a young girl in the world above, before she was seized by Hades.
‘Judith’ is a character in the opera ‘Bluebeard’s Castle’ by Béla Bartók. The opera is referenced several times in her story and her relationship with Hades is partly based on the relationship between Judith and Bluebeard.
Some of Persephone’s story is also reminiscent of the character ‘Rachael’ from the film ‘Blade Runner’. Rachael is a replicant who initially believes that she’s human, because she’s been implanted with memories belonging to a young girl. She tries to uncover the truth by piecing together clues from the world around her.
There are similar themes in the film ‘Dark City’, where the central character, John Murdoch, suffers from amnesia and is trying to escape a nightmare existence and return to a town from his youth called ‘Shell Beach’.
Like Hades, Persephone doesn’t perform the same loop three times. She appears at the start of Loop 2 and performs a single two-hour loop.
For most of her story, she wears a burgundy pant dress or culotte trouser jumpsuit and a banded, mustard fur-lined coat.
​
Loop 1 / Track 10
Hades is in the main square in Troy, wandering around. He’s lonely and forlorn and waiting for his beloved Persephone to return to the underworld. ‘It’s a Lonesome Old Town’ plays on the radio and Hades sings along, as he dances and twirls around the square.
He takes a handful of Narcissi from the flower stall and places individual flowers in a trail, from one side of the square to his office. He returns to his office and sits in silence.
Loop 1 / Track 11 – The Wheel Comes Full Circle
A spotlight shines on a corner of the square near the clothes shop, Alighieri’s. It lights up a wooden box full of water, a well to one of the rivers of the underworld. In a moment of surreal drama, Persephone emerges from the well, fully clothed and soaked through.
She clambers over the side and stands under the spotlight completely dumbfounded. She’s barefoot and wearing black shorts and a black T-shirt with a yellow emoji face on the front, and ‘Don’t be a square’ printed on the back. Her cheerful clothes are a nod to her persona on Earth. In the world above, she isn’t Persephone, but ‘Kore’, the fun-loving, flower-picking daughter of Demeter.
Possibly the well leads to the river Lethe, the river of ‘unmindfulness’. In Greek mythology, all those who drank from the river would forget everything. Persephone looks at the ground and sees a flower, which she picks up. On the wall near the well, there are posters referencing ‘Bluebeard's Castle’ by Bartok.
In the original myth, Persephone gathers flowers in the Nysian meadow with her maidens and is tempted away from the group by the blooming of a glorious, fragrant flower, a Narcissus.
Persephone wanders around the square and collects a few more flowers. She’s lost and not sure what to do, but the flowers lead her to a doorway.
Loop 2 / Track 1
She knocks on the door and Hades appears. He’s holding a bunch of flowers just like hers. They stand in the doorway for a moment and stare at each other. Hades is delighted to see her, but she has no idea who he is.
He leads her into his office and gives her a blanket. Austere piano music plays in the background, ‘Ogive No. 2’ by Erik Satie. The room is dark and close and smells of sandalwood.
Persephone is still dripping wet as Hades holds her shoulders tenderly and says, ‘Welcome home’. She walks around the office trying to make sense of everything. Moving to the back of the room, she sees a large painting on the wall showing a horrific depiction of hell. She notices a rack of keys on the wall and Hades remarks, ‘The keys to the city'.
He sits her in a low chair and hands her a photograph of the two of them, hoping that it might jog her memory. Her eyes widen in alarm, ‘I'm sorry. I don't remember.’ Hades tries to reassure her, ‘It's the waters’.
Next he hands her a wooden frame containing a model of a labyrinth. She puts it down, overwhelmed by all these strange objects and he backs off, not wanting to upset her, ‘Don’t worry, we have all the time in the world.’ He reassures her that everything’s going to be perfect and he leaves her alone in the office.
She has another look at the labyrinth and the flowers and shakes her head. She’s desperate and she falls to the floor, writhing around in a state of anxiety. The water is still dripping off her and she leaves swirls of damp as she flails about. She curls up in a ball and her face is a picture of pain.
Loop 2 / Track 2
She gets up and calms herself. She needs to find out who and where she is, and she heads outside to begin her quest.
Hecuba is in the square, looking at the flower stall, but Persephone pays her no attention. She needs some dry clothes and she walks to Alighieri’s. The shop is empty and she dries her hair with a towel and disappears into a small storeroom near the counter.
​
She takes off her wet clothes and finds a burgundy trouser jumpsuit, which she puts on. She exits the storeroom and straightens herself in a mirror. Seeing an elegant fur coat on a mannequin, she pulls it off and finishes her outfit with a pair of shoes.
She feels something in the pocket of her new coat and pulls out a small torch. Switching it on, she’s pleased to see that it works. Happy with her new look, she heads out to discover more.
Loop 2 / Track 3
She makes her way to the flower shop, Hesperides. Looking around, she sniffs a bouquet, but the flowers are plastic and she coughs. It seems that the shop is full of fake flowers and nothing is real. She stands behind the counter and looks at the various items on the desk.
The owner of the shop, Askalaphos, walks in and Persephone realises that she shouldn’t be there. She assumes he’s just a customer and she pretends to be working. Askalaphos smiles and plays along.
He sympathises with her and appears to understand her predicament. He says that he’d like to buy a bouquet of flowers and she suggests a couple of options. He wants a very particular bouquet and he directs her to one hanging from the ceiling. She pulls it down and takes it back to the counter.
Askalaphos asks for a certain flower to be added and so she unties the paper wrapping. As she does so, she spots a crumpled piece of paper tucked amongst the flowers. Something tells her that it’s worth keeping and she surreptitiously puts it in her pocket. She adds the extra flower and wraps the bouquet, handing it to Askalaphos.
As he takes it, she says apologetically, ‘They’re fake.’ Askalophos smiles and picks up a card from the counter, pointing out the company slogan, ‘Finest Fake Flowers.’ Persephone smiles back, ‘Of course.’ He goes on his way and she waits until he’s gone before heading out.
Loop 2 / Track 4
She follows her nose around the backstreets of Troy and enters the Elysium yard. There’s an illustration on the wall of the Palladium and she shines her torch on it, focusing the beam on a tiny silhouette of a woman. She reads the wording on the poster and says quietly to herself, ‘I’m in Troy’.
She approaches a pile of crates in the middle of the square and opens up the paper that she found in the bouquet of flowers. She discovers that the paper is a travel permit and she reads the name, ‘Judith Kore’. Wrapped inside is a small wooden horse, which doesn’t seem to mean anything to her.
A similar horse has a particular significance in the film ‘Blade Runner 2049’. The character ‘K’, played by Ryan Gosling, is consumed by his memory of the toy and comes to believe that its existence proves that he has human memories and is therefore not a replicant.
Persephone looks up and suddenly hears music in the distance. She follows it down a short corridor and finds herself in Peep, the audience bar. A glamorous dancer, Kampe, is on stage, wearing a black PVC cat-suit and bright red gloves, performing to ‘Liquid Smoke’ by Infected Mushroom. Persephone has a look around and decides to sit at a table.
Kampe finishes her number, and she’s joined by a couple of lively hosts called Dyo and Cici. They’re also dressed in outrageous cyber-punk outfits and they camp it up for the audience. Dyo fools around and throws a plastic martini glass in the air and it clatters to the floor.
She introduces the next act, 'We have a visitor. A surprise guest has descended upon us’, and to Persephone’s surprise, Hades climbs on stage. He performs a curious rendition of the Leonard Cohen song, ‘If I Didn’t Have Your Love’. There’s an eerie blue spotlight on him and he delivers the song in a tortured, exaggerated voice.
‘If the stars were all unpinned and a cold and bitter wind swallowed up the world without a trace. Ah, well that's where I would be, what my life would seem to me, if I couldn't lift the veil and see your face. And if no leaves were on the tree and no water in the sea, and the break of day had nothing to reveal. That's how broken I would be, what my life would seem to me, if I didn't have your love to make it real.’
​
Hades’ performance is peculiar and unsettling, like Dean Stockwell singing in ‘Blue Velvet’. As he sings, the hosts walk amongst the audience, between the tables and chairs, holding spotlights and shining them on Hades. When he sings, ‘See your face’, Dyo points her light at Persephone. She’s startled to suddenly be the centre of attention, but she smiles awkwardly and plays along.
Hades climbs off to a smattering of applause and the hosts return to the stage. They continue to banter with the audience and Persephone is more confused than ever.
Hades takes her hand and they exit the bar and walk back towards the main square. There’s a strange atmosphere in the town and a loud, repetitive drone wails in the distance. A disorderly crowd is forming and a young soldier is drawing a circle in chalk around the centre of the square.
Persephone is frightened and Hades ushers her along. Zagreus runs past in a panic and bumps into her. Hades calls out, ‘Watch where you’re going’, before pulling her into the safety of his office. She runs to the back of the room and Hades locks the door and closes the curtains.
Loop 2 / Track 5 - The Breach
He reassures her that she’s okay and places a pair of cordless headphones over her ears. She sits at the desk and a recording plays over the speakers. A gentle female voice offers some calming, meditative instructions, ‘Take a deep breath. And count down. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1’. As she listens to the voice, Persephone slides to the floor. Hades locates a plastic pomegranate from a bowl and places it in her hand, as she gently rolls under the desk in a trance-like state.
The voice continues, ‘Close your eyes and picture yourself in a meadow, on a beautiful May morning. The air is filled with the scents of wild flowers. All around you things are growing, blossoming, bursting with life. Feel the grass between your toes, the sunlight on your skin. Now, open your eyes. And know that the sunlight is with you still. Even in the middle of the darkest night, it shines forth from within you. Awakening life around you. As the world turns, season follows season, everything unfolds exactly as it should. You have all the time in the world. And all you need is here.’
By the time Persephone has slid under the desk and appeared on the other side, the pomegranate in her hand has changed. She realises that she’s unwittingly transformed it and she holds it up for Hades to see. ‘Did I do that?’ she asks and they both hold it, pulling it in half. ‘Is it real?’ she says and Hades nods, ‘It is. It is real.’ They laugh giddily, surprised and delighted.
Loop 2 / Track 6
Hades approaches a cabinet at the side of the room. He unlocks the cabinet doors and without warning, Persephone crouches down and squeezes herself inside. Several audience members follow her on their hands and knees and Hades locks the doors behind them.
About eight audience members follow her through the back of the cabinet, into a secret space next door. They stand up and find themselves in a small, pitch-black room with not much in it, except for one corner, where Persephone is high up on a raised platform, sitting at a desk.
There’s a low lamp and a pinboard covered in photographs and hand-written notes. Persephone is holding a pair of headphones and she speaks into a microphone to make a recording.
She starts by saying, ‘Meditation tape 109’ and it’s clear that she’s done this many times. ‘Rewind, rewind, rewind, and go.’ She pauses, ‘Close your eyes and take a deep breath, in and out. In and out, and in and out, and in and out. Don’t panic. Every time you panic you lose yourself.’
She stops the tape and mutters to herself, ‘Don’t say ‘Don’t panic’. It only makes you panic more and if you panic it will cause a ripple effect. Rewind, rewind, rewind, and go.’ She starts again. ‘Take a deep breath in, and exhale for 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.’
She stops for a moment and locates a hand mirror on her desk, raising it to look at her reflection. She tilts it slightly and catches the eye of an audience member.
‘The mind is a maze, isn’t it. The mind is a dark, mysterious maze of winding streets, that are only seldomly illuminated by knowledge, experience and ultimately memories. Memory lights our way through this dark maze.’
‘And every time that I come back, it’s as though the power’s gone out, as if I’m drowning in a pool of darkness. As if I’m dead.’
‘But every once in a while, there’s a glimmer of light. Maybe it’s an object or a song or a feeling. Or a face. Your face. Your face. That feeling is what guides me the most. I hate that it has to be this way. But show me the light and I will come back to you. Like a moth to the flame, I will come back.’
‘I hope these tapes can be a beacon for you when I’m gone, like you are for me when I return. Like season follows season, I will come back. I always do. Always.’
Persephone wants her future self to unravel who she is, and what she is, in a methodical and measured fashion. It seems that if too much is revealed too soon it will cause her to panic which would result in terrible chaos. And so she leaves a trail of breadcrumbs, with the help of Askalaphos and Laocoön, to help guide herself towards the truth.
Persephone exits the room and walks through the square. She makes her way to Mycenae, pointing her torch along the way.
Loop 2 / Track 7
She stops briefly at the border control booth in Mycenae to look at the permit and wooden horse that she collected in Hesperides. She rifles through some of the papers in the cabin and notices a permit similar to her own.
She shines her torch on a ‘Mycenae’ sign outside the booth and her eyes widen in surprise or possibly recognition. She enters no-man’s-land and sees Apollo standing under a spotlight, magnificent and frightening in his muscular breast-plate. Zagreus runs past in a panic and after a moment, Apollo follows him.
Persephone looks around this new world and is just as bemused as ever. Eventually she heads in the same direction as Apollo, not knowing what else to do.
She enters a large room filled with wooden crates and Apollo is on top of one of the crates, leaning down and tormenting Zagreus beneath him. He plays with Zagreus a while longer and then disappears. Zagreus is badly shaken and looks anxiously at the people around him. He pulls an audience member into one of the crates and locks the door. Persephone is alone in the strange space and explores the various containers.
She opens a door to one of them and sees a large white horse lying on the ground. She walks in and sits down near the horse’s head. Audience members surround the box and watch her through the gaps between the wooden slats.
Persephone seems to sympathise with the animal and she strokes it’s face. Something encourages her to delve further and she pushes her fingers into its mouth, pulling out a coin. She looks at it, wondering how it got there and what compelled her to look for it. She plays with the coin and considers her next move, when suddenly someone knocks on the crate.
It's the Watchman and he wants to know what she’s doing in there. She quickly exits and he challenges her, demanding to see her ID. Persephone gives him her papers and his eyes widen as he reads her name. His attitude softens and he seems slightly worried. Persephone gestures and assures him, ‘That’s my name’. He lets her go and she heads back to Troy.
On her way back, she stops at the border control booth in Troy and once again looks at her papers and wooden horse. She notices a tray of objects including a horse similar to her own. She compares the two, before continuing to Troy.
Loop 2 / Track 8
She walks past the crates in the Elysium yard and crosses paths with a vagabond, Laocoön. He bumps into her and she accidentally drops her coin. Laocoön stoops to pick it up, but when she reaches for it, he pulls away and smiles. They perform a playful cat-and-mouse routine as she tries to retrieve it.
He offers her two closed fists and prompts her to choose. She picks the wrong hand, but when he opens his other hand, he’s holding a key instead of the coin. She laughs, but the atmosphere is slightly sinister. She hesitantly takes the key and Laocoön nods. He looks towards the Elysium hotel and quietly makes the sound of a phone, ‘Bring, bring.’
Taking his cue, Persephone walks a couple of steps to the reception of the hotel. She sits at a low table and plays with the key, pondering it’s significance.
There’s an old-fashioned phone on the table and she picks it up and makes a call. She has a strange conversation with someone about a party, telling a surreal story that is seemingly apropos of nothing.
‘It was a great party. There were chandeliers. I felt out of place, so I had a drink. A martini, I think. As I was drinking, a beautiful woman called me over.’ Possibly, she’s trying to make sense of her most recent memories.
‘I approached and she asked to read my palm. And she drew her finger across my heart-line and said something about how I was a difficult girl to pin down.‘
‘And then she went to the head-line. And she said something about forgetfulness. And then she went to the life-line and, well it was kind of weird. She traced her finger along the line and stopped. She said, ‘The funny thing is, according to this, you should already be...’
The person on the other end hangs up before Persephone can finish her sentence, ‘Hello, hello, are you there?’ Persephone puts down the phone and heads out.
Some of the dialogue in Persephone’s story seems to come from the film ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ in which the lead character, Jacob Singer, goes to a party and has his palm read by a psychic, ‘Let's see, this is your heart line. And your head line. And your life line. You have a very strange line, hon. No, it's not funny. See, according to this, you're already dead.’
Loop 2 / Track 9
Persephone walks through the town square, past the ghost of Polyxena who’s swinging in circles from a tether. In the distance, Iphigenia and Patroclus are holding hands and running down the side of Ciacco.
She enters Hades’ office and finds it empty, so she has a look around. She rummages through the desk drawers looking for clues and notices the letterhead on a sheet of paper. ‘HH’ she says in recognition and she reads the address, ‘9th Circle of the Underworld’.
She pulls out her travel permit and says slowly, ‘My name is Judith Kore’. She has a lot of information, but none of it makes sense. Looking at the wall, she considers the rack of keys. She walks over and recites a list of clues, trying to find a pattern, ‘A horse. A flower. A bull. A king.’
Just then, Hades enters. He seems surprised and a little annoyed to catch her snooping around, but Persephone smiles and his heart melts. She distracts him by turning on the radio and the delicate trumpet blows of ‘Will Soon Be a Woman’ play through the speakers.
Persephone holds out her hands and pulls Hades into a tango. They dance together gently and it’s clear that he’s completely besotted.
They move outside and continue their tango in the town square, sweeping through the space as if it was their own private dancefloor. They perform a graceful duet, full of charm and fancy footwork and whipping legs.
Loop 2 / Track 10 – Come Spirits of Vengeance
They return to the office and share a passionate kiss against the wall, under the rack of keys. Hades is lost in the moment, but Persephone is thinking about her next move. She furtively opens her eyes and takes a key from the rack. Hades gives her a yellow flower and she gestures that she has to go. She smiles sweetly and turns away as Hades calls out, ‘You will come back to me, won’t you?’
There’s some sort of commotion in the town and a strange energy is pulling people towards the hotel. Persephone walks upstairs and enters Polymestor’s office, where she’s surprised to find a large group of audience members staring through a window. She cranes her neck to see what the fuss is about and is horrified to see a group of women attacking a man lying on the ground. He’s pinned down by the women and one of them tears out his eyes, as Persephone recoils in shock.
She pulls away from the violence and retreats to the side of the room. In the shadows, she sees a large, bronze statue of the bull-headed deity 'Moloch'. The bust contains seven small chambers, some of which hold little objects, like a shell, a ring and a knight chess piece. There’s a larger compartment at the bottom, which is locked with a padlock.
Persephone takes out the key from Hades office and tries it in the padlock. It opens and she discovers a small sapling in a glass bell jar. She studies it for a moment, before putting it in her pocket.
Loop 2 / Track 11 – Wheel Comes Full Circle
Suddenly, Polymestor crashes through the door and collapses to the floor. He’s covered in blood and he reaches out towards Persephone, ‘Help me please, they took my eyes!’
She’s frightened, but she acts quickly, ‘I can help you.’ She calms him down and leads him to the Moloch statue. On either side are two large, golden bowls. The bowls are full of water and she wets a cloth to wash Polymestor. She gently presses it against his eyes and he cries out in pain. She lifts his head and to the amazement of both of them, his sight is restored. Persephone backs away nervously, surprised by her own power, and the reset music plays in the background.
She replaces the bowl next to the statue and leaves Polymestor in his office. She’s pleased to have done something positive and made a difference. She’s no longer a passive observer and is slowly making sense of the world around her.
Lily Jo Ockwell
Mallory Gracenin
Loop 3 / Track 1
She walks to a strange room nearby containing a large greenhouse. She walks around the outside of it and Askalaphos enters the room from the other side. They meet at the entrance and he says cheerily, ‘Hello again’. She recognises him from the flower shop and they both enter the greenhouse, as audience members watch through the glass on all four sides.
Askalaphos is using the greenhouse to try and grow real plants. Inside is a shrine to Demeter, goddess of the harvest and Persephone’s mother.
Persephone pulls the small glass dome from her pocket and shows Askalaphos. His eyes widen in recognition and he stoops down to unlock a small safe under his worktop. He pulls out a plant similar to hers, but much bigger. Persephone kneels down to study it and slowly lifts the glass dome to reveal the plant in all its glory. The plant is real and she’s transfixed.
As the goddess of nature, this is her perfect gift, and it also brings to mind a theme in the book ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep’, where a huge value is placed on real plants.
Persephone brushes the leaves against her cheek and moans with happiness. She pulls her head back and stretches out in celebration. She sees a tray of soil on a shelf and pushes her hand through the dirt, rubbing some of it on her arms. The lights flicker and a surge of energy runs through her body and the glass structure around her. Her arms shake and she grips the side of the greenhouse, rattling the windows. Askalaphos backs out and she slides to the floor. He watches through the glass with the audience as she flails about in ecstasy.
She recovers herself and he’s a little unnerved, as he hands her back her fur coat. He replaces the domed plant in the safe and gives her a small packet containing some sort of seed. ‘New life for Troy,’ he says softly.
Loop 3 / Track 2
They part ways and Persephone walks downstairs. She continues on her journey, through the tenement courtyard and past a sinister man in dungarees.
She walks down a scruffy backstreet where she bumps into Laocoön again, the vagabond who gave her a key. He seems to have some power over her and they perform a few steps of tango. She’s bewitched by him and he presses her up against a wall so that one of her arms is outstretched in an exaggerated pose.
He holds a strange tool with a large lump of white chalk and he uses it to carefully draw around her. She steps away and there’s an outline of her body against the wall, like police evidence from a crime scene.
Amongst Laocoön’s shabby possessions is an old radio and it plays in the background. A modern-day talk show is on and the DJ is asking for people to call in with a good ‘party story’. A young woman phones in and says, ‘I went to a good party’.
‘Where was it?’ asks the DJ. ‘I don’t remember.’ ‘Ha, sounds like a good party!’ ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ ‘Sure you do!’ says the excitable DJ, encouraging the caller to continue. ‘It was a great party. There were chandeliers. I felt out of place, so I had a drink. A martini, I think. As I was drinking, a beautiful woman called me over.’
Persephone is suddenly aware of the radio and recognises the story that’s being told. She walks over to it and sits in a rusty old chair. Laocoön sits with her and pours her a cup of tea from an old tea pot. Persephone seems to know the voice on the radio and she listens intently.
The caller continues, ‘She was beautiful, covered in sequins, and she stretched her hand out. So, I approached and she asked to read my palm.’ At the same time, Laocoön holds Persephone’s hand and looks at her palm. ‘And she drew her finger across my heart line and said something about how I was a difficult girl to pin down.‘
Laocoön shines a torch at Persephone as she listens to the story. It lights her up with a strange, purple glow and he moves the beam from her hands to her face.
As the caller recounts the last few lines of her tale, Persephone knows what she’s about to say and mouths the words along with her. She’s still covered in an eerie, purple glow and her teeth and eyes shine bright white.
‘And then she went to the head-line. And she said something about how I was, I can’t remember, how I was forgetful or something. And then she went to the life-line and, well it was kind of weird. She traced her finger along the line and stopped. She said, ‘The funny thing is, according to this you should already be...’ The caller’s voice cuts off and is replaced by radio static.
Laocoön raises his finger and backs away, as they look at each other in wonder. Persephone stands up and Laocoön wraps her jacket around her shoulders.
Loop 3 / Track 3
She wanders down the alleyway in a daze. It feels like she’s in a dream and she’s struggling to know what’s real. She falls into the White Cyprus and finds Zagreus behind the bar. He pours her a shot of sake and she tells him to leave the bottle. Sitting on a stool, she starts to ramble in a confused state.
She gestures to the audience members, wondering if she’s imagining them, ‘Can you see them? There’s so many of them. They’re everywhere. They’re all around us.’ Zagreus clocks that she might be a little nuts, ‘Yeah, well it’s a bar, so.’ She continues, ‘They’re all lost. Look at them. Wandering around in the darkness. I guess we’re all lost. You need the darkness though, right?’
Zagreus does his best to look interested as she starts to rant, ‘Without the darkness we wouldn’t have light, would we? You need both, right? Like night and morning. Or winter and spring. Death and rebirth. Everything’s cycles and circles. Right?’
She looks at Zagreus and thinks she recognises him, ‘Hey, I know you! I remember your face. Do you remember me?’ He shakes his head, ‘Sorry lady, I’ve never seen you before.’ In Greek mythology, Zagreus is often identified as the son of Persephone, which gives the exchange another surreal twist.
She pours herself a few more shots and knocks them back. Zagreus takes the bottle, ‘Okay lady, that’s enough.’ She leaves the bar, drunk and incoherent.
She wanders into the yard outside and stands next to the pile of crates. The sound of music spills out from the nearby bar. Persephone stares at the audience members around her, wondering if she’s going mad.
She approaches a woman and says, ‘You can see them, right? You can see him. And him. And her?’ The audience member nods and Persephone laughs. She’s losing it and she starts to spin. She points her torch at the large black and white illustration of a labyrinth. She asks the audience, ‘Do you see that?’
She turns and points at another image of a labyrinth, a chalk drawing scrawled on a wall, ‘What about that one?’. She starts waving her torch wildly and falls to the floor in a panic. Leaning against the wall, she cries out helplessly. She holds out her hands and an audience member helps her up.
‘This happens every night. Over and over again. The morning never comes. Is it just me?’ She moves towards the entrance to Peep. The music gets louder as she approaches the bar, ‘This happened last time.’
Loop 3 / Track 4
Persephone stands at the back of the room. The music is blasting and Kampe is finishing a raucous routine to 'You Should See Me in a Crown'. The two hosts, Dyo and Cici, are still running the show and they cheer, ‘Give it up for Kampe!’ Dyo is holding a martini glass which she throws into the air, just as she did in the previous loop. Persephone is near the stage and she reaches out to catch it.
Dyo looks down, ‘We have a visitor. A present. A gift. A friend. A surprise guest has descended upon us. This is Peep, above and below. Persephone!’ They pull her on stage, ‘Up you get, Pep’.
The room is familiar and Persephone looks around in wonder. She’s not sure why she’s there, but she seems to know what to do next, ‘Hi. Sorry if I don’t get this quite right’. She launches into a bumpy rendition of ‘If I Didn’t Have Your Love’. She half screams the words and when she tries to sing, she’s badly out of tune.
‘If the sea were sand alone. And the flowers made of stone. And no one that you hurt could ever heal.’
She’s sarcastic and playful and every now and then she interrupts the song to rail against the audience and her situation, ‘Don’t you understand? The people we hurt can never heal. That’s what this is.’
It’s a brilliant, bizarre performance and as she finishes, the heads of the two hosts pop up behind her, through the trap door on the stage. There’s a moment of pantomime as she says, ‘They’re behind me, aren’t they?’ She smiles and stumbles away, ‘I’ll see you later, thank you so much, bye!’ There’s a scatter of applause as she heads for the exit.
Loop 3 / Track 5 - The Breach
She walks to the town square. The Watchman is drawing a chalk circle in preparation for the Greek invasion. Persephone hears the sirens, but this time she isn’t frightened. She talks about hearing a sound ‘like an engine’. Zagreus comes tearing around the corner and this time she knows to avoid him. She grabs him by the shoulders and says, ‘Hey! Got you!’ He doesn’t understand and continues running.
She walks into Hades’ office and finds Hades with a handful of audience members. They greet each other amicably and Persephone calmly closes the curtains.
She locks the door and faces Hades, who sits down next to the checkerboard. He can see that she’s composed and confident. He gestures for her to join him and he holds out his fists for her to choose one. Persephone guesses right and they swap seats.
Possibly this marks a shift in power. Persephone is growing in strength and is no longer dependant on Hades for reassurance. They sit down and play checkers. They play slowly at first and gradually speed up, as the sirens wail in the square outside.
Suddenly, Persephone drops a key onto the board and they both stop still. At first, Hades finds this amusing and gives a wry smile. They both sit back and gently rub the arms of their chairs, pondering the significance of this latest development.
Loop 3 / Track 6 - The Sacrifice of Polyxena
But then, Persephone starts to scream. Her mouth widens in an horrific grimace, but no sound comes out. She screams for an eternity and Hades is thrown to the floor, covering his ears. They both appear to be in terrible pain.
The keys that Persephone has discovered over the course of the evening are a reference to Bluebeard's Castle. In the original story, the relationship between Bluebeard and Judith changes when he opens the fifth door. At this point, Judith and Bluebeard undergo a role reversal of sorts. Possibly, the key that Persephone drops on the checkerboard is the fifth key. Like Judith, Persephone has come to understand the nature of her unreal existence and she knows that she’s trapped. Is she telling Hades that the game is up?
She runs to the window and pulls open the curtain, revealing Polyxena’s naked body hanging in the square. Hades approaches the window and faces the brutal reality of his world. He falls to the floor, crestfallen, curling up in a ball.
Persephone helps him up, but he struggles to walk and she moves his legs one at a time. She hauls him across the room, as he falls about in slow motion, contorting his body in agony. She pushes him against the desk so that he’s lying on his back, paralysed and helpless. She climbs on top of him and picks up a pomegranate. She twists it against his mouth and juice runs down his face.
Hades kicks the desk with the back of his heels. Persephone squeezes the last pip out of the pomegranate and sits back. They hold each other’s faces tenderly and Hades nods gently, ‘Yes.’ Persephone pulls him up and they embrace.
In the original myth, Persephone is the one who eats the pomegranate and becomes a slave to Hades. It seems that here their roles have been swapped and Persephone has the upper hand.
Hades is reinvigorated. He walks towards the rack of keys hanging on the wall. Persephone says, ‘I want to see it all’, and Hades selects a key, ‘I’m going to show you everything’. He leads her out of the office and they walk through the town square.
Loop 3 / Track 7
As they walk past one of the market stalls, Hades picks up a lantern and hands it to Persephone. He holds open the Palladium doors and gives her the key, as he waves her towards the ‘Stage Door’.
She uses the key to open the door and she turns around. Looking closely at the people following her, she carefully chooses four of them to join her for the next leg of the journey. She ushers them through and locks the door.
They climb the stairs, past the posters for works by Béla Bartók. They enter the final room of the museum tour, with the cabinet containing a record needle.
Persephone takes her followers one-by-one and stands them in a row, each of them facing a window over-looking the square. Hades is below, looking up. Persephone picks up her lantern and crawls through a low opening onto the balcony. She hangs the lantern on a hook and looks over at her partner.
They have an intense conversation and share some home truths. The conversation is pre-recorded and comes through the speakers in the room, but can’t be heard in the square outside. A lot of the dialogue is taken from ‘Bluebeard’s Castle’.
Persephone is in control and Hades is defensive. His arms are outstretched in a conciliatory gesture. From the square, it looks like he’s celebrating his queen, but to the four audience members upstairs, it looks like a plea.
Hades: ‘Is our city not fair and vast? It shines for you. All for you, dear Judith.’
Persephone: ‘Fair and vast is your city.’
Hades: ‘Yours, Judith. Yours forever. Here, multitudes reside. They’ll be your companions, forevermore.
Persephone: ‘Fair and vast is your city.’
Loop 3 / Track 8 - Seduction
Beneath the balcony, Iphigenia walks through the Palladium doors and enters the square in a striking red dress. She stands next to Hades and he hands her a necklace with a vial attached to it. He tells Persephone that he's kept his promises and tried to do the right thing. He puts his hand on Iphigenia’s shoulder.
Hades: ‘Here is a handmaiden, loyal to us both. Here a vial, to catch tears of sorrow, tears of joy. Dropped from the eyes of time’s fleeting shadows.’
The four followers continue to look out over Troy. Persephone blames Hades for the violence that the city has suffered.
Persephone: ‘The streets of your city are marked with blood. Blood runs down the walls. Blood stains the paving stones. The clouds above throw bloody shadows. Who has bled for the sake of your city?’
Hades: ‘See, but ask me nothing. Look, but ask no questions.’
Persephone: ‘I only remember one thing. I came here because I love you. But I will not have a single door held shut against me.’
Hades: ‘Take care, Judith. You’re ahead of yourself. Why hurry? We have all the time in the world.’
Persephone: ‘Not a single door held shut against me. I demand it.’
Hades: ‘I will show you everything. All in good time.’
Persephone: ‘All in good time.’
In Bluebeard’s Castle, Judith wants Bluebeard to unlock the doors of his castle so that she can know him better. When she first enters, the castle is joyless and gloomy with blood dripping from the walls. She wants to let the light in and bring life and love back into her husband’s dwelling.
He asks her why she is so intent on opening the doors and her answer is always, ‘because I love you.’ As the fifth door is opened, Judith and Bluebeard share a similar exchange –
Judith: ‘Who has bled to feed your garden?’
Bluebeard: ‘Judith, love me, ask no questions. Now behold my spacious kingdom. Gaze ye down the dwindling vistas. Is it not a noble country?’
Judith (stares fixedly out, distracted): ‘Fair and spacious is your country.’
Judith: ‘Yonder cloud throws blood-red shadows. What are these grim clouds portending?’
Persephone turns to face her followers behind the glass.
‘In a world, where time seems to stand still. I was lost when I arrived. Just like you. Lost in the labyrinth of the streets.’
‘But hedged by blue moon in the garden, our garden, filled with lifeless flowers, a fallen horse gave me solace and made me rich. Rich with wonders. Rich in rain and body.’
‘I am the sunlight. So many of you, wandering in darkness, in a world filled with cruelty, torture and war. I heard your city sighing. I heard your kingdom crying.’
Suddenly, the recording skips and gets stuck on the words, ‘City sighing. I heard your kingdom crying.’
Persephone looks through the window at the record needle in the display case. She picks up her lantern and comes back inside.
In the square below, Hades takes a seat outside Ciacco and watches as Iphigenia dances with Patroclus around the cafe.
Persephone continues to speak her mind to her four followers. She walks around the display cabinet as she talks about circles and cycles and spinning. She looks at her followers with an intense gaze. She wants to continue her journey and take them with her.
Above a door is an illuminated sign that reads ‘EXHIBITION CONTINUES’ and she opens it and ushers them through, ‘Come on! Come on!’ A steady beat of modern techno music plays in the background.
She continues to ramble, lighting up another display cabinet with her lantern, before marching through the next door. The audience members run after her through the rooms, following the illuminated signs, pausing briefly as Persephone stares at the exhibits, before rushing through the next door.
They run down a staircase and through a lobby filled with racks of coats, the overspill for the cloakroom. They enter the museum rooms in the Mycenae building and a dramatic soundtrack of timpani starts to play through the speakers, intensifying as their journey progresses.
It’s exhilarating and thrilling and after the final museum room, Persephone stops at another door. This one is locked and she uses a key to open it.
The journey isn’t over and they continue running. There’s another short corridor and another door, illuminated with the same sign, ‘EXHIBITION CONTINUES’. There’s a white Narcissus flower on the ground next to the door and she picks it up.
They enter a black corridor and this one has a sandy floor. Persephone stops still in a corner and sits on the ground. She looks back at her followers, ‘It’s all coming back to me. I can recall everything’. She drops the flower and makes a circle in the sand with her fingers, over and over. She’s weepy and fretful.
There’s a pile of chalk on the ground, with about a dozen pieces sticking out of the sand. She picks one up and continues through the corridor. The walls are black and Persephone drags the chalk along the wall as she walks. She recites lines from the song, ‘If I Didn’t Have Your Love’, and pauses to draw symbols with the chalk.
‘If the sun would lose its light’, and she draws the sun.
‘And we lived in an endless night’, and she draws the moon.
‘If no leaves were on the tree’, she draws a tree.
’And no water in the sea’, she draws a wavy line.
She stops and looks at the wall. She writes ‘I REMEMBER’ in large capitals. She reads the words out loud, ‘I remember.’ She walks on, shining a torch on the walls and revealing the same message scrawled nearby, and then again. The words ‘I REMEMBER’ start appearing more frequently until they fill every inch of the walls on both sides.
The walls are completely covered in chalk writing and mad scrawls. ‘I REMEMBER’ is repeated hundreds of times in different sizes and in wild, erratic patterns. The words spin around in concentric circles and up and down the walls in waves and loops. The walls look like a cell in a mental asylum.
The corridor turns right and Persephone stops. She’s crying and she approaches each of her followers and strokes their faces. She welcomes them home and tells them that she loves them, ‘I love all of my people. I love you all.’
Her final pronouncements are similar to phrases found on the Orphic gold tablets, and some of her words are from the ‘Petelia’ tablet.
‘My name is Judith Kore. I am Persephone, Queen of the Underworld, maid of Earth and starry sky. Our people are heavenly. I grant you all safe passage into the land of the shades. You’re home. You’re all home.’
She bursts through a door and the five of them find themselves deep inside Mycenae, in one of the Greek tents. The room is Agamemnon’s headquarters and there’s a large model of a labyrinth on the table. Persephone leads her followers through the tents, past a room full of hammocks, and out into the middle of no-man’s-land.
Loop 3 / Track 9 – The Sacrifice of Patroclus
She stops at the edge of a large circle of light. The brightness and the vast space is jarring, after the wild, intimate journey that brought her here.
Iphigenia is standing in the middle of the circle, next to the lifeless body of Patroclus. He’s alive, but fatally wounded. Iphigenia looks up at Persephone and seems to have been expecting her. She passes her a vial and Persephone puts it around her neck. The vial contains tears collected from Patroclus. Persephone is calm now and she slowly walks away.
She walks towards the border area and stops at a statue of three women, or possibly a single woman with three bodies, surrounded by sandbags. It may be a shrine to Hecate who is sometimes depicted with three aspects.
The Watchman is sitting on the sandbags and holding a box with a balloon tied to it. He looks completely worn out.
Persephone holds his hand and gives him the small packet of seeds that Askalaphos gave her in the greenhouse room. The Watchman is delighted by this gift. Presumably, he can use the contents in his secret distillery. Persephone leaves him and continues down the corridors towards Troy.
She understands now who she is and where she belongs. She must spend half the year in the underworld and half the year above ground, bringing about the changing seasons and all plant life on Earth. She returns to the underworld because of her love for Hades, but it is her mission also to restore balance.
When she helped Polymestor regain his sight, she was surprised and frightened by her power. She felt the same surprise when she brought life to the pomegranate. Now she appreciates her own agency and can use it with intent. She understands her place in the world.
As she approaches the Palladium doors, she passes a Greek soldier, Neoptolemus. Another mortal soon to be a shade. He’s been driven mad by the invasion and his part in it. He’s bloody and bruised and she puts her hand on his shoulder.
She continues through the square and heads for Hades’ office. Sitting at the desk, she ponders her next move. She looks up at the rack of keys and says to herself, ‘There’s still one more door to open.’ She takes a key from the rack and has a look around the office for something to unlock.
Loop 3 / Track 10 – Come Spirits of Vengeance
The thumping sound of ‘Confusion’ by New Order is playing outside and performers are gathering in the square for the Troy finale. Persephone stands behind the desk. The headphones that she wore earlier are lying in front of her, and she wonders if they might lead to her next clue.
She sits down and puts them on, hoping for some guidance. The soft voice returns and tells her that she’s meant to be there and everything is alright, ‘You are sunlight and life is blossoming all around you.’ Her tone becomes more determined and she tells Persephone, ‘Get up. Stand up. Go higher. Higher still.’
Persephone climbs onto the desk, holding the headphones tight against her ears. The voice continues, ‘Take a deep breath. And look around. This is where you need to be. Where you belong. There is power within you, feel it awakening deep inside you. Growing, flowing and blossoming in spectacular profusion. You are the sunlight. This world is beautiful. This city is yours. From the highest heights, down to the darkest depths. Yours. All yours.’
‘When you are ready to go deeper. Deeper. Deeper. Deeper.’
Persephone looks down and she sees a keyhole in one of the floorboards below. She jumps from the desk and crouches on the floor, turning her key and lifting the floorboard. A few feet below, there are dozens of vials lying in neat rows on a sandy floor, lit up by an eerie green glow.
Like Bluebeard’s ‘lake of tears’, the vials contain a silent, motionless lake of pain and suffering, a lake that Hades wants to hide from her. Persephone has uncovered the final mystery and reached the point of no return.
Behind her, she hears an exclamation, ‘The history of humanity in teardrops.’ Hades has entered the office through a back door. He approaches Persephone and lies down next to her. He leans across the hole and pushes his head through her arm so that she’s cradling it. He reassures her that everything is alright and encourages her to drink from a particular vial with a red string attached to it. She seems to accept her destiny and knocks it back.
After a moment, she smiles and closes her eyes. A weight has been lifted and she has finally found peace. Hades whispers, ‘Thank you for coming back to me.’ ‘I always do’, she says, ‘Always’.
Hades finally has his queen and they share a long, passionate kiss, still lying on the floor. She takes the necklace with the vial from around her neck and hangs it onto a hook on the lid of the floorboard. She closes the hole and the two of them get up and dust themselves off. They embrace again and turn towards the painting on the wall, ‘The Fall of the Damned’. They cry out in mock terror, before bursting into laughter.
In the original myth, Persephone grows to love her time below as much as her time above. For six months, she was no prisoner in Hades, but the contented Queen of the Underworld, a loving consort who held imperious sway over the dominion of death with her husband. For the other six months, she reverted to the laughing Kore of fertility, flowers, fruit and frolic.
Loop 3 / Track 11
Hades locates a cloth and puts it in his pocket. They head outside and find Hecuba alone in the middle of the square. The Furies have answered her call and helped her exact a terrible revenge on Polymestor. Her hands are covered in blood and she staggers aimlessly, empty and lost.
Hades picks up her golden coat from the floor and gently lifts it onto her shoulders. He hands Persephone the cloth and heads off through the Palladium doors. Persephone stays behind to comfort Hecuba and gently wipe the blood from her hands. She leaves her alone in the square and makes her way through the corridors to Mycenae.
She enters no-man’s-land and finds it full of audience members looking up at the grand staircase. A pulsating mass of naked bodies is tumbling down the stairs in slow motion, twisting and writhing in agony. These are the lost souls in Hades’ painting, silently and mournfully dragged to the underworld.
She walks past the steel girders and sees Neoptolemus at the top, reaching upwards. She climbs the stairs, walking through the middle of the scrum, her crimson jumpsuit standing out against the grey featureless ‘shades’. At the top of the stairs, she passes Clytemnestra coming the other way.
Persephone enters the royal palace and sees Hades on the long table. She climbs up and they reunite. They’re formal with each other, but relaxed and happy that everything is in its right place. They walk down the table like a bride and groom, and make their way to the balcony near the metal ladder.
Behind the ladder are several large boxes and crates. Persephone finds a pomegranate on top of a box and she joins Hades on the balcony. They pick at the fruit as they look towards the grand staircase on the other side of the vast space.
Clytemnestra stands in the middle of no-man’s-land, as the shades run in circles around her. She spins in confusion and they collapse at her feet, as a cloud of black ash falls from the sky. She looks up at the balcony and sees Hades and Persephone, illuminated by a spotlight. They chew on their seeds and smile, happy to receive the latest consignment of featureless souls.
‘One More Kiss, Dear’ plays and Hades and Persephone walk arm-in-arm through the corridors towards the exit.
The lyrics include a nod to Persephone’s story,
‘Just as every autumn, leaves fall from the tree,
Tumble to the ground and die.
So in the springtime, like sweet memories,
They will return, as will I.’
Floor Plans
The Burnt City Creative Team
Directed by Felix Barrett & Maxine Doyle.
Choreographed by Maxine Doyle.
Designed by Felix Barrett, Livi Vaughan & Beatrice Minns.
Sound Design by Stephen Dobbie.
Lighting Design by F9, Ben Donoghue & Felix Barrett.
Costume Design by David Israel Reynoso.
Audience Experience Curator - Colin Nightingale.
End