After a long time with our lips sealed, we’re really pleased to let you in on something we’ve got in development. We’re bringing you an entirely new show that takes a look at queer identities, community building, and the politics of storytelling – all via the Greek mythological story of Orestes and Pylades. We’re very excited (if that’s the right word) to be returning to Orestes’ slightly complicated family after Electra-Orestes (2011) and The Women Screaming Beyond (2012), our first shows as a company. We’re also thrilled to say that the project’s development is being supported by an Arts Council National Lottery Project Grant and an Institute of Classical Studies Public Engagement Grant.
We’re collaborating on this project with some exciting people. Our major collaborator is Professor Nancy Sorkin Rabinowitz (Hamilton College, NY), a feminist scholar of ancient Greek literature. Nancy is particularly interested in ancient sexuality and has been carrying out academic research on Orestes as a queer figure. She is also a champion of the use of classics in social justice activism, and has undertaken teaching classics in prisons in the US, inspired by Rhodessa Jones’ Medea Project for incarcerated women. We’re also working on the research and development process with playwright and classicist Sue Blundell, who has published on Greek art and the lives of ancient Greek women, and who has written plays such as Tell Me the Truth About Love celebrating the relationship between composer Benjamin Britten and his partner Peter Pears (FitzFest; Clapham Omnibus Theatre) and The Happiness Index using ancient philosophy to explore happiness and modern politics (New End Theatre). Finally, we’re so happy to be working once again with musician Vivienne Youel, with whom we collaborated previously on Before They Told You What You Are (2014) and Here She Comes (2017), who has recently been working with Emma Rice’s new company Wise Children and is a member of the band YOUEL.
What can we say about the project so far? It’s still early stages, but we’ve begun to play about with ideas in the rehearsal room. We’ve started from the premise that Orestes and Pylades, two characters in the cycle of myths of the house of Atreus, have been interpreted as queer at various points in history, but this theme rarely emerges explicitly in any of their appearances in Greek tragedy or in modern productions of those plays. Orestes is the son of Agamemnon, destined to avenge his father’s death at the hands of his wife Clytemnestra, and to be pursued in turn by the Furies, seeking justice for the killing of his mother. Throughout his myth, Orestes is accompanied by Pylades, with whom he was raised after being sent from Argos for his own safety after the death of Agamemnon. The two men are clearly close: they travel together, plot vengeance against Clytemnestra, and Pylades cares dotingly for Orestes in his Fury-induced sickness. Yet they don’t often appear alongside figures such as Achilles and Patroclus in the canon of same-sex relationships in Greek mythology. A number of questions have started emerging for us: What does it mean to seek queer characters in Greek mythology, or in the canon more broadly? How does a historical presence legitimise a community? How does the telling and retelling of stories solidify or change a narrative? How are the women in Orestes story affected or overlooked? What would it mean to retell Orestes’ story in a new way – not simply another version of the Oresteia?
Members of By Jove at the project’s first research and development session.
These and other questions we hope to explore in this forthcoming work. You can also expect to see the kind of thing you’ve come to expect from us: lyrical text, innovative movement and performance spaces, and a taste for the irreverent! Research and development is well underway and it’s such an exciting process. As our ideas take shape, we’ll be posting more details here on the blog. Then, in spring 2019, you’ll have a chance to see a work-in-progress performance – with a full production further down the line. We hope you’re as excited as we are for this new project, and we can’t wait to bring it to you! Watch this space – and if you haven’t already signed up to our mailing list for regular updates, you can do so here!
