MEDEA
ELECTRA
ANTIGONE
DIONYSUS
PENTHEUS
SCENE 1
In front of the temple/brothel/taverna. PENTHEUS and DIONYSUS enter. The background tango music gets louder. The BACCHANTES watch them dancing.
BACCHANTES: A negligible border separates our paths in life from hell.
ELECTRA: As long as the earth hangs kilter in the skies and the heavens bear the known rotation of the zodiac . . .
ANTIGONE: As long as the sun lights the day and the stars light up the night, the flame of hatred will grow.
MEDEA: The impetuous river, the tempestuous sea, the fire stoked by the storm—none of them can contain my unleashed rage!
ELECTRA: I overturn everything!
ANTIGONE: I confront the gods!
MEDEA: I shake the universe!
BACCHANTES: And the whole world collapses and disappears with us.
DIONYSUS: Medea! Antigone! Electra! My Bacchantes with bloodied lips, ravished by rabid serpents. You pitiless, shameless goddesses, capable of any crime. You who have planned the most barbarian killings, prepare yourselves to flagellate him with your anger. If you wish to sound the depths of your hatred, measure it as you do your love. Come and bring him death!
MEDEA: There is a time to be born and a time to die.
ELECTRA: Time to kill and time to heal.
ANTIGONE: Time to destroy and time to rebuild.
MEDEA: Time for tears and time for laughter.
ELECTRA: Time for loving and time for hating.
ANTIGONE: Time for war and time for peace.
DIONYSUS (to PENTHEUS): You cannot turn back the Bacchantes once they’ve embarked upon their mission of rage. You have to love them as they are: hammer and tongs, hatred manifest.
MEDEA: I can feel the scent of blood and death.
ELECTRA: The scent of sacrifice on the holy altars.
ANTIGONE: The odour emanating from the graves.
MEDEA: On this night of love, we will tie his hands behind his back and make him kneel in front of us as if in front of an execution squad. Our breath touches his body like a kiss. He dances tango as if he hasn’t a fear in the world. Death will be our ceremony—infernally pleasing.
ANTIGONE: That tango will slice the asphalt: right leg in paradise, left leg in hell.
MEDEA (kisses PENTHEUS): I’ve left the sweet trace of blood on your lips.
ELECTRA (kisses PENTHEUS): I’ve left the sweet trace of blood on your lips.
ANTIGONE (kisses PENTHEUS): I’ve left the sweet trace of blood on your lips.
DIONYSUS: You are so beautiful, my Bacchantes, like the resolute armies most feared in times of war. (to PENTHEUS) Your mind lingers on sin. Their anger will pour over you and your tortured figure. Bear your pain with nobility, and you will appear wiser. Don’t imagine for a moment that you are strong. You lack true vigour. You shall have no support. (PENTHEUS is taken by the BACCHANTES, struggles to free himself.) Enjoy them. Allow them to do what they will with you. Stop struggling. Don’t go low. I advise you not to curse. If you utter mocking words, there will be no funeral, no gravestone for you. If you remain silent and accept your fate, you will have a proper burial.
(DIONYSUS signals to the BACCHANTES that they should free him. PENTHEUS steps away full of pride, exits stage with clear disdain. At DIONYSUS’ sign, MEDEA starts digging his grave. ANTIGONE and ELECTRA join her.)
SCENE 2
DIONYSUS: In the temple/brothel/taverna, a cluster of hearts get stuck in their Lycra tights. Their shoes become coffins, the red dress becomes brighter, their looks turn to cobwebs, their smiles to guillotines. Where they pass, heads tumble like beads, and wolves roam in their wild hair. Medea! Electra! Antigone! (Howls like a wolf.)
MEDEA: Let me take a bite of my favourite drug! (Kisses DIONYSUS passionately.)
ELECTRA: Nobody dances tango with my heart like you do! (Kisses DIONYSUS passionately.)
ANTIGONE: Smear my body with the ecstasy of your lips! (Kisses DIONYSUS passionately. They dance with DIONYSUS as if they are offering themselves as a sacrifice, howling, moaning and shouting.) I can feel you pulsating through me. Remember how much we hurt each other!
MEDEA: I paint my eyes black, black, black to hypnotize them . . .
ANTIGONE: I paint my cold lips mercilessly red . . .
ELECTRA: . . . the lips that will encircle his body . . .
MEDEA: . . . he will weep pitifully in our arms . . .
ANTIGONE: . . . we will pierce his flesh and tear out his heart . . .
ELECTRA: . . . treading upon love with love . . .
ANTIGONE: . . . dancing at his death . . .
ELECTRA: . . . on the stiletto heels where he’s been seeking his salvation . . .
MEDEA: . . . so that no one will believe in love any more.
DIONYSUS: Medea, there are nights when love equals hate.
MEDEA: There are nights when hate is stronger than death and more painful than hell.
DIONYSUS: You scream out tenderness and ferocity, Medea. You stir me up! Electra, what are you doing here at midnight with your throat so close to my lips?
ELECTRA: Your eyes are burning with a song from beyond, my love . . .
DIONYSUS (in their arms): Antigone, my soul is melting with desire. Medea, your touch is sweeter than wine. Electra, your scent is more ravishing than the most intricate myrrh. Antigone, your lips are milk and honey! (Orgy.)
SCENE 3
PENTHEUS enters and pulls DIONYSUS out of the arms of the BACCHANTES. They do a tango/fight together.
PENTHEUS: I’ve had enough of the rules of this world. I’ve had enough of these loves. (The BACCHANTES surround him angrily.)
MEDEA: What are you waiting for, almighty god? Why do you not strike him?
DIONYSUS: As long as freedom rests in the soul of man, the gods can do nothing against him. Only you can decide whether to leave him alive or strangle him.
MEDEA: I feel ready to commit the foul deed.
ELECTRA: My passion burns more fiercely than my mind.
ANTIGONE: Ready to rain havoc on this world.
DIONYSUS: Take him from here; push him mercilessly until he breathes his last. Fling him to his death if you so wish. Partake of his flesh!
MEDEA: We’ll consider it our sacred duty to be lawless. (The BACCHANTES throw themselves upon PENTHEUS, shrieking.) Begone! May the cruel gods of the underworld show you no mercy!
PENTHEUS (struggling, falling to his knees, clutching their feet): I throw myself at your knees, like those who pray to the gods bring their offerings of tree branches and flowers. The sun’s rays are so sweet—please don’t banish me to eternal darkness.
ANTIGONE: Your noble figure, with your sweet lips and arms, will be happy there.
ELECTRA: The earth awaits you! (Strikes a blow.)
PENTHEUS (screaming): All the blood falling to the ground will demand revenge.
MEDEA: Your cries are so, so painful! (Strikes more and more blows.)
ELECTRA/ANTIGONE: Harder, harder, if you can!
PENTHEUS (with his last remaining breaths, while MEDEA strikes the final blow): Farewell, light. I see you for the last time! (Dies.)
BACCHANTES (with bloody hands): We’ll celebrate your death!
(The BACCHANTES drink wine and dance over PENTHEUS’ corpse.)
BACCHANTES: Oh, merciful death, lowering the veil of darkness over him! (Laughter.)
DIONYSUS (drinks while watching the scene): L’enfer, c’est les autres! How cruel his end! (Pours a few drops of wine on the floor, then mimes a few tango steps.)
ELECTRA: His death provokes your pity—was it any less bitter than what we’ve had to endure?
DIONYSUS: Tango is the way in which life loves death, and you are the Bacchantes of this life force.
MEDEA: All-powerful god, are we not the fear that others feel when they see us?
DIONYSUS: And what do you think I am? I have this to live up to. (Points at his statue.) I’ve been dancing in front of people for years. A slow, sullen dance. They have to look at me: as long as their eyes are fixed on me, they don’t have time to look at themselves.
(The BACCHANTES dance to tempt DIONYSUS.)
BACCHANTES: And still we love you. We have killed for you! For you!
DIONYSUS: Intoxicate me with the poison of your beautiful bodies, so that hell no longer frightens me . . . Let it appear to be full of brothels and tavernas, full of wine, music, tango, life, death . . . You are mine now, my Bacchantes. We are now linked by blood. Your mistakes, your crises of conscience, your crimes, I take them all upon me. Fear not your dead; they are now my dead. Love, even if love hurts us like slaked lime in the paupers’ mass grave.
(MEDEA, ELECTRA and ANTIGONE wash PENTHEUS’ wounds and bury him. Then they dance with DIONYSUS, as if offering themselves to him as a sacrifice, moaning, howling and shouting.)
DIONYSUS: Try to live!
SCENE 4
Drunken orgy, mystical delirium, partying.
MEDEA (dancing): It is dangerous to live.
ANTIGONE (dancing): If you live . . .
ELECTRA (dancing): . . . you die!
DIONYSUS: Some die while still alive, while others live long after their death. Love as if you would live forever, but live as if you could die today!
MEDEA: Kill us so that we can live once more!
ELECTRA: Kill us so that we can live once more!
ANTIGONE: Kill us so that we can live once more!
DIONYSUS: You poison me with your smiles. Life is a slut. The greatest slut of them all . . . The one you fall in love with, who makes you fall for her, and then betrays you in the worst possible way.
MEDEA: At first she seems so generous. Makes you fall in love by offering you so many things . . .
ANTIGONE: After a while she will teach you what pain is . . .
ELECTRA: . . . but not too much at once . . .
MEDEA: . . . the thirst for life is greater than any pain, like a drug . . .
ANTIGONE: . . . she makes you feel the thrill of love . . .
ELECTRA: . . . she makes you love her even more . . . you see la vie en rose . . . you are floating . . .
MEDEA: . . . but, like any self-respecting slut, the agony comes after the ecstasy . . . she will make you taste the bitter venom of breaking up . . .
ANTIGONE: She’ll let you lick your wounds and then envelop you in her charms once more. She’ll show you pleasure, promise you love, give you crumbs . . .
ELECTRA: . . . when she feels like it . . . until you fall for her again . . . she offers you an impossible love . . .
ANTIGONE: She will make you fight, swing from ecstasy to agony, from happiness to tears.
MEDEA: There are times when life will make you feel you are in seventh heaven . . . but in exchange, it will demand a despair of equal measure. Most likely it will take away a person who is most dear to you.
ANTIGONE: It will leave you hollow after such a loss . . .
ELECTRA: But she will also guide you through the good and less good things that will happen to you.
MEDEA: And that is how it works: for every moment of joy, you will pay with one of sadness. She will make you hate her as much as you love her. She will allow you to taste certain pleasures simply so you can miss them all the more. And then at some point, there is the moment to say goodbye. You will cling to her with your fingernails. You will beg her to offer you just one more second, but she will offer nothing but the remembrance of things past. And then she will abandon you, like any slut.
ELECTRA: Where is love?
MEDEA: Once upon a time I thought that love could never die.
ANTIGONE: That all those beautiful words, the promises and dreams, could not be in vain.
ELECTRA: Until I felt the earth tremble beneath me, the blood grow cold in my veins.
MEDEA: I believe in destiny. I believe in love. After the pain went away, life still threw me a few nice moments, blended with temporary glitches and mild obsessions . . .
ANTIGONE: . . . which broke my heart. I discovered that, yes, you can yell so much more, collapse twice as fast and be trapped even more with your love tied to your neck.
ELECTRA: How many more times do I have to say “I’ve never felt like this before” until these words go to hell?
MEDEA: It’s tiresome to keep finding the love of your life at different moments in time.
DIONYSUS: It’s dangerous to love. Love is like a drug. At first you feel euphoric, you want to let go of everything, and then you want more. It’s not yet a vice but you like the sensation and you imagine you can keep it all under control. Then, in a short while, you get used to love and become totally dependent on it. If it’s not there, you are like the drug addict who can’t get his shot. Just like they are prepared to do anything to get their fix, you are prepared to do anything for love.
MEDEA: Anything for love! I want to love. To bite. To wound.
ELECTRA: To scream. To scratch, to injure. To hit over and over again.
ANTIGONE: To make it bleed, to make it hurt.
MEDEA: I want to break hearts with a smile.
ELECTRA: I want to cause harm—bodily, mentally, emotionally.
MEDEA: I want to love in cold blood, for nothing else to exist but tango.
BACCHANTES (all together, looking intently at DIONYSUS): I can feel you pulsating through me. Remember how much we hurt each other!
SCENE 5
The post-coital cigarette.
MEDEA: Yes, life is a slut . . . but maybe we are its whores.
ANTIGONE: She comes and begs at your feet like a bitch in heat, enticing you with sweet words and enchanting promises. She connects your synapses to the mysteries of the universe, making you feel you are part of them. Plunging into the void. Living the ultimate experience.
ELECTRA: Searching for love so desperately that we replace it with all sorts of unsuitable gods. We hurt each other violently and pretend it doesn’t hurt.
MEDEA: When in reality, we are so dependent on the smallest crumb of kindness that we open up to anyone who will make a killing off us.
ANTIGONE: So dependent on our desires that we don’t even try to heal ourselves, even when we know we are causing ourselves harm.
DIONYSUS: Who ever told you life is fair? Has anybody ever given you the impression you can have it all? (The BACCHANTES shake their heads.) Well then . . .
MEDEA: We like to suffer endlessly, a smile upon our face.
ELECTRA: We like to keep this orgy going . . .
ANTIGONE: We like to feel the warmth of your body close to ours. Going mad with joy is our only power.
MEDEA: Aphrodite, with her sly old ways, planted her curse within me: love. I did my best to appease her with gifts, with a temple, an altar to honour her, but it was all in vain. I surrounded myself with sacrifices, trying to regain my wandering mind in the hot blood. The incense was burning in vain on the altar. I was imploring the goddess for mercy. But the truth was I had only one god—and that was you, Dionysus. All the offerings I brought to her altar were in fact for you.
ELECTRA: I lose my mind when I feel your perfume coursing through my veins.
ANTIGONE: The nights and days with the taste of you on my lips . . .
MEDEA: Requiem for a dream.
ELECTRA: This is how it goes with any pleasurable moments. You taste them with jubilation, and then you find yourself alone. You can chase after them, but you will never regain them, no matter how much you cry your eyes out.
MEDEA: You are left alone with your own things. And yet nothing is the same. Every little thing will remind you, will hollow you out until you decide: fuck it all, you’ll have a drink.
ANTIGONE: You’ll drink all day, two, three, a week, a month. But you can’t keep it up all your life. Besides, your mind is still somewhere else, goes on thinking no matter what you do . . .
ELECTRA: . . . that maybe you could be happy again. For just a few moments. But you are too far gone to realize that you cannot be happy all the time. You are so selfish that you want to die with happiness hanging around your neck. For you alone!
MEDEA: For you alone!
ANTIGONE: For you alone!
DIONYSUS: It’s unwise to love without measure. My poor girls, your sufferings have ravished your minds.
MEDEA: I bite my heart and my mind is churning.
ELECTRA: If the gods recognize our crimes, we will suffer from their burden.
ANTIGONE: If we suffer from their burden, then we’ll have to admit we were wrong.
DIONYSUS: Unhappy women, the only way to alleviate your pain and wash your hands clean of blood is through your tears. (Tries to leave.)
MEDEA (stopping him): Oh, how I hate the gods who punish you for your good deeds!
(DIONYSUS tries to make a run for it.)
ELECTRA: Of all the gods, I hate you most!
ANTIGONE: We don’t crave to see your brains splattered on the asphalt, like Pentheus. O, no!
(DIONYSUS is now their prisoner.)
MEDEA: I want you to be demoted from god status long before you are ready to leave!
ELECTRA: I want you to suffer pain like any mortal and learn what real tears are.
ANTIGONE: I want you to wish to turn back time and be incapable of it.
ELECTRA: I’d like your immortality to drain out of you drop by drop.
ANTIGONE: You deserve to be torn apart.
MEDEA: I dance at the orgies celebrating you because they end up making you feel worse.
ELECTRA: I laugh at your unhappiness and rejoice that it’s so bitter!
MEDEA: I can already see the foam of the champagne they will pop open on the streets to celebrate your downfall!
ANTIGONE: You should know that we, the Bacchantes, celebrate when we take down a bad god!
ELECTRA: At one point we praised you to high heavens, don’t you remember?
MEDEA: Well, soon enough we will make you tumble!
ANTIGONE: I can hardly wait to kiss your dishevelled face.
DIONYSUS: The worst curse of all is to encounter your wounded fury. The kind of encounter that I’ll not leave alive.
THE BACCHANTES (kissing him voluptuously one last time): Enjoy this last moment of pleasure, if love can be pleasurable when you are on the brink of death.
(Light fades gradually as they kill DIONYSUS.)
SCENE 6
The BACCHANTES are weeping and beating their chests, mourning the passing of DIONYSUS.
MEDEA: Why should I feel guilty when all I wanted was to be loyal to him?
ELECTRA: Why feel remorse only to realize that we loved him even more?
ANTIGONE: We have to make mistakes to recognize how mistakes end.
MEDEA: No one but us will know better what love means, because no one lost it more cruelly than we did.
ELECTRA: You can only genuinely feel love when you suffer.
ANTIGONE: Nobody has wept more than us.
ELECTRA: We are exhausted. All that separates us from the gods is that we are mortal.
MEDEA: We are exhausted but now we know what the gods all know.
ELECTRA: We’ve discovered the most important thing.
ANTIGONE: That love, that light shining mercilessly upon us, reminding us ceaselessly of everything . . .
MEDEA: . . . that night . . . I haven’t been able to breathe since.
ELECTRA: My breath has stayed with you and you won’t return it to me.
ANTIGONE: What use is life to me now?
MEDEA: What torture awaits us in our deepest sorrow! The fear, the tumultuous thoughts, the torrid passion, the heavy remorse, the curse of these terrible crimes—they were nothing but harbingers of future pain.
ANTIGONE: Dionysus! You abandoned us, leaving behind your temple, your perfumed altar, the flame of the sacrifices we brought, and the smoke from the myrrh rising to the sky.
ELECTRA: The sacrifices have ended. So have the sweet chants, the celebrations that lasted all through the night. There will be no further offerings, no statues.
ANTIGONE: Beloved, do you still feel our passion and the flames that are burning us up?
ELECTRA: After all we’ve suffered, we’re allowed to moan with pain.
ANTIGONE: How much grief and suffering, so many tears pouring into our souls over and over.
MEDEA: Dionysus, we killed you with our tenderness. But death is a happier outcome for you than life is for us.
ANTIGONE: We who shared your ecstasy now suffer the most extreme debasement because of you.
ELECTRA: Unhappy women we are. It’s all over . . .
MEDEA: Oh, Dionysus, come back to us. Guide us to sleep in Hades.
ANTIGONE: Our desires are as enormous as our pain.
ELECTRA: I’m disgusted with the pain I’m crawling in. I’ve cursed my love and my hated life. Dionysus, let me die, exhausted by my tears.
(Tango music is heard—barely perceptible at first, but getting louder till the end of the play. The BACCHANTES light the myrrh and incense. They clink their last glasses of wine, in honour of DIONYSUS.)
MEDEA: Kiss me with your lips that are sweeter than wine.
ELECTRA: Your perfume is like scented balm.
ANTIGONE: Your name, Dionysus, is like myrrh overflowing.
ELECTRA: I love you with all my life and all my death.
MEDEA: Your kisses are sweeter than wine!
ANTIGONE: Just a bit more and you will consume me whole.
ELECTRA: Like a fervent prayer.
ANTIGONE: Dionysus, it’s a blessing to die and be reborn in love.
MEDEA: Just like the candles burning when virgins are wed, so we light these torches in your honour, Dionysus.
(They set fire to themselves and dance in ecstasy.)
