about the (re)making project

Please feel free to take the plays from this project and use them freely as a resource for your own work: that is to say, don't just make some cuts or rewrite a few passages or re-arrange them or put in a few texts that you like better, but pillage the plays as I have pillaged the structures and contents of the plays of Euripides and Brecht and stuff out of Soap Opera Digest and the evening news and the internet, and build your own, entirely new, piece--and then, please, put your own name to the work that results.
But, if you would like to perform the plays essentially or substantially as I have composed them, they are protected by copyright in the versions you read here, and you need to clear performance rights. For professional performance rights, contact Thomas Pearson of International Creative Management at tpearson@icmtalent.com or 212-556-5600. For amateur performance rights, contact Libby Edwards at charlesmeeplays@yahoo.com.
- Charles Mee

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The Bacchae 2.1

by C H A R L E S L . M E E


based on the play by Euripides






Dionysus,
a transvestite in a white pleated linen skirt,
combat boots,
an orange silk blouse or tunic,
a cut-off woman's nylon stocking on his head, knotted at the top,
a gold cigarette holder
five days' growth of beard
enters the stage at a dignified pace,
takes his place in the pool of light,
turns front,
holds for a moment.
Then he begins to whirl very slowly, like a dervish,
at center stage,
in silence.

After some time, we hear a lone flute play.

A woman enters and walks with simple strides to another slowly
appearing pool of light on stage, turns front, holds for a moment.

Then she begins to whirl slowly.

This woman, and the others who follow her in the next moments, are
all "3rd World" women.

Several might be from Africa. One from the Middle East. One from
South America. And there might also be one or two others, also
women of color, but from Japan or China or Indonesia, or elsewhere.

These women have many qualities, as we will see in the course of the
piece, but all of them must, first of all, be artists: dancers, singers,
operatic singers, players of musical instruments, Butoh performers,
animal trainers, herders of peacocks or herons, or possessed of other
extraordinary and highly developed arts that they perform with such
power and beauty as to break your heart with that alone.

These women are related--politically, historically, and spiritually--to
the agrarian, democratic, matriarchal Minoans, who were always
shown bare-breasted in Minoan art. Whether or not these women are
bare-breasted, they should have large, flowing skirts of spectacular
colors, wonderful hair, hundreds of bright ribbons in their hair,
astonishing necklaces or other pieces of jewelry.

So they are not just women, not just third world women, not just
people from the revolutionary periphery, not just artists, but
Dionysian artists.

It might be thought politically incorrect to bring women from other
countries into this piece, treating them as "other" and "exotic"--and
better to cast modern American urban women instead. I could be
wrong, but I think that is a cop-out. These women should be foreign;
they bring something profoundly different, alien into the world of
this piece--deep passions from origins unknown to the world of the
play. This was Euripides' intention, and mine. And it may be too easy
for audiences today to think they understand modern American
urban women even when they don't. In any case: these are foreign
women; we don't know them.

It would be best if the women were accompanied onto the stage by a
live orchestra that played flutes, drums, Indonesian gongs and bells,
donkey jaws, the kora, balaphon, sitar, cymbals, and other
instruments. And if some of them played instruments themselves.

We should hear a beautiful song in keeping with the trance-like
whirling, something related to soul music.

Or one woman might enter now, step to a microphone and sing a
torch song.

Slowly, Dionysus moves toward the periphery and then exits.

And then the whirling Bacchae
erupt in an ecstatic dance.
Leaps, shouts, clapping
to Zulu Jive music.
The dancers take turns with solos
while others are at the side singing and clapping.
An invigorating, sensual, sexual piece,
filled with intense pleasure
soaring spirits, joy.