Review

A critical discussion on the play Eumenides:

Relooking at the roots of ‘adjudicated justice’

By Dilshan Boange

The evening of February 16 saw the John de Silva memorial theatre come alive with a feast of acting talent displayed by school children from Mahinda College, Southlands Girls’ School and Sangamitta Girls’ School College which was without a doubt a credit to the whole of Galle, being a production which was performed that evening an entry to the State Drama Festival 2012/2013. Directed by Ranasinghe Adikari, a teacher at Southlands Girls’ School, the credit of backing the play as its producer is the credit of Mahinda College Galle.

The play was a Sinhala translation of the Greek tragedy The Eumenides titled in Sinhala as Eumenides, which was a story ripe with timely thematic significances and reflections in terms of the politics symbolised in the play. The call for justice and the relentless pursuit for justice and its eventual realisation through a process of institutionalism were at the heart of the message which was delivered through a narrative of diverse theatre devices ranging from monologues to dialogues to choral song and dance to silent shadow miming which wove a rich texture complemented by attractive lighting that signalled the change of climates and chronology.

The opening

Opening with a voice narrative delivered through the sound system, the audience was given the background to the story of how King Agamemnon after his return from the victory over Troy was killed by his own wife who consequently meets her own demise at the hands of her own vengeful son who in his actions commits the sin of matricide persuaded by the divine authority of Apollo. And then, as shadows given ‘half a life’ through backlighting that embosses the players on stage to the viewers sitting in the gentle darkness of the theatre, the tableau of faceless figures moved to narrate through movements, wordlessly, the bloody treachery of a wife committing regicide and a son killing his mother. The scream of Agamemnon as the dagger plunges into him pierces the air in the theatre as an electrifying current.

Through the thrust of a horrific scream the transition is made to symbolise that what is taking shape on stage isn’t something of abstractness but to do with a story relating to people who represent emotions ascribed to humans. The pain they feel as steel violates flesh is signalled as a truth that must be grasped for its universality despite whatever historical cultural distances there may be between the work and its audiences.

Thus the Grecian epic tale of sins, vengeances and redemptions through the systems of justice begin, gaining a fuller form of colour and flesh as the lights turn bright and reveal the world created on the stage.

The classical play keeping true to the general image of Greek drama had a stage set that symbolised the setting through a few key edifices which gave contextual relevance to the action unfolding on stage. The set of the temple of Athena was easy enough to identify as a place of religious or spiritual significance by the design and the attire of the characters was very convincing.

The ‘Eumenides’ or the ‘Furies’ as they are also called are presented as a group of unsightly ghoulish females who seek vengeance or ‘justice’ as it is so deemed by them, for the sin committed by Orestes the son of the slain Agamemnon guilty of matricide. Whether the Furies are meant to be portrayed as ugly demonic looking figures in the classical sense of the story or if it was a directorial intervention to innovate on the part of Adikari I do not know.

By no means do I purport to be an authority on Greek drama. But what was discernible was that the Furies were of a motif that spoke very pronouncedly of the gothic design as well. The effect they did generate as the dark and vengeful, was very forceful.

The physical nature of the Furies to be depicted as unsightly hellish looking creatures was well set in place by the first monologue spoken by the sagely priest like figure who prophesies the rise of the Furies and their pursuit of vengeance. He describes them to the audience as Medusa like and horrifying in appearance. Thereby within the context of the story unfolding on the stage, taking the performance as a ‘text’ there was ample reason established to make the female avengers appear as though from the bowels of Hades.

The Furies ‘unveiled’

The most striking moment that created the shift in the pace of the drama was when the Furies, enveloped in darkness, concealing their faces from the audience, in unison turned their heads to bare their dreadful countenance and project an image of horror.

The dancing movements they presented as a group bound in a single objective had me wondering if the choreography in fact reflected the forms of dancing of the Greece of ancient times.

There was a distinct element of tribal ritualistic dancing movement in the manner in which the Furies manifested their collective being through dance. The larger image significance of course is the battle of what is deemed civilised and cultured as opposed to what is pagan and uncultured. The characters of the Greek pantheon of gods and the epic heroes represent the established stream of civilisation and what is ‘right’ whereas the Furies are the contenders who challenge the established dogma, that which is divinely ordained and not questioned by the inhabitants of the civilised world.

The Olympians

The gods of the ancient Greeks represented by Apollo, Athena and Hermes in the play are of the family of Zeus, the Olympian divinities whose abode being mount Olympus is ‘skyward’. Their plane is more in kinship with the skies, the heavens, than the ‘earthen’ realm. The Furies claim their fount of authority and moral right to demand justice springs from the spirit of the ‘earth mother’ whose essence is manifested quite naturally as a form of femaleness. The indignant band of female avengers is therefore a manifestation of the ‘order of nature’ one may say.

The clash of civilisations

One very noticeable factor that comes to light through the play is the clash of civilisations is shown through the divine or nonhuman characters who are cultural symbols of two different systems of human belief and organisation.

The Furies are in fact representative of the more aboriginal culture prior to the advent of the Olympian religion and its rise to supremacy as the dominant system of belief. It is in a sense a clash, a contest for supremacy between two primary spheres that form the world –the earth and the sky. It is very significantly a battle between two very primary ideological foundations that form a great facet of our anthropological progressions; the tussle between matriarchal and patriarchal ways and beliefs.

The partiality shown to Orestes by Apollo as being empowered by Zeus the father god, vindicating him thereby of any guilt the Furies may accuse him of is the force of patriarchy while the will of the ‘earth mother’ that demands justice is the cause of matriarchy. Athena, being a goddess who is called upon to adjudicate between these two conflicting parties becomes the ‘holder of the balance’ to ensure that justice is delivered impartially.

Grounds of adjudication

The manner in which the system of adjudication, the summoning of what is called the first jury over a crime is significant in the method Athena proposes to resolve the conflict. And one of the very most hard hitting rebuttals by the Furies when Apollo impresses on them the reason for Orestes being not guilty of a crime due to being authorised to perform matricide on the approval of the gods, is that Zeus himself is questionable in his moral foundations as a god who rose to power through patricide.

The criticism is a simple contention that he who makes pronouncements of what is right and correct must be fully righteous and free of any questionable past conduct himself. A hallmark feature on which the system of justice and adjudication must stand, if the system of justice is to be accepted and respected by the parties who come before it to resolve conflicts.

The rationale of the Jury

The play is insightful in seeing how merits and demerits of the justice system are communicated in the form of a theatrical narrative. The Furies demand justice in the form of condemning Orestes and see no alternative verdict as an acceptable outcome but a travesty of justice. The institutor of the system, Athena, emphasises to the Furies, the complainant party, that the verdict of the jurors must be accepted as fair as it constitutes a representation of the citizens’ intellect.

The rationale that a jury is a method of being judged by one’s peers relates very fundamentally to law and the system of justice being matters of societal significance and not abstract notions unrelated to prevailing realities of the community in which it operates. A jury’s verdict is a moment of democracy in action in the courthouse one may say. But this isn’t of course the most palatable solution to achieve a fair trial as the Furies see it. Yet it is the only conceivable method to break the deadlock between the gods and the Furies.

Subverted furies

The moment that the Furies are made to accept a jury based trial method and submits to the ways of the Greeks shows how the dominant civilisation subtly prevails over the more primordial. The moment they place their faith in the ‘Athenian solution’ is when they lose their moral strength to be the pristine voice of the earth mother.

The play is in one sense about untying from the laws of nature and submitting to the systems of man. But then the question of who controls the man made systems and whether conceptions of ‘justice’ of all systems equate to the same thing, remains very plainly open for debate to the end of the play when the Furies who are dissatisfied with the verdict over Orestes are placated by Athena by promises of assimilation to Greek city civilisation with elevated status in the eyes of the citizens. It is very plainly in my opinion a ‘buy over’ which is very mundanely visible in the political arena, and possibly a timeless truth as ancient as the arts themselves.

Acting merits and demerits

On the aspect of acting, the character of the head of the Furies was very forceful and the actress showed being very much in the mould of the role that was demanded of her. She did a notably good job of being banshee like and also being in full measure the lead the voice of her group while making a commendable transition in her character demeanour after being won over by Athena.

The role of Apollo, who amongst other subjects presided over is also the principal divinity of masculine beauty, was played by an actor who although had the build and physical stature for the role didn’t have the bearing that would do justice to the godhood of Apollo when brought to life for theatre. The young man didn’t as I saw it project a good balance of being forceful upon the Furies while also being regal and staid as an undeterred divine persona. At times his earnest and urgency was more of a mortal than an invulnerable god. No doubt his ability to project his voice and hold a stage presence shows his capability to be a good actor. But there is room for improvement in my opinion.

Athena on the other hand was played by an actress who though she was petite in her build had a very commendable balance of feminine and regal bearing which worked well to overcome any overshadowing by the more physically endowed actor who played Apollo, by whose side she had to deliver her most crucial moments as the revered goddess of the ancient Athenians. With grace and poise which she carried effortlessly she theatricalised her character to be what would generally be expected of a classical Grecian female divinity for theatre.

What will justice be?

I must confess that I was myself wrapped in intense wonder as to how the vote of the jury would turn out and what sentence would be passed, and which ideological camp would win. And when Athena cast her vote in favour of Orestes’s innocence it occurred to me that the politics of the ancient Greeks was realistically played out in the play. Though I thought for a moment if the outcome would be one that would be in defiance of the divinely sanctioned matricide and in fact give demonstration to that Latin maxim ‘Fiat justitia ruat caelum’ –Let justice be done, though the heavens fall.