Triptych and Iphigenia by Edna O’Brien Read Free Book Online Page B

three stand frozen, paralyzed.
    Auburn Girl offstage in rasping urgent whisper, over the ringing phone.
    AUBURN GIRL    (
offstage
)
    And the people they do be saying
    No two were ’ere wed
    But one had a sorrow
    That never was said
    Wife opens her mouth to speak but can’t, no words come. She staggers.
    Daughter goes and holds her.
    Mistress looks on, the perpetual outsider.
    The phone still ringing offstage.
    Lights slowly go down.
    A silence.
    S CENE T WENTY-FOUR
    Lights.
    Spotlight on each.
    WIFE    My husband was a wonderful man and a great writer … we were inseparable … so much so, that, he left a novel unfinished and I have decided to carry on the torch … it will be my hand but Henry’s immortal words.
    DAUGHTER    (
showing a tattoo on her collar bone
) What do you think Daddy … do you like it? I’m seeing Zachary now … big time … we’ve been dating for quite a while … he’s so wise, so different from all the other slobs … being a scientist he knows about the origins of life and stuff and I feel I can talk to him, tell him things, things about us, about you and me, the fun we had.
    MISTRESS    I know it seems crazy … but … there’s this pigeon that comes on my balcony at all hours … whitish with tan spots … without a mate … potters, potters about and I know, it’s Henry … I know it’s Henry making sure things are okay … keeping watch over me. (
quieter
) It foldsits wings and settles down at night … Henry loved the night … the silence.
    Mistress stops suddenly, turns and whistles softly.
    The THREE stand very still.
    CURTAIN

IPHIGENIA

    Euripides
was born near Athens between 485 and 480 BC and grew up during the years of Athenian recovery after the Persian Wars. His first play was presented in 455 BC and he wrote some hundred altogether. Nineteen survive—a greater number than those of Aeschylus and Sophocles combined—including
Electra, Hippolytos, Andromache, Ion, Alkestis
and
The Women of Troy.
A year or two before his death he left Athens to lie at the court of the King of Macedon, dying there in 406 BC.

I NTRODUCTION
    Euripides
was the scourge of his native Athens, his plays regarded as seditious and corrupting. Born in exile, on the island of Salamis, in 480 BC, he died in exile in Macedonia in his mid-seventies. Accounts differ as to the nature of his death, but chief among them is the hearsay that he was set upon and torn to death by mad dogs or mad women who could not tolerate his depiction of them as passionate, avenging, and murderous. His plays shocked public opinion, offended the critics, and ensured that he was overlooked year after year in the state competitions, with Sophocles and Aeschylus sharing the laurels. Sophocles was a distinguished figure who enjoyed public prestige, and Aeschylus could boast of his prowess in the war against the invading Persians. Euripides, however, was marginalized even though, as an able-bodied young man, he would have had to serve in army and fleet since Athens was vulnerable to marauders from east and west.
    His crimes were legion. He had questioned the prestige of the state, of pious honor and ancient injunctions, had portrayed the gods as vicious, merciless, sparring creatures who gave rein to violent, even insane passions. Medea, who sent a robe of burning poison to her rival and subsequently butchered her children, was a heroine whose deeds were a blight on enlightened Athens, and the official judges of the annual prize put it at the bottom of the list. Three and a half centuries later, the historian Aelian said the judges “were either ignorant, imbecilic philistines, or else bribed.” Euripides’ depiction of women led to scatological rumors such as that he had learned their abnormal tendencies and sexual misconduct from everyday experience, that his mother Clito was an illiterate quack dabbling in