Herakles

a play description

I wrote this play a while ago. We are thinking about a production. Do you think this description sounds interesting? Even a little?

a play in two acts by Gary Arms

Synopsis: HERAKLES, THE MAN WHO BECAME A GOD takes place on a bare set that serves to indicate several different locations. The play needs 8 actors: 5 men, 3 women. Running time is approximately 2 hours. This play kills at table reads but so far has not gotten a full production. It is a big play with lots of parts but is designed to be done with a cast of eight, most of whom play several parts.

HERAKLES, THE MAN WHO BECAME A GOD is a modern take on the famous Greek hero (the Romans called him Hercules). Herakles is the warrior who defeated the many-headed Hydra and cleaned the putrid Augean Stables, the hero who descended into Hades and became a god, the most loved of all the legendary Greek heroes. Certain stories about Herakles are so famous that nearly everyone has heard them, but other stories are not familiar. There is much in his legendary biography that is startling and fascinating, and episodes that are downright disturbing. In the course of his adventures, Herakles becomes “the strongest man on earth,” the great killer of monsters, but he is also a man hated by the goddess Hera. He is a warrior who killed the Queen of the Amazons and a father who “in a fit of madness” murdered his own children.

Perhaps we moderns can no longer celebrate ancient heroes in the old pure way as if we are unaware of their flaws. For one thing, many of us are not eager to label other beings “monsters.” We may even doubt that the only sensible thing to do with “monsters” is to slaughter them. We are liable to react to a character like Herakles in a complex way, admiring the hero for his courage and warrior prowess, but criticizing him for being a cold-blooded killer who resorts too often to extreme violence. We may wonder if violence is the best solution for every problem. Is murder worth the waste and loss it generates, the cycles of revenge, the terror and shame? We may suspect it is not an entirely good thing to “become a god.”

HERAKLES, THE MAN WHO BECAME A GOD is a comedy and a tragedy; it is the biography of a hero told from multiple points of view. The title Herakles nudges the play a few inches toward the unfamiliar. It suggests we may not know everything about this famous hero. The Roman name Hercules is the name everyone knows; modern kids have seen the Disney movie or the many B movies featuring a body builder. Herakles is the Greek name, the older name, the title that connects the legendary hero to his nemesis, Hera the goddess.

I started with a few powerful assumptions. The old stories retain all their glamour and weirdness. A bare stage is a glorious possibility. A writer can take startling, exhilarating liberties with classical material and famous characters. We may mingle comedy and tragedy, the present and the past, zigzag wildly from one to the other. A Chorus can express our modern ambivalence about heroes. One member of the Chorus can love the hero and champion every single move he makes, while another Chorus member stands with folded arms at the side of the stage and radiates her disapproval. Also, and this is no small advantage in a story with many episodes: the members of the Chorus, wearing appropriate wigs and costumes, can play all the minor characters.

The play begins with Herakles staggering onstage covered in blood, the blood of his wife and children. He cannot recall who he is, or what he has done. He suffers from an unaccountable amnesia and has to travel to the Pythoness for help. When he learns his wife and sons have been murdered, he seeks vengeance. Unwittingly, he seeks vengeance on himself. Herakles is accompanied on his adventures by Iolaus, his young sidekick. Iolaus does not know it, at least not in the beginning, but he is Herakles’ nephew. The young man seeks the murderer of his kin, the man who slew his aunt and cousins. We see Herakles as he performs his sequence of heroic labors. He becomes ever more famous, but always we wonder what will happen when he finds out he is the kin-killer he seeks? What will occur when Iolaus discovers his master is also the murderer of his aunt and cousins?