Penelope and Ulysses Read online

They had the courage to leave some shape or form of themselves, the important part of themselves, the seeds from their soul, the nakedness of their inner world, in literature and in their way of life. They left breadcrumbs of their struggle, their authentic nature, the choices they made that went against the belief and opinions of many, and the hope that their love will keep someone in a different generation, a different time or place, warm and sane.

  I am truly grateful to my three muses for allowing me to see the nakedness of their soul, for confining their soul in words or on paper (T. S. Eliot wrote, “When I am formulated . . . how should I begin?”9), for making themselves vulnerable and deeply inspirational to me in the darkest night of my creativity and soul.

  I thank them for waiting for me.

  I thank you for reading this and sharing this journey with me.

  All that has been written is from

  Myth

  Fact

  And Nonsense.

  Introduction

  The Jewel of Ideals and Despair

  The physical earth keeps particles of light compressed for millions of years in total darkness and then this jewel that was created from great pressure and aloneness, separated from all other light particles, surfaces—and what brilliance, what transparency we see in this rare solitaire!

  Such is the crisis of the soul in its darkest and most critical night, which is not twenty-four hours but eternity, for numbers do not stop; they go on and on forever.

  The Jewel of the Soul is the birth of transparent brilliance in which all faces of life look into the light contained within and see their real face. And how much truth can you bear?

  In our history, we have pushed our rarest teachers and masters into the ground. We have wanted to cover the brilliance of their souls. And when we have driven them into the ground, we find we cannot live in total darkness; we cannot live without love.

  Like orphans and abandoned people we seek and search the four compasses of our world to see, to find, to seek forgiveness, and to return the brilliance of their souls in a world that has gone mad with either pain or indifference. As people we need the fire, the light of love.

  Such a small light contained within, but what turbulence and demanding presence it has upon others who want to bury it again in the earth! The creators of love contain such ideals and despair and reveal and share such a light from the night of the soul. This night has no division of time: it is from the fire of all forming stars. Look closely at “Starry Night” by Vincent van Gogh and you will see the many suns that burned in his exile and on the canvas of his soul. When you listen to Ludwig Beethoven, you are transported into the intimacy of desire, his “rage against the dying of the light,”10 his deep longing to share his soul and music with us. He believed that music could change the world. He contained “truth and beauty,”11 and yet he lived in total silence and exile. Is it silence and exile (or solitude) that feeds our desire and longing to create, to invent, to explore, to play above and below the taught rules and dogmas? Even Galileo wrote his most evolved work when he was under house arrest. It is at these times that one refuses defeat, surrender, and nihilism. Instead, one defies without a violent revolution and keeps true to their authentic self and design, which creates beauty and truth in the expression of their life.

  I have been in exile and have been writing in my heart, in my head, on the sand, in the sky, and on the tail of the mermaid, long before the world taught me language, long before the world gave me permission to breathe and dance.

  For many eons I did not wish to speak with anyone. I had realised that I had fallen into hell. Look at the world through the eyes of our troubled children and you will see the deadness or the rage. Look at Don McCullin’s photography and you will see that we have made a hell out of a heaven.

  I was driven and separated from the “memory” of another home.12 As I witnessed injustices small and large, I kept the memory of love alive. This is not how we behave where I come from. I first thought this when I encountered my first injustice when a girl was being mocked because of her deformity, and I could not, and would not, join in. It was as if I had a memory from another home, that we did not behave like this. In later life, when I read Plato, I understood about this former home and this former memory of the good. Where does love come from? Why do some of us carry it? And why do some of us relinquish the right to live in love and then proceed to remove that human right from others? Such a memory of the good requires solitude and devotion to one’s life, and to their purpose and meaning in this life. One learns and discovers many untouched and unnamed galaxies in this solitude, and the time has come that I return from exile to surrender to others what belongs to them, to offer to others what was left with me for safe keeping. What I found in my exile, in presence and absence, is deep love for our world. My “art” is my way of living; my creativity breathes and tastes of deep humanity.

  At the age of twenty-three I whispered the word “flight” and disappeared into the exile of wilderness and solitude. For ten years I measured the depth and sides of the dark abyss, and in my mad dance I decided to call the abyss my sandpit of forming stars. I could see the stars and I built castles and stairs and climbed into a deeper wilderness and forest of imagination and deep vision.

  I fell in love.

  I fell in love with the beauty and tragedy of this world.

  My next twenty years were spent searching and seeking, of swimming in uncharted and unmapped waters and travelling the roads of chosen solitude and exile.

  I have decided to return from my exile.

  I decided to return because I desire to devote my creativity to the “young and tender,”13 as the previous generations have left their questions and the nakedness of their lives to be explored to find a way to each other, to find a way to evolve and enrich our lives so that we do not live in fear and that we are fully in our lives.

  I thank the earth for waiting for me. I thank you for waiting for me.

  I have struggled to bring this to you, for I am painfully shy and do not seek the attention or recognition of the world. This work is a gift to all our ancestors who have stayed awake at the wheel to navigate our human journey.

  This work is a gift of love to all that have passed before me, those that are with me, and those that will find me later.

  I am a “citizen of the world,”14 and at the expense of sounding ridiculous in the world of relativity and appearance, I am a lover of the world and the many worlds that live and breathe in others.

  “If we want the Sun to return

  we have much work to do,

  much struggling as a united people.”15

  The Fire Maker

  Of all the fires of the heart, love is the only inexhaustible one.

  I am a shy, backward, and awkward writer of myth, fact, and nonsense, and I find it impossible at times to write what I sense in the stream of collective imagination and in the stream of our soul and our humanity.

  I find it almost impossible, because I fear attention and the confinement of what is from the profound, sublime, absurd, and ridiculous. To take the risk of baring your soul for all the world to see and judge is both dangerous and ridiculous, but this is the marking and habit of the Lover for life, who is both determined and deeply tender.

  There are many who have left their mark on my mind, heart, and body, but there is only one I have always sought and followed: the laws and dark passages of my wandering and seeking psyche.

  I am accountable and responsible only to the ways of love. I wrote this for my teachers and mentors who left their blood affirmation for me and others, for those who seek and love my incorrect ways in the moment, and for those who may seek another voice in the song of making, weaving, struggling and creating—the world of the Lover.

  The lessons of war are that “we must fight, not in the hope of winning but to keep somethin
g alive”16, to keep love alive.

  “I am consumed by a deep longing to find my way home, therefore I know of Ulysses’s wandering and searching. I know of his tricksters and phantoms, including the Siren. He was tricked and delayed because she knew the secret of his heart.”17

  I have been consumed by Penelope’s plotting and planning to remain true to my nature, choices, and destiny, which is usually, if not always, in conflict with the opinion and direction of the organised might of the barbarian (“men with hearts of stone”18) without a heart, without love.

  Both of these archetypes have travelled with me, along with the teaching that in order for one to remain Alive and In Love (I don’t think anyone is fully alive if they are not in love with life and the world), one must learn the ways of Anathema and Athanasia.

  Characters

  Penelope*

  Aged 45, still physically strong and attractive

  Young Penelope*

  Aged 25

  Telemachus

  Penelope’s son, a young man in his 20s

  King Agamemnon

  Aged 35

  Young Ulysses

  Aged 30

  Ulysses

  Aged 50

  Agathy

  Suitor 1, aged 35, physically strong and attractive, represents might and sexual aggression

  Petroculos

  Suitor 2, aged 55, an older man, wily and treacherous, represents Sophist argumentation

  VOICES

  Andromache

  Hector’s wife

  Astynax

  Hector’s son, aged 10

  Siren

  Female

  Destiny

  Male that has Ulysses’s face

  * The Penelopes also become The Chorus (Classical Greek theatre).

  I chose to have the young Penelope and the older Penelope addressing us in this way not because there is a division in their entity but because there is unison.

  How many times have we looked back into our past and seen, and even addressed, our decisions? To be able to see the young and older Penelope speaking and answering questions together creates a visual intensity and unison of all her life.

  For those that will read the dialogues of Penelope and Ulysses before they are set to stage, I will describe the rooms they are in so that you can see and know where these dialogues occur.

  During the play we see young Penelope and the older Penelope coming to terms with the decisions and outcomes in her life. Young Penelope brings youth and freshness, playfulness and sexuality; the older Penelope brings wisdom and strength, seduction and determination in fulfilling her journey in life and her purpose in sharing her journey with the audience. Both are physically strong, tender, and accomplished. They project a striking appearance and presence.

  Set

  The play and dialogues are in two main areas of Penelope and Ulysses’ world, which consists of conflict and resolution: the chambers and the seashore. The only exception to this is Agamemnon’s scene, in a cold room outside the chambers.

  The first main area is the chambers of Penelope and Ulysses. This is the sacred area both share, and later in the play and dialogues, Penelope hides her son in the chamber.

  In this chamber is a living tree. Ulysses has built this room around a very old and large tree. Their bed is under the tree, and Ulysses has carved forest scenes into the tree above their heads: this is their secret, since no one else has been in the sacred space together to see what Ulysses has carved in the wood, in the tree for Penelope.

  This tree represents The Tree of Life.

  The second main area of life and importance, to both Penelope and Ulysses, is the sea. It is the sea that brings Agamemnon to their home. The sea that separates them. The sea that returns Ulysses to Penelope. The sea that she looks at from her window. The sea that she talks to. The sea is the symbol for uncharted and unmapped life.

  “There is the sea and who will drink it dry?”19

  The play is dedicated with deep agape to those

  who deeply long to find their home.

  PENELOPE and ULYSSES

  “I cannot tell the difference between Ulysses and Penelope

  for both are navigators and influence the hearts of men.”

  Act I

  The Arrival

  Colours of Night

  ‘Exerte erthe apo to skotathi’

  You have arrived from darkness

  [PENELOPE is a tall, strong woman with long auburn hair. A very attractive woman in both her youth and older age, the YOUNG PENELOPE and the older PENELOPE. Her face has character, and she has a piercing gaze that makes most feel exposed. She trains for physical battle daily in her chambers, and therefore she is a disciplined warrior in her own right, although she does not share this with others (your best strength is your best kept secret). She does not flaunt her skill with the sword or her head for politics.

  PENELOPE is dressed in warrior’s clothing. Her top is leather with binding and buckles to represent her training and discipline. She refuses to forget herself in woman’s comfort and co-dependence, and her clothes reveal her as both feminine and a warrior. The bottom of her skirt is long and sheer, revealing her sensuality and femininity. Her long auburn hair and light green eyes give her the appearance of a seductress, a siren. She wears boots and Ulysses’s war bracelets.

  We find PENELOPE in her chambers, looking into her youth, bringing to life her youth, and the older Penelope in unison with her youth takes the audience through the beginning of her journey.

  Music is heard. ‘Dance for Man’ (Nikos Xylouris) is played while the audience is settling into their seats. Projected images of Penelope and Ulysses, The Tree, and the sea are seen in conjunction with the music.

  Lights slowly come on. They are soft and dark blue. The set is in soft night colours with a gentle mist.

  PENELOPE and YOUNG PENELOPE are both facing the audience, looking directly into the distance, into the audience. PENELOPE holds her sword facing downward. YOUNG PENELOPE stands beside her. She speaks the first two lines in Greek—in the language of lost and found worlds.]

  PENELOPE: [Moves forward and addresses the audience.]

  Exerte erthe apo to skotathi.

  Exerte erthe apo to skotathi. [You have come from the darkness.]

  [YOUNG PENELOPE moves two steps forward to stand by PENELOPE.]

  YOUNG PENELOPE: You have come from darkness

  to take parts of my life, to make it yours.

  PENELOPE: You have come to recognise or retrieve

  something that you have forgotten or lost.

  YOUNG PENELOPE: You have come to see if love exists.

  PENELOPE: Oh, by that I don’t mean

  comfortable, grey, domesticated love.

  YOUNG PENELOPE: I mean love that can break and shatter you

  on the rocks of solitude.

  BOTH: How much solitude can you bear?

  PENELOPE: You have arrived at the precise time of my departure.

  YOUNG PENELOPE: Ulysses, Ulysses!

  Haunt me. Drive me mad with longing.

  PENELOPE: I want to leave with you the despair and joy—

  YOUNG PENELOPE: of a longing and searching,

  of this love for this man—

  PENELOPE: for no other man will do.


  YOUNG PENELOPE: This love for an ideal,

  this rebellious spark in my soul.

  PENELOPE: This love that will not compromise

  BOTH: The impossible choices of my nature and destiny.

  YOUNG PENELOPE: Will you stay? Give me your hand

  or at least your little finger.

  PENELOPE: Please stay, so that I can pass on

  the sirens’ song.

  YOUNG PENELOPE: Did you know that sirens are mute?

  It is their silence and solitude

  that pierce the heart of your hidden world.

  PENELOPE: You all know that the sirens’ song

  is the opening of a man’s heart

  to reveal either its fullness or emptiness.

  And how much truth can you bear?

  YOUNG PENELOPE: Do I have something that belongs to you?

  Others seem to think that I have

  something that belongs to them.

  I have been kept under house arrest

  by those who think that I have

  something that belongs to them.

  PENELOPE: Those men in my courtyard are not of my desire,

  of my passion, of my deep sensuality.

  They lack the salt of the sea in them.

  They are not fish, only nets.

  Their lives, their masculinity,

  are nets used to capture the wild bird, the siren.

  They would even settle for the tail of the mermaid.

  They think I watch their nakedness,

  while all the while I look beyond them

  into the waves and turbulence

  of the forever making and breaking sea.

  YOUNG PENELOPE: I look to hear Ulysses.

  PENELOPE: I search for the sirens

  BOTH: Who have escaped the net of the hunter.