roman emperors, german emperors, french kings, dwayne “the rock” johnson, and many other men have been wild about becoming herakles. dan j was ambivalent, but he was fascinated by euripides’ play, and he’s always been enamoured of anne carson’s way of saying classics in english. dan j was fascinated by the dramaturgy, by a play that was over and done, and then the drama happened.
herakles does everything right. he fights the right beasts; he goes to the right law school; he holds up the world for a minute; he wears a lion skin; he aces the bar. he even comes in just in the nick of time to save his family from imminent doom and reclaim the kingdom that is rightfully his. what a man.
and then, that night, he loses his mind. seneca blames it on hera, but euripides isn’t quite sure. madness is like something that came out of him, came out of his labours, came out of his priviledge, his patrimony, his being so goddamn perfect all the time. his being a perfect patriarch. at the lip of settling in to his role, he goes mad. it’s like a cancer bursting forth from the incessant mitosis of the patriarchy within him, zeus’s zombie, not hera’s wrath at all.
}spoiler alert{: he murders his family, except his father in law. then he wakes up.
that’s greek.
but then there’s the ending….it’s like the athenian censor board went to see the play and told euripides to add it on. theseus, athen’s legendary king, minotaur killer, comes to find herakles. he says, “come to athens. forget your blood red hands. you didn’t mean it. you didn’t know how much you had to drink. you were young. c’mon. join the empire. be our boy.” and he does.
in our {production}, we pulled a classic theatre trick. we said the words, but, then, he didn’t leave.
And in the first performance, at the moment he’s said to be forgiven, thunder clapped, and it started to rain.
thanks, hera.
dan j ruppel 