Triptych and Iphigenia by Edna O’Brien Page A

most tragic of poets.”
    Edna O’Brien
    January 2003

    For Michael Straughan who brought it to light
    Iphigenia
premiered at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield on February 5, 2003. The cast was as follows:
    WITCH/NURSE    Joanna Bacon
    CALCHAS/MENELAUS    John Marquez
    OLD MAN    Jack Carr
    AGAMEMNON    Lloyd Owen
    SIXTH GIRL    Charlotte Randle
    IPHIGENIA    Lisa Dillon
    CLYTEMNESTRA    Susan Brown
    MESSENGER    Dominic Charles-Rouse
    ACHILLES    Ben Price

    Director
Anna Mackmin
    Designer
Hayden Griffen
    Lighting
Oliver Fenwick
    Composers
Ben Ellin, Terry Davies
    Sound Designer
Huw Williams
    Choreographer
Scarlett Mackmin
    S CENE O NE
    A night scene, windless, hushed.
    A starlit sky.
    A high wall with ladders.
    WITCH    Great Zeus stopped the winds and why. He sends winds to other men’s expeditions, winds of sorrow, winds of hardship, winds to set sail, winds to drop sail, and winds of waiting but here upon the black and blasted straits of Aulis he sends no winds and an angry fleet keep asking why are we waiting, why is King Agamemnon hiding from us in his tent—because, because King Agamemnon, marshall of the fleet, made a vow to the goddess, Artemis of the sacred grove, a promise that he reneged on. Disastrous calm has driven him to augury, to Calchas the prophet who scans the flight of birds.
    Spotlight on
CALCHAS
the prophet.
    On the opposite side
AGAMEMNON
emerges from his tent.
    The
WITCH
hides under the wall to listen.
    CALCHAS    King Agamemnon—to Artemis, goddess of the moon, you vowed that you would sacrifice the most beautiful you knew. You shall not unmoor your ships until you pay your dues. Your wife Clytemnestra has a child Iphigenia who in all the radiance of young beauty has been selected by the goddess Artemis to be offered in sacrifice inorder that the Greek ships can leave these narrow straits for the towers and battlements of Troy. Then and only then will amorous Helen be restored to her husband Menelaus, Troy in ashes, her nobles slaughtered, her women slave women, to bring home here to Argos and plentitude of spoils.
    AGAMEMNON    My daughter, the jewel of my heart … no and no and no again.
    CALCHAS    Her mother Clytemnestra must bring her here, intended as a bride for swift-footed Achilles, son of goddess Thetis, nurtured in the watery waves.
    AGAMEMNON    You think I would deceive my wife and child.
    CALCHAS    The gods think it.
    AGAMEMNON    Be gone, you old werewolf.
    CALCHAS    Your daughter’s death ensures victory for Greece.
    AGAMEMNON    Unspeakable … unthinkable …
    CALCHAS    In time of war, unspeakable, unthinkable things are done. For the sake of the gods and for our land thus blasted with misfortune, send for her at once and sacrifice her on the altar of divinity.
    AGAMEMNON    Who else have you spoken to of this hatching?
    CALCHAS    Your brother Menelaus and Odysseus of the House of Athens. The goddess Artemis, lovely lady of the woodland and the forest, is growing impatient and your men wrathful at such long waiting.
    AGAMEMNON    I will not do it.
    CALCHAS    It will be done.
    Calchas goes.
    Agamemnon stands. When he turns, the Witch is in front of him.
    WITCH    Hail, Agamemnon, the sacker of cities … the child shall have garlands put upon her head and sprinklings of lustral water. She comes to nourish with the drops of flowing blood the altar of the divine goddess from her own throat, her lovely body’s throat. And grant that Agamemnon may wreathe the Hellene lances with a crown of fame and his own brows with the imperishable glory.
    Agamemnon goes.
    An
OLD MAN
who has overheard pulls himself up from under the wall.
    OLD MAN    Dark. Darkness. The story goes of how Atreus, father of Agamemnon, had his brother’s children foully and horribly slain, then boiled and served up at a