New play by Judith Thompson probes the heart of darkness
Trigger Warning: sexual violence
Running from Nov. 17 to 22, in the University of Guelph’s George Luscombe Theatre, playwright and theatre professor Judith Thompson’s Sirens: Elektra in Bosnia was performed and produced by students in University of Guelph’s theatre program. Written and directed by Thompson, the play transposes characters from Electra, the Ancient Greek tragedy by Sophocles, into the modern conflict of the Bosnian War (1992-95). Told in a non-linear manner, and utilizing striking stage techniques, the play examines the banality of evil, the psychological depths of war, and how women suffer most at the hands of male aggression in conflict and warfare.
The play assumes knowledge of the Ancient Greek myth, but if you aren’t familiar with Sophocles, here’s a bit of a refresher. In the Electra story, Agamemnon is killed by the hands of his wife, Clytemnestra, for sacrificing their daughter, Iphigenia, before the Trojan War. Electra and her brother Orestes swear revenge against their mother and their stepfather, Aegisthus, for the murder of Agamemnon.
Thompson’s play integrates figures from Sophocles’ Electra into a family, led by an Agamemnon who, in this piece, is a general. He offers Iphigenia (a war journalist) as collateral to his brother, Menelaus (Serb general) in exchange for the strategic port town of Sokolac. Menelaus allows his men to rape, torture, and mutilate her, driving Agamemnon into a comatose guilt as he flees to live in a cave with his mistress, Cassandra.
When Agamemnon confronts his estranged family, he is shown Iphigenia’s remains by Clytemnestra. Upon seeing this, he has a heart attack and Clytemnestra does not aid him, an act of reluctant revenge for the death of Iphigenia. Enraged, Electra drowns Clytemnestra in their bathtub, and is condemned by the gods to be killed and tortured every day of the rest of her life, unless her mother joins her from the other side of a hill when she calls to her.
The Bosnian War, part of the larger Yugoslav Wars, was characterized by ethnic cleansing, mass rapes, and widespread UN involvement, and is considered the worst conflict in Europe since World War II. Although the numbers of casualties are consistently debated, it is estimated that 100,000 people were killed, and nearly 40,000 of those were civilians. Ethnic cleansing characterized the conflict, as Bosnian women were raped en masse, holy sites and religious centres were routinely and systemically destroyed, and children were forced to kill and fight in the conflict.
What Thompson and co. have accomplished here is impressive – the play deftly transposes collective, historical trauma into an abstract family drama, via the universality of Ancient Greek tragedy, which viscerally devastates the audience. The gunshot sounds, very real-looking prop guns and military costumes, chilling artworks projected behind the stage, and eerie fog machines crafted a stage that posited the audience directly into the madness of war and its effects on individuals, families, and nations. One of the many lines that stuck out read, “Hell is where the enemy goes” – words resonant now, in the past and, unfortunately, the future.