Saturday 5 November 2016

The Suppliant Women- A play from 2500 years ago about asylum seekers escaping forced marriage


I marked the first week of November 2016 with two visits to live theatre, the Sunderland Empire and the Northern Stage, Newcastle and two visits to see films at the Cineworld, Bolden. I also watched two films on TV in addition the DVDs of the Opera AIDA 1989 and 2009.

I begin with my visit on Friday  November 4th 2016 to Northern Stage, Newcastle, for a performance of a 2500-year-old play against forced marriage by 50 asylum seeking young women who cross the sea thus echoing the plight of the boatpeople of Vietnam recently reviewed in a cinema showing and video of Miss Saigon at the end of October and with thoughts on the latest 200 souls lost off the coast of Libya earlier this week together with thousands of young women forced into marriage, in the present, often still children, now as then.

I had booked end of aisle seat for-The Suppliant women by the Greek poet playwright Aeschylus at Northern State as part of a special two show package for £30 (The Season ticket being the other) and although noting that it was being interpreted as a play about a group of virgin young women seeking asylum and against forced married, I made no other preparation in advance of attending the performance.

I was not aware of the production history or the unique aspects of the production. I arrived early at the theatre having a good journey from Shields to Gateshead vis Jarrow and Hebburn to avoid the roadworks on the main road out of South Shields to the junction between the A1M and the Sunderland Gateshead and Newcastle road.  It was a cold night with the hint of rain so I quickly walked from the Tesco car park Gateshead to the Metro station, missing a train as I took the stairs to the platform, but fortunately another was due within minutes. I arrived early at the Haymarket station wanting to visit Marks and Spencer’s for three cartons of mixed olives for £7 and then found that the sandwich snack and coffee services was already closed. Fortunately, I could find a seat a find the last seat available but close to the stage 2 entrance where the automatic door opened constantly with the early 7pm start at stage 2, people going to the toilets and staff bringing food from the kitchen. I was able then to move to a two-person table later and observe the usual mix of eaters and drinkers, theatre patrons, university staff with families and the wealthier of the students as eating and drinking here includes a subsidy to theatrical productions and its other activities which provides for an ongoing community involvement.

The need for subsidy from the bar was brought out before the play commenced as a spokesman for the production introducing the person invited to give the libation explaining that for every £10 of ticket contribution, the audience paid £5, the arts Council from our taxation £4 and donors 50p hence the need an addition 50p at the bar. The libation to the Gods of Greece comprised emptying one bottle of red wine slowly along the front of the stage. My seat was four rows from the front but as the two next to me were occupied by large people I could sit immediately in front with space on my right enabling a woman also on her own take my original seat.

The special aspect of the production which first opened at the Lyceum Edinburgh, then in Belfast and then here in Newcstle was the recruitment of the chorus locally from anyone interested and available in the two age brackets of 16-26 for the young women and above an unstated age for the wise women. It is my understanding from the after show discussion that despite the varying abilities and varying previous amateur experience all wanting to participate could do so in all three cities. The Newcastle stage is open and theatre wide which provides great proximity and interaction with the audience, although limiting scenery and props compared to the traditional constructed theatres.

The play is presented as a chorus work creating a singing tempo with the use of the Greek Aulos wind instrument (Callum Armstrong) and Percussion (Ben Burton) which provided the period and the beat. John Browne who composed the music and directed and where the rhythmic movement was also essential (Choreographer Sasha Milavic Davis) and Director Ramin Grey knitting the production team together with professional actors and those recruited locally.  There were special vocal and movement coaches recruited for the Newcastle production (Marian Rezaei and Nadia Iftkar).

An issue taken up with the scripting by David Grieg who used an English Translation by Ian Ruffell was the extent to which the work was given a deliberate contemporary slant which at one level appears a degree of anti-men feminism unthinkable at the time the play was performed sometime after 470 BC and this led to find an online free full translation via Wikipedia via the Bacchicstage link as the first mentioned does not work and the second involves a fee. Marriage with the close family structure was normal at the time and a widow could be expected to marry her brother and which was designed to protect the family wealth, estates and power.

The play is based on Greek myth where in the legend Danaus who becomes King of Argos, a real place to this day, agrees in the end to the request that his daughter marry their first cousins but orders that the men be killed on the wedding night which all do except one and who in some versions are said she kills her father and take power with her husband. It is also alleged that those daughters with immediate suitors were to be auctioned off in a foot race to winners.

In the play the chorus should have fifty daughters symbolically of one man (Danaus) fleeing from the requirement to marry the fifty sons of his brother. None of the productions managed to recruit the intended full cast of the daughters although the stated maids are presented in the production as the wise women who come on stage later in the production. The young women have fled across the sea from Egypt to an altar on a hill with statues of various Gods outside the walled city of Argos in Greece and where they are using olive branches adorned with white wool and they explain that they have fled because were being forced into a sinful marriage. Photos of present day Argos do show a temple site rising just above the present city located on a plain with the sea in the distance.

The daughters call on Zeus to look kindly on their innocent hearts with justice, to stand by and protect from the hateful marriages. They pray and in line 160 that they refer to themselves as the Suppliant Women.

Their symbolic father Danaus (played by Omar Ebrahim (and who also performs the role of the Egyptian Herald) who has accompanied them on the escape gives sound advice as the army from the city approach to inquiry about their visitors and when he suggests their show respect and humility as they are foreigners, hunted and in great need, but adding” The weak must never speak too freely,” having also commented that “the men here are easily offended.”  Given that originally the players were men to an all-male audience, the play can be interpreted as a warning to the men to be on constant guard against the emancipation of women. It must also be pointed out that slavery was natural in Greece and the personal maids accompanying the daughters would have been slaves.

The young King of Argos arrives (Oscar Batterham) and comments on their bravery coming without military support and sees the olive branches which mark them as Suppliants seeking protection). The young women explain they are being required to marry the sons of their father’s brother. They have come to Argos because it is there original homeland, reminding of the applications from the Calais refugees to join relatives already in the UK. The king is sympathetic but the decision will be that of the people through a referendum vote (of the eligible men)!

There is a unanimous vote in favour of providing hospitality and protection. Later the chorus call on the citizens to give them just rights and due process to the strangers at their gates. Then ships arrive from Egypt and the chorus warns that the daughters would rather hang from the noose than be touched by the men they hate. The Egyptian Herald arrives and threatens to drag them by the hair soaked in their own blood if they refuse to return voluntarily. The King asks the Herald if such dreadful behaviour reveals they are bereft of brains? The King is then accompanied by men from the army of the people to make sure he is not attacked as he warns the Herald the women have the protection of the people.

It is time for Danaus to give further advice to the young women-  Time will reveal the true nature of a foreign stranger. Scornful words are at the forefront of everyone’ s mind when it coma to strangers and they are easy to utter and easy for those evil words to stick. But I advise you to be careful and do not shame me, you are in the youth now, and age that attracts and pleases the eyes of men. Fruit that is ripe and ready for picking is hard to protect: both beasts and gods destroy it and why not? And - take care then that we don’t suffer what we have tried so hard to avoid. Struggle a crossing raging seas and distant lands. See that we bring no shame on us and thus make our enemies happy (line 1011). The production ends as the chorus comes to the edge of the stage and along both sides of the theatre and declares with Passion-Let Justice follow Justice, which was always my prayer to the Gods and that is our Liberation. The chorus was led by Gemma May

The play is performed without interval over 90 minutes which requires the chorus of amateurs to be on stage, to sing, chant and dance and remember the words without a break which is a great feat. The intention was to create a hypnotic switch from the present to a Greece of the past with and awareness of its resent significance. This was successful. On arrival in the auditorium an assistant hoped I would enjoy the play to which I could not resist saying that I did not think it was a play to enjoy. This made her think to question what word she should have used as much to herself as me. So, I suggested “think, challenge, become engaged, emotionally involved, and we had to stop the exchange as other arrived. I did enjoy the film experienced earlier that same morning although it had some challenging aspects-it engaged, it was entertaining, it was surprisingly funny using clever wit and it also had a serious aspect which provoked thought at the time and reflection since-. The Accountant.

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