Aeschylus’Eumenides: Providing Entrance to Mac Wellman≿s Theatre

Abstract

Mac Wellman is an award-winning American playwright whose theatre can be daunting to a first-time spectator. Since he thinks of his playFnu Lnu as a “new version of Aeschylus’Eumenides,” the classical play can provide entrance to the contemporary play but with adjustments for the experimental mode of presentation. The Furies, for example, are singing sorceresses, and Orestes is an old anarchist reminiscing about the good old days. There is a quester, however, and a quest that takes him beneath the play’s site to the old, lost city that is the Dionysian flux, the source of imagery that is the basis of poetic theatre’s language (as opposed to the literal language of geezer or naturalistic theatre) and of freedom of choice that is the basis of a political, moral, creative society. The spectator-reader is encouraged to take the journey, for once the obstacles are overcome, the experience is very rewarding.