Orestes- Blood and Light

by Helen Edmundson

  ELECTRA. How brave you were.

  ORESTES. They saw that I was a man and some little fear, some respect crept into their minds. I won for us the chance to end our lives ourselves.

  ELECTRA. You touched their hearts, Orestes.

  ORESTES. I don’t want their sympathy. I don’t want their scratched faces, their tears. What do I want with their sympathy? I want justice.

  The treacherous, unnatural coward. Not even the guts to tell me. He couldn’t even face me. He lied. He lied to me. We are his family. He owes us. He owes my father. He owes us. He could have swayed them. I know he could. Those men in there weren’t leaders; strong-mouthed but not strong-minded, all of them. He could have made them see. We would have been banished, sent to some island temple to cleanse our souls and make amends. Two years, three years away and then we could have come back here and ruled as we were meant to rule. But that will never happen now. That will never be. It is now that we die because of him.

  He forces the knife into her hand.

  Take it. Take it up. Come on. Will you cut me first, or will I cut you? Take it. Let’s do it now and give them what they want, spill our cursed blood onto the ground. Take it.

  ELECTRA begins to cry. ORESTES is silent for a few moments.

  I have failed you.

  ELECTRA. No. A sudden sadness, that is all. That it should end like this.

  It’s gone. I’ve lost it – my bright vision of our perfect death. It is dirty. Dirty and ugly. Ugly and pathetic. Where was I? How was I seeing? Whose eyes were those? Not mine. Not mine.

  ORESTES. Stop.

  ELECTRA. I can’t remember how I felt so reconciled.

  I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

  ORESTES. I have taken everything from you.

  ELECTRA. There was nothing to take.

  ORESTES. I should never have come to you. I should have killed her and then killed myself and let that be an end.

  ELECTRA. No. No. No. My only joy has been your coming. My only joy.

  ORESTES. What is it you said to me? What is it we have to hold to? We will be rocked in Apollo’s arms. We will be all satisfaction.

  ELECTRA. In a place where there is gentleness and light.

  ORESTES. And it will be so. I promise you. It will be so.

  ELECTRA. How can it be? How can there be peace when there is so much anger in our hearts?

  ORESTES. It will be so. They will not take this from us. You and I. There is nothing else.

  Let’s do it well, Electra.

  ELECTRA. Yes. Let’s do it well.

  ORESTES. Like the children of a King.

  ELECTRA. Yes.

  ORESTES. Let me clean your face.

  He cleans away the blood and dirt. She does the same for him. They smile.

  They will come in here and think to find the bodies of two murderers, wretched, coiled upon the ground, the fear rigid on our faces.

  ELECTRA. But we will show them who we are.

  ORESTES. Lie still and calm and hand in hand.

  ELECTRA. Our goodness arrayed around our heads like the light of a God.

  ORESTES. A sculpture. A shrine.

  He throws open cupboards and pulls out clothes.

  Clothes for princes. For princes and princesses. No King had greater riches in his tomb.

  ELECTRA. And we’ll sit and eat.

  She goes to the bed and lays out food.

  And stories will be told of our last breakfast and how we drank and smiled before we died.

  ORESTES has put on a golden cloak. She looks at him.

  That cloak. My father sent for us, asked us to bring Iphegenia to the coast, to her wedding – so we thought. My mother wore that cloak. She said it would reflect the sun, set alight my father’s heart and he would soon be gone to war. Make him remember her. You were there.

  ORESTES. Was I?

  ELECTRA. A babe in arms. I held you in the carriage when you cried. We sang to you. All of us. My mother too.

  ORESTES. A family.

  ELECTRA. Yes.

  ORESTES. She did love my father, didn’t she?

  ELECTRA. Yes. Or nothing in the world is true. She loved my father. She loved you. She loved my sisters.

  ORESTES. And she loved you.

  He hands her a dress.

  Wear this.

  She undresses and puts on the dress.

  My beautiful sister.

  ELECTRA goes to the dressing table and looks at herself in the mirror. She reaches out and touches the glass. She picks up a bottle of perfume and puts some on her throat.

  She picks up the brush and brushes her hair. ORESTES watches her.

  When she has finished she walks over to the bed and sits down. He goes to sit with her. They eat.

  It was my favourite thing, when I was very young, to sit and eat beneath the trees, when a summer’s day was done. All of us together, my guardians, my friends, sitting beneath the orange trees, within the whisper of the sea, feasting until the sun went down. And I could ask my questions then. Everything which puzzled me. And they’d try to give me answers, through the wine. To explain why men were always fighting, and why the Gods were loath to intervene, and what makes a king a great king, and why we have to die. And they’d laugh at me, call me the questioning boy, call me serious and keen. And on those nights I wouldn’t sleep. I’d go and lie where I could see the stars, and throb and pulse with the sense of who I was and all the possibilities of me.

  I felt, I think, how a God must feel.

  I only ever wanted to be good. To be worthy of my father’s name. A good king. Remembered well. No one will ever know that now.

  ELECTRA. Apollo will know. I will know.

  He is staring at her.

  ORESTES. I can’t hurt you, Electra. Don’t ask me to.

  ELECTRA. And I can’t hurt you.

  ORESTES. We must see to ourselves then.

  ELECTRA. Yes.

  ORESTES. In the same moment. The same second.

  ELECTRA. I’ve never held a knife – not one so sharp.

  ORESTES. Be sure to place it here.

  He touches her heart.

  ELECTRA. Will you hold me, Orestes?

  He takes her in his arms.

  The only arms I’ll ever know.

  They begin to kiss.

  Let this kiss be every kiss. Every bed, every night, every child I would have had. My life. My life in your arms.

  They kiss passionately.

  Orestes.

  They stop kissing. They are trembling. ORESTES stares into her eyes.

  ORESTES. Why should we die? No. No. I won’t do it.

  ELECTRA. What do you mean?

  ORESTES. I won’t do it. Why should we die?

  ELECTRA. Orestes.

  ORESTES. Why should we die?

  ELECTRA. What choice do we have? / No choice.

  ORESTES. Why should we die? When he will bring her to this bed, our bed, when he will lie her down and love her, go on loving, living, ruling, taking everything we should have had, when he betrayed us?

  ELECTRA. Orestes. Please.

  ORESTES. Why should we die?

  ELECTRA. Don’t think about them. Don’t think / about what happens afterwards.

  ORESTES. Yes, think about them. Think about them. He will live and breathe when we are gone. He will / take it all.

  ELECTRA. He won’t know happiness. A man like that, dead in his heart / it is a hollow victory.

  ORESTES. Happiness? Every time he touches her, every time his child touches his face he will know happiness. Every time the people bow down at his feet.

  We have done nothing wrong. Did we do wrong?

  ELECTRA. No.

  ORESTES. We did what Apollo commanded us to do, while he and that whore Helen asked the deaths of thousands upon thousands of men, killed fathers, husbands, brothers, sons, destroyed lives, and for what? Nothing so great as a father’s honour. Nothing so great as that.

  ELECTRA. She was the cause of everything, it’s true. It was for
her my father took our sister’s life, for her my mother killed him, for her we killed our mother too.

  ORESTES. She’s up there now, in her room and she is smiling. This is a happy day for her.

  ELECTRA. She will be making lists of what she will and will not keep, going through my father’s things, labelling, discarding as though we are already dead.

  ORESTES. And when he comes she’ll walk in here with him. They’ll find our bodies and throw them on the pyre and know that everything is theirs and it is over. It is my life. And your life. I cannot make my peace with this.

  ELECTRA. Let’s kill her then.

  ORESTES. Kill her?

  ELECTRA. Let’s take her with us.

  Let’s break his heart.

  Let’s wreck his victory.

  Let’s finish her.

  ORESTES. Kill her?

  ELECTRA. The Gods would be pleased, I’m certain, to see the end of Zeus’s monstrous creation. And the people too would love us then. They will love us, won’t they? No more ‘matricides’. We’ll be the heroes who rid them of a curse, a scourge, the mistress of lust and vanity, the shame of all her sex.

  This is why Apollo brought them back. Not so Menelaos could save us but so that we can do this thing, this service to the earth. Our gift before we die.

  ORESTES. You are more than a woman. You are a man too. You are the bravest, strongest creature I have ever known. We do it then.

  ELECTRA. Yes.

  ORESTES. How?

  ELECTRA. We’ll go to her, our knives concealed. Look broken, suppliant. We’ll ask if we can speak to her alone. We’ll tell her we’re about to die, fall on our knees and cry, beg her forgiveness for everything we’ve done. And when her guard is down and she is all condescension and concern, well then . . .

  ORESTES. Then I will run her through.

  ELECTRA. She won’t expect it. She is so arrogant, so vain, she’d never believe we would dare to strike.

  ORESTES. Who will be with her?

  ELECTRA. Only her women. I can keep them back with this.

  ORESTES. And what if there are soldiers there? Menelaos’ men?

  ELECTRA. Well, then we will die fighting. They will do our job for us.

  ORESTES. There will be blood. There will be more blood.

  ELECTRA. Poison. Not blood. It is poison in her veins. Be glad to see it flow.

  ORESTES. Does she look like my mother?

  ELECTRA. No.

  No.

  ORESTES. There is no time left.

  Let’s pray together.

  They kneel beside each other.

  Great Apollo, you have been my guide in everything I’ve done. You filled me with your power, with your certainty when I was most in need. Do not forsake me now. Give me the strength to do your work once more. Receive me into your everlasting light.

  ELECTRA. My Father, if you can hear your daughter’s prayer, send us your blessing. We kill for you, we die for you. Give us your courage. Help your loyal children now.

  ORESTES. In Apollo’s name we pray.

  ELECTRA. In our God we place our trust.

  They stop praying and look at each other.

  ORESTES. It is now, then.

  ELECTRA. Love me, Orestes.

  ORESTES. I love you.

  They go out of the door.

  A few moments later, MENELAOS enters. His sword is drawn. He is escorted by a SOLDIER. He stops in the doorway.

  MENELAOS (to SOLDIER). Wait there. This sight should meet my eyes alone.

  He looks about the room. Searches.

  Not here. Where else would they have gone? A place to die in? Surely they would not have dared delay. They would not be so stupid, surely.

  The SLAVE comes rushing towards the door.

  SLAVE. Help me. Help me.

  The SOLDIER grabs hold of her and restrains her.

  MENELAOS. Leave her.

  (To SLAVE.) What has happened? Speak to me.

  SLAVE. I didn’t want to let her go. I tried to hold her but there was the knife. They held it here. They pulled her from my arms.

  MENELAOS. What are you talking about?

  SLAVE. The baby. They have taken the baby. I tried. / I didn’t want to let her go.

  MENELAOS. Who have? Who have?

  SLAVE. Electra. Her brother. They have taken the baby. Hermione.

  MENELAOS hits her hard. She falls to the ground.

  MENELAOS. Where are they? Where is Helen?

  SLAVE. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no.

  MENELAOS. Where is my wife?

  SLAVE. Dead. She is dead.

  MENELAOS. Dead?

  SLAVE. They killed her. They came into her room, crying. They asked if they could speak to her alone. She told us to leave her. All her women. She was certain. Loud. And so we left. And then we heard her scream. And we ran back to her, but he was killing her, striking her. She wasn’t dying. There was blood. She was crying out for you, crying out your name. He struck her harder, harder, harder until she fell. Her life was gone.

  MENELAOS. No. No.

  SLAVE. There was screaming. Her women. Some running from the room. I ran to her, my legs were slow. He roared. An animal. He fell onto his knees. Weeping loud. And Electra, the girl, shouting always shouting. She saw me then. She saw the baby. She pushed the knife against my flesh. He came to me. Eyes white. Mad. Tears and blood. He pulled the baby from my hands, pulled back my fingers one by one.

  MENELAOS. They will die for this. Where are they? Where have they taken her?

  SLAVE. I don’t know. I don’t know, Sir.

  MENELAOS. Orestes.

  Fire can be seen coming from another part of the palace.

  SLAVE. Fire.

  MENELAOS. Fire. The Gods protect her.

  (To SOLDIER.) Sound the alarm. They are not dead. The matricides. Fire in the palace. Sound the alarm.

  The SOLDIER rushes away.

  MENELAOS moves towards the door, but is stopped by the sight of ORESTES and ELECTRA. They have stepped out onto a balcony (or roof), high above. ORESTES is holding HERMIONE. He and ELECTRA are splattered with blood.

  Give her back, Orestes. Give me my child.

  ELECTRA. Give us our lives and we will give you your child.

  MENELAOS. You give me my child. Now.

  ORESTES. This child? But you owe me this child. You owed this child to my father and now you owe her to me.

  MENELAOS. If you hurt her I will kill you.

  ORESTES. But you are not good at remembering what you owe. Are you? You’re not good at paying your debts. Menelaos? Uncle?

  MENELAOS. Give her to me.

  ORESTES. You didn’t come. You didn’t come. You / didn’t come.

  MENELAOS. What do you want, Orestes?

  ORESTES. ‘Trust me. Trust me, Orestes.’

  MENELAOS. What do you want?

  ORESTES. I want you gone. That’s what I want. Out of this city. I want you gone. I am the King.

  From outside the palace, alarm bells begin to ring.

  MENELAOS. You? A King?

  ELECTRA. Don’t argue with us, Menelaos.

  MENELAOS. You are mad. You are insane. You think the people will follow you? A matricide – spitting blood with every word you speak? You have murdered my wife. Murderer. Was it good, Orestes, to feel a woman’s flesh against your blade again?

  ORESTES. Helen? Helen? No. Helen is not dead. When I tried to kill her . . . I did try, but the Gods came down and took her away. One of their own.

  MENELAOS. What lies are these?

  ORESTES. Set her in the heavens. A new star in the sky.

  MENELAOS (to SLAVE). Is this true? Did you see this too?

  SLAVE. She is dead. I swear she is dead.

  MENELAOS. I loved her. I gave my life to her.

  ORESTES. The sky opened. A great white light. The roof split. Almighty Zeus reached down. He picked her up with one hand. I saw it. Electra saw it too.

  SOLDIERS appear in the doorway behind MENELAOS. Flames are rising behind ORES
TES.

  ELECTRA. Just let us go, Menelaos.

  MENELAOS. You are dripping in her blood.

  ORESTES. Apollo. Apollo. Come to me now.

  ELECTRA. Let us go. Take us to the border and you will have the baby.

  MENELAOS. You will never walk away from here alive. The palace is surrounded. You will pay for what you’ve done.

  ORESTES. Then she will pay. She will pay for what you’ve done. If our blood is cursed then so is hers. If we must die then so must she. The end of Helen’s line.

  He holds the baby out as though he will drop her.

  MENELAOS. Stop.

  ELECTRA. No. No, Orestes. No. Menelaos, let us go. Just let us go. Somewhere quiet where I can take care of him / make him well.

  MENELAOS. Give me the child. Bring her to me. I’ll let you go.

  ELECTRA. The flames. The flames are high.

  MENELAOS. Give me my child.

  HELEN’s dead body is carried in by a SOLDIER.

  No. No. See what you have done.

  ORESTES looks at the body but will not see it.

  ORESTES. Apollo is coming. He is coming. Do you see, Electra? The light is here.

  ELECTRA. Keep calm, Orestes. Look at me.

  MENELAOS. Do you want more blood on your hands, Electra?

  ORESTES. Apollo, take me now. Take me to you.

  ELECTRA. Orestes. Come to me. Orestes.

  He steps onto the very edge of the drop.

  ORESTES. Sit me by your side. In the light.

  MENELAOS. Stop him.

  ELECTRA. Orestes. Come to me.

  MENELAOS. Don’t hurt her. Please.

  ELECTRA. Orestes. Orestes.

  ORESTES. It would be good, to leave this world.

  He steps off the edge. The baby is still in his arms.

  ELECTRA. No.

  For one moment, he is suspended in the air, in light.

  ORESTES. Look. I am a God.

  Darkness.

  End.

  HELEN EDMUNDSON

  Helen Edmundson’s first play, Flying, was presented at the National Theatre Studio in 1990. In 1992, she adapted Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina for Shared Experience, for whom she also adapted The Mill on the Floss in 1994. Both won awards – the TMA and the Time Out Awards respectively – and both productions were twice revived and extensively toured.