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    Triptych and Iphigenia: Two Plays
    Triptych and Iphigenia: Two Plays
    Triptych and Iphigenia: Two Plays
    Ebook113 pages1 hour

    Triptych and Iphigenia: Two Plays

    By Edna O'Brien

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    About this ebook

    Two plays by the acclaimed Irish author: an adaption of Euripides and an “emotionally bruising drama” of three women obsessed with the same man (The New York Times).

    Triptych

    With searing acuity, O’Brien presents the story of three women—a mistress, a wife, and a daughter—who are all helplessly drawn to Henry: their lover, husband, and father. While Henry himself never appears, his specter is never absent as these women confront the ways that love can simultaneously liberate and entrap. Triptych is a powerful work that explores sex, marriage, and predatory relationships.

    Iphigenia

    In this modern take on the Greek tragedy, O’Brien takes creative license with Euripides’s tale of a daughter sacrificed for the sake of war. This taut, contemporary version presents, in O’Brien’s own words, “a more equal representation of the power and presence of both male and female characters” (Edna O’Brien, Independent, UK).

    “Intriguingly original . . . emotionally brave and engagingly clever.” –R. Hurwitt, The San Francisco Chronicle
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateDec 1, 2007
    ISBN9780802199133
    Triptych and Iphigenia: Two Plays
    Author

    Edna O'Brien

    Edna O’Brien (1930–2024) was the author of more than twenty-five works of fiction, including The Country Girls, The Little Red Chairs, and The Light of Evening. She received numerous awards, including the PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature, the Irish PEN Award for Literature, the National Arts Club Medal of Honor, and the Ulysses Medal. Born and raised in the west of Ireland, she lived in London for many years.

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      Book preview

      Triptych and Iphigenia - Edna O'Brien

      TRIPTYCH

      Triptych was first presented at Magic Theatre (Chris Smith, artistic director; David Gluck, managing director) in the Sam Shepard Theatre, Fort Mason Center, San Francisco, on December 6, 2003. The cast was as follows:

      MISTRESS   Lise Bruneau

      WIFE   Julia Brothers

      DAUGHTER   Tro M. Shaw

      Director Paul Whitworth

      Designer Kate Edmunds

      Lighting Kurt Landisman

      Costume Designer B. Modern

      Sound Designer Michael Woody

      Properties Artisan Sarah Ellen Joynt

      Stage Manager Sabrina Kniffin

      Production Manager Kenny Bell

      Casting Director Jessica Heidt

      CHARACTERS

      MISTRESS  , Clarissa

      WIFE  , Pauline

      DAUGHTER  , Brandy

      The action takes place in New York City.

      Downstage left—a white wrought iron bench.

      Each character has her own space onstage but at times invades the space of the other.

      MISTRESS’s area—a staircase, a makeup table, a makeup case, a mirror with makeup lights, two shawls, and a book; The Duchess of Malfi. A long narrow window to the rear.

      WIFE’s area—a glass-top table, a drinks tray, glasses, a silver cigarette box, a pack of tarot cards, unlit candles in various sconces, a white orchid in a pot, a china umbrella stand with a man’s black umbrella.

      She is wearing a wraparound red skirt and a black sweater.

      DAUGHTER’s area—above wife’s area. A futon. A small drum and set of drumsticks.

      She is wearing a miniskirt and different colored slides in her hair.

      SCENE ONE

      Music—Jimmy Durante:

      When I fall in love

      It will be for ever

      Or I’ll never

      Fall in love

      When I give my heart

      It will be … for ever

      Stage lighting comes on fully as MISTRESS dressed in black as widowed Duchess of Malfi (circa 1601) stands before her mirror, saying her lines inaudibly. She is clearly nervous. On the bureau a vase of exquisite flowers.

      MISTRESS   (saying her lines) The misery of us, that are born great,

      We are forc’d to woo, because

      None dare woo us:

      And as a tyrant doubles with his words,

      And fearfully equivocates: so we

      Are forc’d to express our violent passions

      In riddles, and in dreams …

      She stops suddenly as in the mirror she sees a hand come around the door, then a woman enter in dark glasses, wearing a long cream raincoat and carrying a large bunch of sunflowers.

      WIFE   I hope you like sunflowers … not everybody’s taste, of course … somewhat glaring … brazen, but I find them so … sturdy … the sunflower.

      MISTRESS   I think you’ve come to the wrong dressing room.

      WIFE   (ignoring that) Il Girasole. On a train in Tuscany and Umbria one passes field after field of them … scorching, my honeymoon, our honeymoon was in pensions in Umbria … field after field of hot flowers … the bedrooms so cool … shutters drawn, dark brown furniture, dark brown fourposters … and the linen starched so stiff … it literally crunched when we lay on it … yes, the bedroom so cold and chaste and the fields so very hot and the lovers so ardent (brusque) not married, are you? … no little kids to grace the walls … a dressing room is quite a lonely place.

      MISTRESS   Who are you?

      WIFE   A stranger … just popped by to wish you well on your opening night and give you a flower … not at all as beautiful as those (examining the flowers in the vase) someone with more taste than moi … an admirer (nostalgic) it brings me back … how it brings me back … I was an actress, too … ingénue … I had a future, people compared me to some of the greats … then cupid struck in the form of a young man who just decided to hang around the stage door, pestering me, the way I am pestering you … just waltzed into my life.

      MISTRESS   I shall have to have you removed.

      WIFE   Not before I wish you well. I bet you’re superstitious, especially on a night like this … all jitters.

      MISTRESS   How did you get in here?

      WIFE   The door was ajar. I walked in and walked down the stairs, simple. And now, I will vanish, like the sisters in that Scottish play, which we don’t mention … Good luck, Duchess.

      Woman puts down the flowers and goes.

      Mistress picks up the flowers, then unnerved, throws them down.

      VOICE OF STAGE MANAGER   Ladies and Gentlemen of the Duchess of Malfi Company: Please take your places for the top of the show. Places, please, for the top of the show.

      Mistress walks over the flowers and toward the stairs. She ascends it holding up her costume.

      Lights go slowly down.

      SCENE TWO

      Darkness.

      Dulcimer music of the period is intermingled with a collage of lines from The Duchess of Malfi as the wind rises and gathers to a storm.

      The vase of flowers overturns and the exquisite flowers fall to the floor. All the flowers blow around the stage, up, down, and around, omens of what is to come.

      Loud clapping offstage. Lights back on.

      SCENE THREE

      Mistress, out of her costume, wears a kimono. The Wife has returned.

      Wife has the sleeves of her coat rolled up and is wearing elbow-length black velvet gloves; she is clapping and smiling.

      WIFE   Bravo … Bravo. You were wonderful … wonderful … I loved just before you were strangled when you said, Give my little boy some syrup for his cough. So beautiful …

      MISTRESS   (crisp) Thank you.

      WIFE   When is your birthday? … Wouldn’t it be funny if we had the same birthday?

      MISTRESS   Why would it be funny?

      WIFE   (mock serious) Destiny.

      MISTRESS   (holding the door open) If you will excuse me … I have friends waiting.

      WIFE   Of course you have. (theatrical) Then I’ll go pray; no, I’ll go curse the stars.

      Wife goes out.

      MISTRESS   Jesus.

      Mistress picks up the broken vase and some of the flowers.

      The telephone rings and she jumps, then goes tentatively to answer it. As she listens her expression changes to a smile.

      MISTRESS   Yes, of course I know … How do I know? … Henry … I can’t see you … I cannot. (She listens, her smile happier.) You know very well why … you are a married man and I have been down that road before. (emphatic) It’s hell. What’s hell about it?—when the married man goes home. Of course I want to … (whisper) you know that. (anxious) There’s been a crazy woman in here … it’s been a very crazy night … storm … oh, it went well … so they say … thank you for the exquisite flowers … by the way, I thought you were in the country … you what? … (She cradles the phone between mouth and ear.) All right then … just one drink … one night cap … promise

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