Tags
Alexandra Stiglmeyer, Apollo, Euripides, Feminist Rape Theory, Greek Tragedy, Jonathan Gottschall, Oracle, Playwriting, Rape, Texas Tech Theatre and Dance, The Women of Troy, Theatre, Troy, War, Wartime Rape
Over the Christmas break, I managed to secure a job in the upcoming TTU production of The Women of Troy (Euripides play in a version by Don Taylor), directed by the inimitable Benjamin Slate as part of his dissertation. I was drafted in (after some not-so-subtle suggestions on my part) to compose some original oracle responses to the various choral odes throughout the play, a job that basically puts me in the position of speechwriter for the god Apollo, master of prophecy. I was thrilled to be a part of the production in any way that I could; Ben and his wife/stage manager Valerie are close friends, and Ben’s thesis is all about feminist rape theory, rape being a sadly ever-present problem in our world and one that is all too often shunted to the corners of society, just the kind of sticky subject I think good art should be tackling.
What Ben made clear early on is that he wanted to get as much information about wartime rape in these oracle responses as possible, but he wanted the information delivered in a way that was poetic rather than stilted, something in keeping with the style of the rest of the play. He gave me one particular article, “Explaining Wartime Rape” by Jonathan Gottschall, that I was able to draw plenty of information from, and our conversation about that article yielded a few key points that needed to be hit in these oracles:
-Rape has been a part of war since war was invented, and any and all wars in human history have involved systematic rape on both sides of the conflict; thus, a vote for war is a vote for rape.
-Rape is often used as a strategy to break resistance from a community.
-Rape has been used as a method of ethnic cleansing; by invading the gene pool, a conquering force can basically breed their enemies out of existence.
-Rape is about power, not sex, and is often about proving one’s masculinity, about proving a point to other men; to rape another man’s woman is to take and abuse that man’s property.
-Rape is more common in highly patriarchal societies that put undue emphasis on “masculine” qualities.
One particularly instructive quote in Gottschall’s article comes from Alexandra Stiglmeyer:
A rape is an aggressive and humiliating act, as even a soldier knows, or at least suspects. He rapes because he wants to engage in violence. He rapes because he wants to demonstrate his power. He rapes because he is the victor. He rapes because the woman is the enemy’s woman, and he wants to humiliate and annihilate the enemy. He rapes because the woman is herself the enemy whom he wishes to humiliate and annihilate. He rapes because he despises women. He rapes to prove his virility. He rapes because the acquisition of the female body means a piece of territory conquered. He rapes to take out on someone else the humiliation he has suffered in the war. He rapes to work off his fears. He rapes because war, a man’s business, has awakened his aggressiveness, and he directs it at those who play a subordinate role in the world of war.
Obviously this is a lot to get across, not just in the mass of the facts but in the dark depths of them. This would have to be a very dark sort of poetry, something that carries a great deal of doom and cultivates an overwhelming sense of foreboding. Still, I decided early on that I wanted to include some small flickers of light, particularly at the end; as heavy as it is that rap remains a horrible fact of life, there is always hope if people bind together. Here is the first of eight responses as it stands right now:
Hear, hear, hear me, women of Troy – rich and poor, young and old, wed and unwed – crushed under the heel of Greece: you tremble in fear and your fear will be confirmed. Since the fall of the Titans, to the age of invasion, beyond into the desert wars where the earth bleeds with black gold – womenkind shall have their purity plucked from them, shall be pillaged like a bounty, shall be turned into the spoils of war. Thousands upon thousands all at once, one in three taken in violence.
The triple repetition at the beginning occurs in all of the responses, as does the coda “Thousands upon thousands, one in three.” This lends something of a rhythm to the responses, perhaps a sense of ritual as well.
Be sure to check out The Women of Troy at Texas Tech University March 6th-8th at 8pm and March 9th at 2pm, with a student-only preview on March 5th at 8pm. A number of groups specializing in counseling and protective services will also be present.