When the doors open, the audience enters onto a darkened stage. A woman sits on a chair facing away from the audience. She is watching, projected on a screen, the story of Agamemnon and his wife Clytemnestra told in news clips, films. It unfolds in jumps, quick flashes. Behind the screen hangs a clothesline full of clothes. The clothes are hanging on hangers. Hanging like bodies. Clothes signifying the thousands of humans who are displaced by war. Families who walk out of their country into others to seek safety and a new life. This is their story and ours, the story of we humans who choose war repeatedly. Choose the battle of greed for power, land, and control over those who live under our power.
Rafika Chawishe makes her US debut at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club with her heartbreaking 60-minute re-telling of Aeschylus’ “Agamemnon” entitled Agamemnon The Circle of Blood. This is a multimedia telling with actual film footage and reenactments of past wars and the wars going on today. Images of refugee camps today and young children laughing and chasing after the drones that are filming them. Children living in squalor because their families had to leave their homes or be killed. The video of those sweet children chasing after the drone is heart-wrenching.
Chawishe did not create this from reading about it. She was there. Working at the border of Greece, helping families crossover. Many children. Children crossing alone, put on this journey by their parents in hopes that they will live and thrive. I think of the Kinder transport created to get children out of Nazi Germany and Poland. Children prosecuted for no reason but their religion. Her,e children are prosecuted for no reason but their nationality.
Chawishe combines the film footage with monologues of those who have made it over. One, a woman in a blood-stained shirt being told that she will have to fill out papers and then wait two years to find out if she can remain in the country or be sent back. While waiting, she cannot work or get a job, find proper housing, or start a life of any kind. They must wait TWO YEARS in a tent in a refugee camp to find out if they can start life over again or not. The paperwork, the hoops to jump through, are daunting and insurmountable.
And Chawishe arrives to us as Clytemnestra the wife of Agamemnon. Clytemnestra will herself be soaked in blood. In the blood of her husband murdered by Agamemnon’s cousin/her lover, Aegisthus. Murdered to avenge the murder of Clytemnestra’s daughter Iphigenia, whom Agamemnon sacrificed to the goddess Artemis to appease her for favorable winds. After the sacrifice, Artemis allows the winds to blow; thus, Agamemnon’s fleet sets sail to conquer Troy. Clytemnestra is a woman witnessing and living the insanity of it all. To avenge one murder with another debases all involved. The question to ask is are all of us at the mercy of hatred? Hate and revenge? Well, if our Gods require sacrifices, then so shall we.
The theater is filled with the sounds of helicopters flying overhead and bombs exploding. All of it is so loud the floor rumbles, and the seats shake. This is the reality of living in a war zone.
Chawishe says this production is her way of protesting. Protesting the wars and the treatment of the refugees seeking safety. She creates precise awareness for the viewer to see what needs to be protested. The harsh treatment of the refugees and the ridiculous amount of paperwork that is so complicated that you need a translator for it.
Agamemnon: The Circle of Blood is a powerful 60 minutes. You won’t go away untouched.
Agamemnon: The Circle of Blood World Premiere Concept, direction, and performance by Rafika Chawishe Writer: Aeschylus , Yiannis Ritsos ( Agamemnon )
LaMama The Downstairs
66 East 4th Street, basement level
New York, NY 10003
Through November 24 – Tickets: Adults: $30, Students/Seniors: $25, First 10 tickets are $10 (limit 2 per person) Ticket prices are inclusive of all fees.
Late seating is not permitted for this performance.
This performance is in English, Greek, and Arabic (English subtitles).
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