Writerly thoughts

[adiva_calandia]

Realization, re Pandora:

It's incomplete. That's part of the problem. It's okay if each half currently has a distinct beginning, middle, and climax, because really they're two ten-minute plays with a through character.

Greek tragedies come in threes, not twos.

The problem now is what the third play is. The through characters thus far have been Epimetheus and the Chorus, but I'm pretty certain the third part can't be Adelphaki. Adelphaki is a totally different story, thematically -- it's about family, and Pandora is about knowledge.

Prometheus is a prominent presence in the second half of Pandora, though he never appears onstage. Perhaps the third part needs to be about him again -- his rescue by Hercules? But that's not his story, that's Hercules'; knowledge is passed on, but the only people who really care about it are Hercules and Zeus. Anyway, I'm resistant to focusing on Prometheus after his punishment, in this work. Aeschylus already did that. Maybe someday I'll rewrite The Prometheia -- but that's not what this project is about.

The other obvious story that follows chronologically from Prometheus->Pandora is the Flood, and Deucalion and Pyrrha. I admit to a certain attraction to Pyrrha, but only because her name starts with a P, and that'd be a nice sort of consistency, or something. I'm just not sure what there is to be said about her and her story; she survives the deluge because, depending on the story, Prometheus told Deucalion how to survive, or because she and Deucalion had never insulted Zeus and he spared them; she throws some rocks and is a progenitor of the human race, like her uncle. I suppose I might be able to make a story of preserving knowledge, but I'm not . . . compelled.

(Tangentially: newredshoes, have you ever Millicanoned anything about Prometheus in re: Deucalion?)

There's an option, I suppose, of taking a several-generation-leap to the story of Dionysus and talking about theatre and knowledge. I'm writing this for a distinctly academic setting, after all. (Hence the jokes that are only going to make people who think like me laugh -- the visual pun of Prometheus offering an apple to a snake, f'r instance. Did anyone get that, or am I the only person who thought it was funny? >.>;)

Hm. When I get home this summer, I anticipate spending a lot of time with my D'Aulaire's rewriting this and editing Adelphaki.

Comments

[nepheliad.livejournal.com]

Having just written a scene, this morning with Pandora and Deucalion, this post just made me squeal a little. That's all. :|



Also no no no the apple/snake thing was fantastic.

But I can talk a little about Deucalion and Pyrrha in my view – admittedly my versions are slightly adapted, despite the fact I've written both Deucalion and Pandora in original form also (also first) – but they survived, in the version of the myth I was told, because they were smart. They threw the rocks because they figured out it was supposed to be rocks that needed to be thrown. Bones of the Earth.

[newredshoes]

I know I've been asked this question before... and I can't remember the answer. I want to say I left it open-ended. If in doubt, refer to this?

If you want to keep going with Epimetheus as a through character, what does he do during the flood, which he has no choice but to survive?

[the_croupier]

Well, if Pandora is about knowledge (which it is), why not have a third part about family? That might allow you to say something about the social dimension of knowledge, which must necessarily begin for most people through their relations with immediate family members.

Possible?