tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43024145458141320392024-02-21T01:04:03.872-08:00UT's HelenAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17539108527729186698noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4302414545814132039.post-31475905728762173912014-11-05T18:47:00.001-08:002014-11-19T20:15:20.764-08:00<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Ellen McLaughlin's <i>Helen</i>, Directed by Shannon Davis I:</b></span><br />
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<img height="640" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ui=2&ik=7930267121&view=fimg&th=1498b2d7470a76fc&attid=0.1.1&disp=emb&attbid=ANGjdJ8dRUV5BWxxjN-2ypEtFOWnnxiXzv01eJ5QQ3Srr--YLj1roFME0IDxmO0rVOK8Pr_Zn1VS6iQAL2bhBZAMTRuJ20GYv3kN9IdYJ-KwGrXcrRTvH5JWU6TRyUc&sz=w1054-h1468&ats=1416449694398&rm=1498b2d7470a76fc&zw&atsh=1" width="459" /><br />
<b>Playwright Ellen McLaughlin</b><br />
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<b>Ellen McLaughlin and the Theatre Communications Group have kindly granted us permission </b><b>to reprint Ms. McLaughlin's opening essay on her play <i>Helen</i>, a very free variation on </b><b>Euripides' tragicomedy, <i>Helen</i>, which is currently in production at the University Theatre, </b><b>University of Wisconsin-Madison, under the direction of Shannon Davis.</b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Introduction</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Euripides’ <i>Helen</i> is surely one of the strangest plays ever written. </b><b>I have Brian Kulick to thank </b><b>for turning my attention to </b><b>it. Brian has always had an uncanny ability to steer me toward the </b><b>most challenging and provocative texts. He was the person who </b><b>suggested that I adapt <i>Electra</i> </b><b>for a production The Actors’ Gang </b><b>in L.A. was putting together of <i>The Oresteia</i>. This </b><b>production </b><b>would instigate my trilogy, <i>Iphigenia and Other Daughters</i>, as well </b><b>as Chuck Mee’s </b><b><i>Orestes</i> and <i>Agamemnon 2.0</i>. Not bad for one dramaturgical </b><b>idea. But then Brian has one of </b><b>the </b><b>great ears—he </b><b>genuinely seems to listen to the particular playwright’s voice, and </b><b>that </b><b>receptiveness to nuance and idiosyncrasy makes him capable </b><b>of suggesting what a writer seems </b><b>to want to grapple with, even </b><b>when the writer herself does not know. </b><b>I must also thank Liz </b><b>Engelman, a dramaturg of unparalleled faith </b><b>and determination, who, because she simply </b><b>wouldn’t give </b><b>up on me, basically made me write the play. I’d been asked to be </b><b>part of the </b><b>Women Playwrights Festival at ACT in Seattle, where </b><b>Liz was then working—a festival that </b><b>was shaped around the </b><b>readings of four playwrights’ newest work, followed by a retreat </b><b>at Hedgebrook artists colony on Whidbey Island. This was all very </b><b>well in theory, but I </b><b>couldn’t seem to write a play. </b></span><br />
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<img src="http://www.modernlib.com/authors/eAuthors/Euripides%20images/EuripidesIII.Plays.1966.big.jpg" /><br />
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<b> <span style="font-size: large;"> I’d been through </span></b><span style="font-size: large;"><b>the crucible of the opening of my play <i>Tongue of a Bird</i> at The </b><b>Public </b><b>Theater to resoundingly dreadful reviews all around and </b><b>I had consequently not been able to </b><b>write so much as a postcard </b><b>for nearly a year. When, in the winter of 1998, Liz asked me to </b><b>consider doing this thing in May 1999, I’d thought, well, by then </b><b>I’ll either be writing again or </b><b>I’ll have to kill myself, so why not? </b><b>But by April, though I still had a pulse, I was apparently </b><b>incapable </b><b>of even considering getting back in the shark-infested water that </b><b>was the </b><b>playwright’s existence, as I saw it. </b><b>After weeks of staring into the remorseless blankness of my </b><b>computer screen and my own mind, gibbering with frustration, </b><b>I called Liz. For weeks, she’d </b><b>been gently prodding me with emails </b><b>about the need to see the play so they could cast it and so f</b><b>orth. </b><b>Her cheerful tone had become somewhat strained as the days and </b><b>weeks went by and I </b><b>kept stalling, thinking I could write something </b><b>or other before anyone had to know what a total </b><b>washout </b><b>I was. I finally had to admit that not only did I not have a play to </b><b>send her, I didn’t </b><b>have an idea for a play. The only thing I could </b><b>think to do at that late date was to back out and </b><b>hope they could </b><b>find some playwright who could take my place. </b><b>There was a pause and then </b><b>Liz </b><b>said, “If you wrote one page, </b><b>we would produce it. We’ll wait. See what you can do.” So </b><b>while </b><b>I was wiping tears of amazement and gratitude from my face.</b></span><br />
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<img src="http://www.festivaldifilosofia.it/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/LocandinaElena.jpg" height="640" width="271" /><br />
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" 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<span style="font-size: large;"><b> I recalled that Brian Kulick, who was the associate director at The </b><b>Public when </b><b><i>Tongue of a </i></b><b><i>Bird</i></b><b> was produced there, had said at the </b><b>time that he thought I should take a look at </b><b>Euripides’ </b><b><i>Helen</i>, </b><b>wherein Helen never goes to Troy at all, having been replaced by </b><b>a </b><b>simulacrum, made by the gods, who is taken to Troy in her place </b><b>while the real Helen spends </b><b>the entire war in Egypt, evading the </b><b>wandering hands of the pharaoh’s son and waiting for </b><b>Menelaus </b><b>to come pick her up after the war is over. Most peculiar. </b><b>Euripides wrote it, as far as </b><b>we can make out, in 412 B.C., which </b><b>was precisely the point at which the first reports were just </b><b>coming </b><b>back to Athens concerning the calamitous outcome of their </b><b>expedition against Sicily. </b><b>The city was in shock, beginning to take </b><b>in just how disastrous that imperial venture had been. </b><b>(Not a single </b><b>boat came back. Of the Athenians who weren’t killed outright, </b><b>a vast number </b><b>ended up working and dying as slaves in the quarries </b><b>of Syracuse.) Rather than write </b><b>something along the lines of </b><b><i>The Trojan Women</i>, an outright <i>cri de coeur</i> against war and its </b><b>horrors, of which the Athenians were all too aware at the </b><b>moment, he wrote <i>Helen</i>, which is </b></span><b style="font-size: x-large;">unlike anything else we have </b><b style="font-size: x-large;">in the canon of classic plays.</b><br />
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<img src="http://cdn-2.nonsolocultura.it/o/j/le-tragedie-di-euripide_5b7ed1c4119cca195f9ebc75788ab639.jpg" /><br />
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<b> <span style="font-size: large;"><i>Helen </i>is what might be called a tragicomedy and the sense of </span></b><span style="font-size: large;"><b>it is somewhat surreal, at least </b><b>to modern ears. The basic premise </b><b>seems absurd and slightly amusing at the same time that </b><b>there is </b><b>something terrifically disturbing about the whole thing. As one </b><b>might suspect, the play </b><b>involves a number of recognition </b><b>scenes—the Greek equivalent of double and triple takes—as </b><b>Helen has to say, over and over again, that yes, it really is she and </b><b>she’s been here, in Egypt, of </b><b>all places, all this time.</b></span><b style="font-size: x-large;"> </b><br />
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<img src="http://cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JPG_400/MI0001/072/MI0001072562.jpg?partner=allrovi.com" /><br />
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<b> <span style="font-size: large;">Menelaus </span></b><span style="font-size: large;"><b>comes off as something of a buffoon and the ending devolves into </b><b>hijinks as he </b><b>and </b><b>Helen try to figure out how they are going to </b><b>escape and hie themselves back to Sparta </b><b>without being stopped </b><b>by the feckless new pharaoh, who, unlike his dead father, is something </b><b>of a cad and has designs on Helen that don’t need to be enumerated. </b><b>But there are a few needle </b><b>points of perplexity and </b><b>despair that Euripides conceals in the froth of that demi-farce. </b><b>Early </b><b>on in the play, Helen is confronted by a Greek soldier </b><b>who, after finally being convinced that </b><b>she is who she seems to be, </b><b>lets out a howl of disbelief and horror at the thought that so many </b><b>should have died for a mere phantom, for nothing, in fact. Helen </b><b>herself is nonplussed by this, </b><b>but then she would be. Later, when </b><b>Menelaus has been led to the same improbable truth and </b><b>she asks </b><b>him to take her home, now that it’s all over, he hesitates, just for </b><b>a line or two, but it is </b><b>enough to discomfit. If she wasn’t there, in </b><b>Troy, then she’s not really the one who matters, not </b><b>the one they </b><b>fought the war over, he thinks, and taking her home won’t make </b><b>any sense of the </b><b>whole senseless business of the war they all went </b><b>through. But Euripides has the simulacrum </b><b>vanish miraculously </b><b>in a puff of smoke shortly after this conversation, and </b><b>consequently </b><b>Menelaus has no actual choice to make. He can either </b><b>take the real Helen home </b><b>or </b><b>take home nothing. </b></span><br />
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<img src="http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2010/197/6/9/Helen_Menelaus_by_Val3DaShorty.jpg" height="640" width="480" /><br />
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<b> <span style="font-size: large;"> Euripides’ <i>Helen </i></span></b><span style="font-size: large;"><b>is far smarter than his Menelaus and handily persuades him past </b><b>his </b><b>slight </b><b>wobble in resolve. Still, that moment interested me. And </b><b>I’m sure it didn’t pass </b><b>unnoticed </b><b>by the audience at the first production </b><b>either. To find that a ghastly war was fought </b><b>under false </b><b>pretenses makes the war almost unthinkably obscene—a truth </b><b>Americans are all </b><b>too familiar with at this moment in our history. </b><b>Consequently, this play becomes one of the </b><b>greatest, if strangest, </b><b>antiwar plays ever written, and it continues to disturb centuries </b><b>later.</b></span><br />
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<b> I take greater liberties with this text than I have taken with any </b><b>of the others, but I still feel </b><b>that fundamentally, it is a fairly direct </b><b>response to what the Euripides text invokes. This is a </b><b>play that </b><b>takes beauty quite seriously, as I think the Greeks did. The power </b><b>of the phenomenon </b><b>of human beauty still awes and mesmerizes </b><b>us many centuries later, and we are still in the grip </b><b>of a kind of </b><b>psychotic addiction to it, certainly in this culture. There are </b><b>Helens aplenty in the </b><b>modern world, and I suppose always will be.</b></span><br />
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<img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9e/Berlin_Wall_Marilyn_Monroe_Graffiti.JPG" height="640" width="480" /><br />
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<b> <span style="font-size: large;"> My Helen is self-aware, conscious of the eerie powerless power </span></b><span style="font-size: large;"><b>she embodies, and no less in </b><b>the thrall of it than any of her admirers </b><b>are, since she’s been one of its chief victims. She is an </b><b>odd conflation </b><b>of every modern notion of beauty bound to celebrity, from </b><b>Jackie through </b><b>Marilyn to Diana, as much as she is the quintessential </b><b>Helen of myth. She is what Helen has </b><b>become, what she </b><b>has morphed into over time, but she is still what birthed the ideal. </b><b>It is, not </b><b>surprisingly, an overwhelming identity to maintain, as it </b><b>has been for every Helen throughout </b><b>human history. </b><b>I was first intrigued by the play because I’d always had such </b><b>trouble </b><b>summoning compassion for the mythical figure. Who can </b><b>take her seriously? Not even Helen </b><b>herself can manage to, it </b><b>seems. But as I got a chance to work with the figure I found her</b><b>quite compelling and complex. It is her very ambivalence about </b><b>her power that interests. She </b><b>certainly benefits from it—she gets </b><b>through the bloodbath of the war fought in her name </b><b>without so </b><b>much as breaking a fingernail apparently, whether she spends the </b><b>time in Troy or </b><b>not. According to legend, unfazed by the mayhem </b><b>she has unleashed, she then lives to simper </b><b>charmingly with </b><b>Menelaus in Sparta over the absurdity of it all when Telemachus </b><b>visits the </b><b>couple years later in <i>The Odyssey</i>. She was worshipped </b><b>as a goddess in her home city, Sparta, </b><b>and most myths imply that </b><b>she sidled into the pantheon after her death and was rendered </b><b>eternal in the bargain. No one, not even the Trojans she destroyed, </b><b>could help worshipping her, </b><b>but though she inspires awe, she </b><b>never seems to inspire much affection. How could she, since </b><b>everywhere she goes she wreaks havoc? </b><b>Still, she seems to do virtually nothing other than look </b><b>like herself.</b></span><br />
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<img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8d/Helene_Paris_David.jpg" height="640" width="482" /><br />
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">David's <i>The Love of Helen and Paris</i>.</span></b><br />
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<b> <span style="font-size: large;"> Even the conventional story of the inception of the war seems </span></b><span style="font-size: large;"><b>to rob her of agency for her </b><b>fate. She is always said to have been </b><b>abducted by Paris, who ranks as the callow villain of the </b><b>piece. She </b><b>never has much say in the matter, either as to whether she wishes to </b><b>go to Troy or </b><b>whether she wishes to go home again once the damage </b><b>is done. She goes, or is taken, where </b><b>legend demands. Since </b><b>she is never so much as nicked by the course of events and arrives </b><b>wherever myth transports her looking as enchanting and flawless </b><b>as she was when she started </b><b>out, it’s hard to see her as having any </b><b>real character to speak of, which is to say dimension, a </b><b>quality only </b><b>mutability and agency can lend. I came to think that there was </b><b>something </b><b>poignant </b><b>about a character of such awesome stature </b><b>who has no legitimate claim to the </b><b>authentic, tragic weight of </b><b>most epic figures. This has something to do with the preternatural </b><b>quality of beauty itself, which has nothing to do with character, </b><b>justice or, indeed, truth. </b><b>Beauty </b><b>is simply endowed to her, as it is </b><b>to all such entities, fictional or not, and it is their </b><b>peculiar blessing </b><b>and curse for as long as it lasts. Much of the play has to do with </b><b>Helen’s </b><b>contemplation of this phenomenon—beauty—that she </b><b>embodies. It is a contemplation she has </b><b>been undertaking for all </b><b>the years of her strange entrapment, and her partner in metaphysical </b><b>discussion is, for the most part, the Servant.</b></span><br />
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<b> <span style="font-size: large;">The Servant is the most powerful figure in the play and the </span></b><span style="font-size: large;"><b>most elusive character for an </b><b>actor to grasp. I was blessed in The </b><b>Public Theater production to have the mighty and unique </b><b>Marian </b><b>Seldes interpret the role. She taught me a great deal about this </b><b>character’s sly </b><b>subversiveness, her hidden grandeur, and her dry </b><b>humor. The Servant has been Helen’s sole </b><b>intimate and confidant </b><b>for seventeen years. She’s also been the sole victim of her pettish </b><b>rages </b><b>and fits. Yet most importantly, she has been Helen’s storyteller.</b></span><br />
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<b> <span style="font-size: large;"> Helen is addicted to narrative (having been deprived of her </span></b><span style="font-size: large;"><b>own) and the two of them have a </b><b>ritual that has been enacted </b><b>daily over the years, wherein the Servant tells Helen stories. But </b><b>not just any stories—the Servant has been telling Helen stories </b><b>that are all versions of her own </b><b>myth—there are, after all, an infinite </b><b>number. Why does she do this? For all these years, the </b><b>Servant </b><b>has been tracking her charge’s progress toward enlightenment </b><b>and prodding her </b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>along, using various techniques. But there is a </b><b>sense that today is the day; today Helen must be </b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>brought to a </b><b>recognition of her real story, her own story, of which she will have </b><b>to acknowledge </b><b>herself the author, and she must be brought to the </b><b>understanding that the end of it is </b><b>something </b><b>she will have to </b><b>write alone. Still, before she can do that, she will have to learn </b><b>several </b><b>things. Some she will learn from her visitors and some from </b><b>the Servant herself, who </b><b>will take their usual discussions to the </b><b>next necessary step each time, nudging Helen toward </b><b>consciousness </b><b>of her capabilities and her ability to choose her fate rather </b><b>than remain in </b><b>passivity. But as much as the Servant is highly </b><b>aware of everything that happens in the room, </b><b>and is wise, even </b><b>compassionate at times, these two people are heartily sick of each </b><b>other as </b><b>well, and their perpetual familiarity has bred a fair </b><b>amount of weary bickering. The Servant is, </b><b>as much as anything, </b><b>preparing her mistress for the time when they will finally be free </b><b>of each </b><b>other. Nevertheless, there should be tenderness at times, </b><b>particularly in the final section, when </b><b>the Servant at long last tells </b><b>Helen her own story. This is an act of compassion and high </b><b>imaginative </b><b>verve and it should leave Helen poised on the very brink </b><b>of the most important </b><b>decision she will ever make. </b><b>I decided to bring Io in at the beginning of the play, though it </b><b>makes no sense, as Helen points out, in terms of the chronology </b><b>of myth. Io is one of the most </b><b>ancient examples of the mortal girl </b><b>raped by Zeus. And she pays a terrible price for his </b><b>singling </b><b>her </b><b>out: she is transformed into a cow and persecuted for years by </b><b>Hera’s gadfly. But I </b><b>liked the notion of these two icons of exceptional </b><b>female fate conversing with each other. They </b><b>are bookends </b><b>of a sort, the forerunner and the apotheosis of a kind of female </b><b>singularity. And </b><b>Io’s narrative of exile and transmutation is </b><b>important for Helen to hear, as is her forthright </b><b>relationship to </b><b>her own destiny. I also liked the idea of beginning the play with </b><b>a character who </b><b>is so genuinely benign, guileless and funny as a </b><b>foil for Helen’s tarter edge. She is also more </b><b>worldly than Helen, </b><b>having seen far more of the world than she ever wanted to, and </b><b>her </b><b>suffering has ennobled her rather than crushed her spirit.</b></span><br />
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<b> Helen, for all of her sophistication, is not particularly worldly, </b><b>having been protected from </b><b>all </b><b>that by her special status, and it is </b><b>appropriately startling and sobering for her to encounter </b><b>this particular </b><b>figure. The pairing of these two characters also gives me </b><b>the opportunity to </b><b>have </b><b>two mortal women, colleagues, as it were, </b><b>speak to each other about the odd trials and </b><b>perils of being female. </b><b>I wrote the part of Io for Johanna Day, who played it with the kind</b><b>of depth and sharp pathos that only a really great comic actor can </b><b>bring to such a part. </b></span><br />
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<b> <span style="font-size: large;"> I chose Athena to be the herald of the news of what happened </span></b><span style="font-size: large;"><b>at Troy because, again, I </b><b>thought this would be a fun conversation </b><b>to overhear. I wanted the most male-identified female </b><b>divinity </b><b>(the goddess of war, after all) to encounter this ideal of the </b><b>female, because the friction </b><b>would be greatest and the conflict </b><b>most fruitful. Helen is, to be sure, terrified, at least initially, </b><b>by </b><b>this goddess, much more than she would be by anyone else from </b><b>the pantheon, male or </b><b>female, and yet she needs to be able to hold </b><b>her own with her, possessing as she does a mastery </b><b>Athena never </b><b>obtained. Though Athena is indisputably the more powerful of </b><b>the two, Helen’s </b><b>self-possession and beauty rankle a bit and unsettle </b><b>her. They should match each other, in </b><b>other </b><b>words, one paragon </b><b>meeting another. As has been the case in all my writings about the </b><b>Trojan War, the First World War, in all its lengthy absurdity and </b><b>horror, is what Athena </b><b>describes when she speaks of the Trojan </b><b>War. This, more than anything, is what disorients </b><b>Helen in the </b><b>encounter. The poetry that’s been skidding through her head all </b><b>these years is </b><b>impossible to assimilate into this nightmare of </b><b>waste and futility.</b></span><br />
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<b> <span style="font-size: large;">Menelaus is not a buffoon, however befuddled he may be by </span></b><span style="font-size: large;"><b>the radically disorienting </b><b>phenomenon he encounters as soon as </b><b>he comes to consciousness. Indeed, he is a decent man </b><b>who has </b><b>been trying for years to make sense of his impossible predicament. </b><b>I don’t think there </b><b>is any question about whether he loves </b><b>his wife, and the choice he must make at the end is </b><b>wrenching, </b><b>given his feeling for her. But he is trying to do the right thing by </b><b>all the victims of </b><b>an apparently senseless war and he makes his </b><b>choice accordingly. I don’t think these </b><b>characters </b><b>ever touch in the </b><b>scene; they are, in a strange way, past that. What we see at the </b><b>very </b><b>end of the scene is an old married couple, speaking as intimately </b><b>and as tenderly as people </b><b>ever speak. This makes his exit all the </b><b>more devastating for them both.</b></span><br />
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<b> <span style="font-size: large;">Helen’s day-to-day existence is strange indeed and it might be </span></b><span style="font-size: large;"><b>helpful to elaborate on it </b><b>briefly. Though she is trapped in this </b><b>tarted-up holding pen of a hotel room, she is not in </b><b>anything like </b><b>limbo. She does actually age and she can feel the time weighing </b><b>on her. She </b><b>doesn’t in fact eat or sleep, as she says, but there is still </b><b>the division of the years into days and </b><b>nights, each one of which </b><b>she manages to get through by use of a series of rituals. In this </b><b>sense </b><b>she bears a resemblance to Winnie in Beckett’s <i>Happy Days</i>, </b><b>whom I’ve always found strangely </b><b>heroic in her ability to organize </b><b>her time into a succession of meaningless rituals. Helen is </b><b>rightfully </b><b>proud of her fly swatting, a skill she has honed with her years </b><b>of practice, and that </b><b>gives her some tiny, if dwindling, satisfaction </b><b>over the course of the day while it occupies the </b><b>time. Since she </b><b>dismantles her elaborate hairdo every night, she and the Servant </b><b>must </b><b>reconstruct it every morning, a fairly arduous task, at least </b><b>for the Servant, who must also </b><b>entertain her with a story. But this </b><b>must be somewhat satisfying for both of them, the finished </b><b>product </b><b>being, of course, once again, absolutely perfect. Together, they </b><b>are the custodians of </b><b>this extraordinary thing—the Helen—and </b><b>I don’t think it ever ceases to amaze them once they </b><b>create it. And </b><b>then there is the poetry, all fragments from <i>The Iliad</i>, which </b><b>Helen isn’t in </b><b>control of; it just occurs to her occasionally, out of </b><b>the blue, and I don’t think she has any idea </b><b>where it comes from.</b></span><br />
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<b> <span style="font-size: large;"> I’ve always been interested in the old notion that it was Helen </span></b><span style="font-size: large;"><b>herself who wrote <i>The </i></b><b><i>Odyssey</i> </b><b>and that she commissioned or </b><b>compelled Homer to write <i>The Iliad</i>. The sense was that </b><b><i>The </i></b><b><i>Odyssey</i> was so grounded in a female sensibility that no man </b><b>could have written it. </b><b>Odysseus is taught, painfully and over the </b><b>course of the long years of his travel, everything he </b><b>needs to know </b><b>to reenter human society after the dehumanizing trauma of war. </b><b>And each of </b><b>his </b><b>mentors, divine or mortal, is female. I liked the </b><b>idea that Helen was, unwittingly or not, the </b><b>author of the Trojan </b><b>War, and that she might actually be the author of the story as well.</b></span><br />
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<b> <span style="font-size: large;"> So I had an aspect of her long process of self-discovery be the </span></b><span style="font-size: large;"><b>claiming of that story. This is </b><b>partly my own notion of this odd </b><b>business of being a writer. We are, most of us, ostensibly </b><b>marginal </b><b>to history, witnesses at the best of times, but often not even that. </b><b>Our claim to our </b><b>stories has less to do with our participation in </b><b>narratives than it does with a deep </b><b>preoccupation, an empathic </b><b>dreaming into those truths. We earn the right to tell the stories </b><b>because they matter to us. After a while, they live in us, getting </b><b>into the bloodstream until the </b><b>time they finally belong to us and </b><b>teach us how to speak them. So my gift to Helen is to give her </b><b>the </b><b>opportunity, not to reenter the myth that outstripped her individual </b><b>self so long ago, but to </b><b>step outside of it and take her place in </b><b>the margins, where writers stand. When it comes to true </b><b>immortality, </b><b>stories are all we mortals will ever know of the divine.</b></span><br />
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<b>They’re what counts.</b></span><br />
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<b><span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">From <i>Greek Plays </i>by Ellen McLaughlin, published by Theatre Communications Group. Copyright © 2005 by Ellen McLaughlin. Used by permission of Theatre Communications Group.<u></u><u></u></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Ellen McLaughlin's <i>Helen</i>, Directed by Shannon Davis II:</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>The idea of Helen of Troy as the author of <i>The Odyssey </i>is one that haunts the ending of Ellen </b><b>McLaughlin's free adaptation of Euripides' <i>Helen </i>(see McLaughlin's essay above), and it is one </b><b>with a notable pedigree. Although he never assigns the great epic of ancient Greek literature </b><b>directly to Helen, the famous nineteenth century British novelist, Samuel Butler (<i>The Way of </i></b><b><i>All </i></b><b><i>Flesh</i>, <i>Erewhon</i>), detected a distinct feminine voice in the epic's storied verse, much as </b><b>Harold Bloom argues for the Jahwist in the Tanakh as being a royal woman of Solomon's </b><b>court </b><b>in his <i>The Book of J</i>.</b></span><br />
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<b> In <i>The Authoress of the Odyssey</i>, Butler deftly reveals his evidence for reassigning what was </b><b>thought to be Homer's to an unknown Sappho or Praxilla. Here is part of Butler's first chapter </b><b>in his study, whose ideas inform the final scene of McLaughlin's play:</b></span><br />
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<b>Samuel Butler, <i>Self-Portrait</i></b><br />
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"If, then, poetesses were as abundant as we know them to have been in the earliest known ages of <span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">Greek literature over a wide area of Greece, Asia Minor, and the islands of the Ægæan, there is no </span><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">ground for refusing to admit the possibility that a Greek poetess lived in Sicily B.C. 1000, especially </span><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">when we know from Thucydides that the particular part of Sicily where I suppose her to have lived was </span><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">colonised from the North West corner of Asia Minor centuries before the close of the Homeric age. </span><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">The </span><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">civilisation depicted in the <i>Odyssey</i> is as advanced as any that is likely to have existed in </span><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">Mitylene </span><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">or </span><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">Telos 600-500 B.C., while in both the <i>Iliad</i> and the <i>Odyssey</i> the status of women is </span><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">represented as </span><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">being much what it is at the present, and as incomparably higher than it was in the </span><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">Athenian civilisation </span><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">with which we are best acquainted. To imagine a great Greek poetess at Athens in </span><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">the age of Pericles </span><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">would be to violate probability, but I might almost say that in an age when women </span><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">were as free as they </span><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">are represented to us in the<i> Odyssey</i> it is a violation of probability to suppose </span><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">that there were no </span><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">poetesses.</span></div>
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<b>The poets Sappho and Erinna by Simeon Solomon </b></div>
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We have no reason to think that men found the use of their tongue sooner than women did; why then <span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">should we suppose that women lagged behind men when the use of the pen had become familiar? If a </span><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">woman could work pictures with her needle as Helen did, and as the wife of William the Conqueror </span><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">did </span><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">in a very similar civilisation, she could write stories with her pen if she had a mind to do so.</span><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">The fact that the recognised heads of literature in the Homeric age were the nine Muses—for it is </span><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">always these or 'The Muse' that is involved, and never Apollo or Minerva—throws back the suggestion </span><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">of female authorship to a very remote period, when, to be an author at all, was to be a poet, for prose </span><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">writing is a comparatively late development. Both</span><i style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"> Iliad</i><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"> and </span><i style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">Odyssey</i><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"> begin with an invocation </span><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">addressed to a woman, who, as the head of literature, must be supposed to have been an authoress, </span><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">though none of her works have come down to us. In an age, moreover, when men were chiefly </span><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">occupied either with fighting or hunting, the arts of peace, and among them all kinds of literary </span><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">accomplishment, would be more naturally left to women. If the truth were known, we might very likely </span><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">find that it was man rather than woman who has been the interloper in the domain of literature. </span><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">Nausicaa was more probably a survival than an interloper, but most probably of all she was in the </span><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">height of the fashion." (1897).</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">The poet and epigrammist, Nossis (c. 300 BCE)</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Helen</span></i></b><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">: A Production by Shannon
Davis III:<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: xx-small; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Dante Gabriel Rossetti, <i>Helen of Troy</i></span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> </span><i><span style="font-family: "Times","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">
</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> HELEN</span></i></b></h2>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> by<i> </i><span style="background: white; color: #252525;">Ellen McLaughlin</span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="background: white; color: #252525; font-family: "Times","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">
A Production by Shannon Davis for University
Theatre</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="background: white; color: #504c3e; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">November 21 - December 7, 2014. The Hemsley Theatre, University of
Wisconsin--Madison. (Adults $23; Senior Citizens $21; Friends of UT, Students,
Children $16)</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="background: white; color: #504c3e; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">
</span></b><b><i><u><span style="background: white; color: #252525; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Dramatis Personæ</span></u></i></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="background: white; color: #252525; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">
Helen..................................Anne Guadagnino</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="background: white; color: #252525; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">
Athena................................Chelsea Anderson</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="background: white; color: #252525; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">
</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="background: white; color: #252525; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">
Servant...............................Hillary Dido-Perrone</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="background: white; color: #252525; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">
Io........................................Elena Livorni</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="background: white; color: #252525; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">
Menelaus...........................Daniel Millhouse</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<b><span style="background: white; color: #252525; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="background: white; color: #252525; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Director.........................Shannon
Davis</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="background: white; color: #252525; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Stage
Manager..............Angelique Phanthavong</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="background: white; color: #252525; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Scenic
Designer............Andrea Alguire</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="background: white; color: #252525; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Costume Designer........Amanda
Rabito</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="background: white; color: #252525; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Lighting
Designer.........Rob Stepek</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="background: white; color: #252525; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Vocal
Coach..................Michael Cobb</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="background: white; color: #252525; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Dramaturgs....................Steffen
Silvis</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="background: white; color: #252525; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">
Bridgett Vanderhoof</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="background: white; color: #252525; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Technical
Director..........Vince Davey</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="background: white; color: #252525; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Props Master...................Dana
Fralik</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="background: white; color: #252525; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Sound
Designer..............G.W. Rodriguez</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="background: white; color: #252525; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Assistant
Directors.........Cynthia Miller</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="background: white; color: #252525; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">
Claire Mason</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Dramaturg's Notes:
<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">“All the argument is a cuckold and a
whore”—Thersites, Shakespeare’s <i>Troilus and Cressida </i>(II-iii-71).</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Of the thirty-two extant plays of Aeschylus,
Sophocles, and Euripides, approximately half concern events surrounding the
Trojan War, whether before the conflict (Euripides’ <i>Iphigenia in Aulis</i>),
in the midst of it (Sophocles’ <i>Ajax</i>), or in the poisoned aftermath (the
three plays constituting Aeschylus’ <i>Oresteia</i>). Even the lone, surviving
satyr play, Euripides’ <i>Cyclops</i>, is a post-war incident from Homer’s <i>Odyssey</i>.
</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<img src="http://31.media.tumblr.com/70c213fc1d6ae00ade8095e82b4c6b0d/tumblr_n0cnb2PBuo1tndp2qo1_1280.jpg" height="341" width="640" /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-no-proof: yes;"><v:shape alt="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/proxy/AVvXsEhRPkv2ctlIQV_F5epGYfq65Ot6T0ibX9pWA62v2C0vBypDK5I7BVFqHi6LzzFIimDPK8v12IqiUwg_fHin5rnuei_6Rvx45Hge-RRYE1cq7lQeRVG9-GFmEmSkbSWgHD8drgVkQj4lOUtRALHLmotD_2ic4DjhK7tGbW5lROCp806Z4Lo9L0JfpEIF=" id="Picture_x0020_2" o:spid="_x0000_i1040" style="height: 270pt; mso-wrap-style: square; visibility: visible; width: 270pt;" type="#_x0000_t75">
<v:imagedata o:title="proxy?url=http%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikimedia.org%2Fwikipedia%2Fcommons%2Fa%2Fa5%2FRomanVirgilFolio163r" src="file:///C:\Users\Admin\AppData\Local\Temp\msohtmlclip1\01\clip_image002.jpg">
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> Euripides’ <i>Helen </i>is,
of course, named for the <i>casus belli</i> of the ten-year-long catastrophe;
the wife of King Menelaus, who abandoned husband and reputation for Paris,
Prince of Troy. Helen remains one of the greatest <i>femme fatales</i> of
ancient literature; a Jezebel, though one who never seriously pays for her
transgressions. Having created an excoriating portrait of Helen in his play <i>The
Trojan Women</i>, Euripides returned to her character, but approached her from
a novel direction, creating an odd, hybrid “tragedy,” which playwright Ellen
McLaughlin terms “one of the strangest plays ever written.”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_ednref1"><span style="color: #2288bb;">[i]</span></a> “What,” Euripides asks, “if Helen wasn’t
actually at Troy?”</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><img src="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2012/01/13/51242057-euripides-mask_wide-139525c18a24d333d9f8976397eb5ad2ba0bec69-s4-c85.jpg" /></span></div>
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</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-no-proof: yes;"><v:shape alt="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/proxy/AVvXsEhHYcptDiwvg5L459uYis3qokhzvyjYsjnfeTdLZa_mTdtaehmkX1k24_vEuiS_Ci8_NgXrLWxVvde26NjT6nbEo5UGXXFmj3tdIHz75Lk87BG8TorTA-QBvbAyPlMBjz-sNslHA110czgUpZ8NYENQjj4vuCSmDworZ9aD0rB4nu3EUTSOVZGi=" id="Picture_x0020_3" o:spid="_x0000_i1039" style="height: 329.25pt; mso-wrap-style: square; visibility: visible; width: 289.5pt;" type="#_x0000_t75">
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</v:imagedata></v:shape></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> The lyric poet
Stesichorus, a century before Euripides, appears to have originated the idea
that Helen never arrived at Troy, but rather was whisked off safely to Egypt by
Hermes, while Hera confused both Trojans and Greeks by creating a phantom Helen,
over whom both sides battled. The story was elaborated upon by Herodotus in his
<i>Histories</i>, although the rational historian dismissed the phantom idea.
Richard Rutherford notes that Euripides alludes to this “alternative tradition”
near the end of his <i>Electra</i>, which, Rutherford suggests, was written
just prior to <i>Helen</i>,<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_ednref2"><span style="color: #2288bb;">[ii]</span></a>
revealing the innovative playwright’s interest in “counterfactual” readings.
The play also evinces Euripides’ new direction in his playwriting, one informed
by irony, if not occasionally farce, which can only be termed “tragicomedy.”</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> Structurally and
thematically, <i>Helen</i> appropriates Homer’s<i> Odyssey</i>, with its story
of a sea-wearied husband (“Seven circling years I spent on board ship”)<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_ednref3"><span style="color: #2288bb;">[iii]</span></a> and his reunion
with his faithful wife, complete with the requisite reversals (<i>peripeteia</i>)
and recognition scenes (<i>anagnorises</i>). If Euripides drafts Menelaus as
Odysseus’ double, his wayward, nymphomaniacal <i>wife fatale</i> has been,
according to Erich Segal, “Penelopized”:<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_ednref4"><span style="color: #2288bb;">[iv]</span></a> Helen is an innocent victim of
myth-mongering.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><img src="http://media1.shmoop.com/media/images/large/penelope-suitors.jpg" /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>J.W Waterhouse, <i>Penelope and the Suiters</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-no-proof: yes;"><v:shape alt="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/proxy/AVvXsEhynA1XY3UuGhiFy2iTegg7kcoOCR86nbe76AxRO-aRdoQP22jJ6G6MZiSBhBaBFkpLwGE7n4PzsaUUto6ZtDXBmmPE_Es08qeqSTi9LBuqi7911oUADSSNoXrD_rLhQHmXVGHCgTdzj1KPiBrMBpxG-EgEBmKLcu08IoSenuKDYHm3afHopfg6g1RHCmBBXQ0n=" id="Picture_x0020_4" o:spid="_x0000_i1038" style="height: 294pt; mso-wrap-style: square; visibility: visible; width: 480pt;" type="#_x0000_t75">
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</v:imagedata></v:shape></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> The comic irony
informing <i>Helen</i> gestures toward the less scurrilous New Comedy of
Euripides’ dramatical descendant, Menander. But immediately following its
premiere, the play became fodder for comedy, as Aristophanes parodied <i>Helen </i>in
his play <i>Thesmophoriazusae</i>. Aristophanes, as was his wont, skewers
Euripides’ language and play structuring. Yet Euripides, in a surprising
metatheatrical moment in the play, signals that he is fully conscious of his
plot’s machinery. After Helen divulges her scheme for how she and Menelaus
might escape Egypt, complete with disguises, the very property of farce,
Menelaus replies, “your plan is hardly very original.”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_ednref5"><span style="color: #2288bb;">[v]</span></a> In response to <i>Thesmophoriazusae</i>’s
spoof, Rutherford asks, “did Aristophanes feel that tragedy was beginning to
poach on comedy’s territory?”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_ednref6"><span style="color: #2288bb;">[vi]</span></a>
Considering the trajectory of ancient Greek comedy, and the role Euripides
ultimately played, Aristophanes can be forgiven for his prescient anxiety. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8f/William_Shakespeare_Troilus_and_Cressida_title_page.jpg" /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> McLaughlin’s adaptation
is a tragicomic pastiche with an Aristophanic conflation of narratives,
introducing the comically miserable Io into the action as an icon of
“exceptional female fate,”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_ednref7"><span style="color: #2288bb;">[vii]</span></a>
becoming another reflection of Helen (both women are certainly plagued by
flies). And, as in any proper farce, Thersites’ “cuckold” and “whore” finally
meet in a bedroom, though McLaughlin’s conclusion is less comical than
Euripides’, erring more on a tragic note, as in Shakespeare’s own Trojan
tragicomedy, <i>Troilus and Cressida</i>. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-no-proof: yes;"><v:shape alt="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/proxy/AVvXsEgPfd6ngx7uFAO8F8ysnnbqxkD3wHE0TJX0yQrUJmz6iEHUT-VySTcCr_OfGpWG8rAJ-7MgIZISn5VLzp3EOGQcmoAyLFWC-vwbYJ_w1lZ4QYkyJUmI2zDMj_P-Q6mQEXyOFl6TblZbesNh-vyGn2hDrAPe_JFIP5mGHTCL0QBqJ9k9T7JAHXOhlCPjruvXoH-QQo1GfF4emvh3huwIHw5QPgLtevqvK1tQEg=" id="Picture_x0020_5" o:spid="_x0000_i1037" style="height: 474.75pt; mso-wrap-style: square; visibility: visible; width: 293.25pt;" type="#_x0000_t75">
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</v:imagedata></v:shape></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> <i>Helen</i>, for all
of its comedic handling of the “face that launched a thousand ships,” “implies
a bleak and pessimistic view of human action,” Rutherford writes. The Trojan
War “was fought for a phantom,”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_ednref8"><span style="color: #2288bb;">[viii]</span></a>
suddenly revealing a horrifying level of futility. The whole Trojan enterprise,
to use the title of Barbara Tuchman’s superb study of war, was a “march of
folly” (Tuchman’s subtitle is “From Troy to Vietnam”). “Oh, it seemed like a
good idea at the time,” Athena tells McLaughlin’s Helen. “Something about
glory.”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_ednref9"><span style="color: #2288bb;">[ix]</span></a> “Glory”
was a concept that had just taken a blow in Euripides’ Athens.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-no-proof: yes;"><v:shape alt="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/proxy/AVvXsEiBGzq7cPmTBXkflyy8ITnIAXWbTMMOj5DspWAl5B-p43UYVlIbYBeZBiQfTGrr74sITwT-QQH-4N6UmrNRSK9YWsmIaPX9_hPH1f03FPgu06YdtZw8OGtkgMge2dPtI78Gtz0xb2DQ6yQTKDVkcOJsmBNN_OEPVQqvh4PWL91rwzvLnxm0N6I4BHurVx8=" id="Picture_x0020_6" o:spid="_x0000_i1036" style="height: 259.5pt; mso-wrap-style: square; visibility: visible; width: 173.25pt;" type="#_x0000_t75">
<v:imagedata o:title="proxy?url=http%3A%2F%2Fecx.images-amazon.com%2Fimages%2FI%2F51mLuX7UiEL._SY344_BO1%2C204%2C203%2C200_" src="file:///C:\Users\Admin\AppData\Local\Temp\msohtmlclip1\01\clip_image006.jpg">
</v:imagedata></v:shape></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> <i>Helen </i>is one of
the few plays for which we have an exact date: 412 BCE. Euripides was subtly
refracting a recent folly through an ancient one, as the perpetual
Peloponnesian War had just delivered a decisive Athenian defeat in 413 BCE. As
Helene P. Foley writes, “<i>Helen </i>was presented just after the disaster of
the Sicilian expedition, when an Odyssean reevaluation of military ambition may
have seemed particularly relevant.”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_ednref10"><span style="color: #2288bb;">[x]</span></a>
The play now ably refracts our own martial history, both current and historic.
In her adaptation, McLaughlin’s descriptions of the Trojan War are to be read
as “the First World War, in all its lengthy absurdity and horror,”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_ednref11"><span style="color: #2288bb;">[xi]</span></a> a horror for which
we are currently commemorating the centennial start.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><img src="http://lewebpedagogique.com/tracesdeguerre/files/2013/11/Dix-les-joueurs-de-skat.jpg" /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-no-proof: yes;"><v:shape alt="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/proxy/AVvXsEiWmIKZ0CobLatKqjBgYBjS0AgUVl03wW6zSvOjiGuIBm6Ge7RRZvVKheVDKjp6AFG8xl3rm93dmJtmNbmcbam-uqeksWgyORazd587tXkSlijRDW2FInJbOHLgjVJ06sP542os18PCu6dqI48trA=" id="Picture_x0020_7" o:spid="_x0000_i1035" style="height: 613.5pt; mso-wrap-style: square; visibility: visible; width: 468.75pt;" type="#_x0000_t75">
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</v:imagedata></v:shape></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Otto Dix, <i>The Skat Players</i></span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<b><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><i><br /></i></span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> Do we allow ourselves
to honestly analyze the doubles we see in the mirror? Mere illusion has
destroyed and bankrupted two civilizations in <i>Helen</i>, and the eponymous
heroine, innocent of any involvement in the madness, is herself forever trapped
in an troubling image; a myth. In Jean Giraudoux’s mordant play Trojan War
play, <i>Tiger at the Gates</i> (1935), the uncomfortable questions posed by
Euripides and McLaughlin arise:</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> Helen: If you break the
mirror, will what is reflected in it cease to exist?</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> Hector: That is the
whole question.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_ednref12"><span style="color: #2288bb;">[xii]</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br />
</span><span lang="EN" style="color: #2288bb; font-family: ""serif"","serif"; font-size: xx-small; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Steffen
Silvis</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br clear="all" />
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">
</span><br />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">
</span></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_edn1"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[i]</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> McLaughlin, Ellen.
“Introduction to <i>Helen</i>.” <i>The Greek Plays</i>. New York: Theatre
Communications Group, 2004. 121.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_edn2"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[ii]</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> Rutherford, Richard.
“Preface to <i>Helen</i>.” <i>Euripides: Heracles and Other Plays</i>. London:
Penguin Books, 2002. 154.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_edn3"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[iii]</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> Euripides. <i>Helen</i>.
John Davie, translator. <i>Euripides: Heracles and Other Plays</i>. London:
Penguin Books, 2002. 178.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_edn4"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[iv]</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> Segal, Erich. <i>The
Death of Comedy</i>. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001. 142.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_edn5"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[v]</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> Euripides. <i>Helen</i>.
186.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_edn6"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[vi]</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> Rutherford, Richard. 154.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_edn7"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[vii]</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">McLaughlin, Ellen.
“Introduction to <i>Helen</i>.” 126.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_edn8"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[viii]</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> Rutherford, Richard.
“General Introduction.” xxxi<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_edn9"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[ix]</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> McLaughlin, Ellen. <i>Helen</i>.
<i>The Greek Plays</i>. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 2004. 161.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_edn10"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[x]</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> Helene P. Foley. <i>Female
Acts in Greek </i>Tragedy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001. 328.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_edn11"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[xi]</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> McLaughlin, Ellen.
“Introduction” 127.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_edn12"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[xii]</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> Giraudoux, Jean. <i>Tiger
at the Gates</i>. Christopher Fry, translator. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1955. 32.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: xx-small; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">The Mythological
Characters:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Athena:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">She is the goddess of
knowledge, justice, wisdom, and learning. She also represents the strategic
side of war. She plays a large role as a mentor to Odysseus in <i>The Odyssey</i>,
as he travels home from Troy, a war tate Athena herself brought on after Paris
chose Aphrodite as the most beautiful goddess, and in return was promised the
most beautiful mortal woman by the Goddess of Love--Helen. Athena is a
character in many of the Ancient Greek plays centered on the Trojan War and its
aftermath: Aeschylus’ <i>The Eumenides</i>, Sophocles’ <i>Ajax</i>, Euripide’s <i>Trojan
Women</i>, <i>Iphigenia in Tauris</i>, <i>Orestes</i>, and the disputed <i>Rhesus</i>.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br /></span>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></b>
<img src="http://www.irasov.com/pics/Athena.jpg" height="400" width="285" /><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Helen:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Helen is the daughter of
Zeus and Leda, born from an egg alongside Clytemnestra, Castor, and Pollux.
Helen is conjured by both Christopher Marlowe and Goethe in their Faust plays,
as well as being a major character in other dramas: Kochanowski’s <i>The
Dismissal of the Greek Envoys</i>, Shakespeare’s <i>Troilus and Cressida</i>,
Giraudoux’s <i>Tiger at the Gates</i>, Mary Zimmerman’s <i>The Odyssey</i>, and
Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal’ opera, <i>Die ägyptische Helena</i>.
In Greek drama, she is the eponymous heroine of Euripides’ <i>Helen</i>, as
well as the villain in his <i>Trojan Women</i>. She is also in Euripides’ <i>Orestes</i>,
and Sophocles’ lost play, <i>The Request of Helen</i>. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<b>Erté</b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Io:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Zeus lusted after the nymph
Io (a devotee of Hera's cult), and tried to hide her from his wife, Hera, by turning Io into a heifer.
Hera then demanded the heifer as a pet, and kept a close eye on her--indeed, Hera's servant, Argus Panoptes, who had one hundred eyes, was Io's watchman. After Zeus ordered Hermes to slay Argus, Io escaped
across the Ionian Sea to Egypt, though Hera cursed her with a stinging gadfly. In Egypt, ultimately, she marries one of the Pharaohs, and her descendants
eventually make it back to Greece as the Danaïdes, whose story forms Aeschylus’
play, <i>The Suppliants</i>. While the tie between Io and the Egyptian
cow-faced goddess Hathor (see image below) remains vague, they are both
obviously extensions of an ancient Mediterranean cult (the Canaanite town of Hazor, mentioned in the Tanakh, was a center for her worship). In her bovine state, Io
encounters Prometheus, who has been tied to the top of a mountain for giving
humankind fire, an encounter that appears in the Ancient Greek tragedy
(formerly assigned to Aeschylus), <i>Prometheus Bound</i>. While Io was also a
primary character in Sophocles’ <i>Inachus</i>, that play exists only in
fragments.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></b>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">The d'Aulaires</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<img src="http://www.van-dingenen-over-planten.nl/img/30.argos%20en%20hermes.jpg" /></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Meneleus:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">The mighty King of Sparta
and literature’s greatest cuckold. His injured pride sparked the long,
devastating Trojan War, which has assured him a prominent, if ambiguous, role
in the Western canon. He is one of the few Homeric characters to feature in both <i>The
Iliad </i>and <i>The Odyssey</i>, and he is a major character in Greek
tragedies, such as Sophocles’ <i>Ajax</i>. But he is a character that
Euripides’ continually returns to in his <i>Andromache</i>, <i>Orestes</i>, <i>Iphigenia
at Aulis</i>, <i>The Trojan Women</i>, and <i>Helen</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Helen and Menelaus Meeting:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Menelaus’ wrath is such
that Helen’s life is in danger in Euripides’ <i>The Trojan Women</i>, though
she uses her famous wiles to win him back, while the native women of Troy,
including Queen Hecuba, suffer grievously. In Strauss and von Hofmannsthal’s <i>Die
ägyptische Helena</i>, Menelaus is still considering killing Helen long after
they have left Troy, while Homer has them completely reconciled by the time
Odysseus’ son, Telemachus, visits them in Sparta in <i>The Odyssey</i>. The
myth of the phantom Helen deployed at Troy, while the real Helen was whisked
off to Egypt (which forms the plot of Euripides’ <i>Helen</i>), appears to have
been developed by the lyric poet Stesichorus (circa 640-555 bce), which
Herodotus elaborated upon in his <i>The Histories</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<img src="http://www.historical-museum.gr/webapps/kazantzakis-pages/img/pics/sources/litho/guiramand01.jpg" /><br />
<b style="color: #484442; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 43.6800003051758px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Paul Guiramand, <i>The Second Abduction of Helen</i>.</span></b><br />
<img src="http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/helentroy1.jpg" height="400" width="379" />
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