Neighing (Scene Triptych), 2011

5

Marios Pontikas

The Centaur Chiron is in a non-place: it is described like Hades but it is not, people are alive but they have died, landscapes are recognized but at the same time never seen before.

He can hear the Furies cursing the human race. He is fragmented, with the horse part dislodged from his body: his animal essence has left his human nature, fed up with Prometheus’ hopes for progress – eternal excuse for every kind of crime and continuously thwarted by them. The Furies (Alecto, Megaera, Tisiphoni) announce the appearance of Cassandra, who condemns the Hubris of Resurrection (as a trick of the mighty to maintain the power structure and keep up the lucrative wars) and foretells the coming devastating and horrible suffering.

Alas! Apollo’s curse has rendered her incessant speech intelligible, but it is in fact people’s blind faith in the blind hopes sowed by Prometheus (Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound) that makes Cassandra incomprehensible; she is forced to resort to inarticulate, heartrending cries, an ultimate attempt at warning people to set appropriate limits in their thoughts and deeds.

Chiron now incurs the sarcasm of the Furies, hunting him as the one responsible, because as an intellectual (the best of the Centaurs) nourished Prometheus’ blind hopes with theories of progress and enlightenments that man himself diverted, leading – and diverting – them in a  disastrous self-negation. Repentant, Chiron feels humiliated (it is the Furies who condemn him to it) and takes the long road to the shallow depths of silence. He will never talk again and hopes to sometime meet and reunite with his horse part, galloping and neighing, away from people.

The Furies challenge the Centaur Chiron, making him doubtful about whether his self-imposed power will last. They say that because he is a human - and especially an intellectual – he will start to utter new theories, feeding his hope for progress and being fed by it. Fearing that this will be the case, Chiron bursts into inarticulate cries, like Cassandra. He turns into Cassandra. This is the Furies’ punishment; the neighing that he hoped for will, in fact, be screams and Chiron will never rejoin his horse self.

PLAYS

Rationale, 1987

6 male – 5 female

The Wedding, 1980

8 male – 5 female

Spectators, 1979

2 males-2 females

ESSAYS

MARIOS PONTIKAS' THEATRE

The Persistent Quest of Dramatic Substance

 

Marios Pontikas’ work constitutes a diverse and multi-dimensional...