Iphigenia in T, on Euripides “Iphigenia In Tauris”, in direction of Wlodzimierz Staniewski by the Center for Theater Practices Gardzienice
Euripides’ play (one of Aristotle’s favourites), Iphigenia in Tauris, portrays Iphigenia as a priestess in the Taurians’ temple of Artemis in the southwestern Crimea after her miraculous escape from being sacrificed at Aulis by her father Agamemnon. Orestes, Iphigenia’s brother and his friend Pylades, in obedience to an oracle, arrive in Tauris to steal the image of Artemis revered by the Taurians who also practice human sacrifice of strangers. In an ingenuous escape, the Greeks leave, along with statue of Artemis which is to be installed in Halae near Brauron in Attica where Iphigenia will become Artemis’ priestess.
Gardzienice’s production, the Iphigenia at T…directed by Wlodzimierz Staniewski, is inspirational in thinking about devoutness, the different tiers of development in modern Europe and a timely performance in the present European crisis.
The pace is turbulent, the movement incessant, the performance styles inspired by ongoing ethno-musicological researches and interactions, creating extraordinary vocal effects and physical gestures achieved with passionate commitment and discipline by Staniewski’s remarkable actors.
The fundamental theatrical concept melds ancient Greek iconography in striking ways with eastern European -especially Polish and Georgian- Christianity. On the screen above the action on the upper level, photographs of statues of Artemis, including a version of the many-breasted Ephesian Artemis, are interspersed with the medieval traditional rites, still performed for the ancient “Black Madonna of Czestochowa”, who is a national symbol in Poland, and certainly its most revered religious icon.
The languages sung and spoken are Polish, English and ancient Greek and there are subtitles in modern Greek.
IPHIGENIA IN T – DIRECTOR’S NOTE
The cult of Iphigenia, popular amongst the Taurians (a people of the Crimea, no less well known than the Scythians or “our” Sarmatians) had its source in a catastrophe.
Iphigenia, a charismatic young woman, miraculously saved in Aulis from the knife held at her throat by her own father (amongst the howling blood-thirsty “Black Hundredist” mob) went missing. Now she finds herself amongst the Aliens, at the edges of the so-called civilized world of that time.
To the Taurians, she was a godsend. Horrendum.
Or, maybe, as in other similar topoi, she has made a long journey?
Or maybe she is a stranger who has found shelter in a distant country?
Like – pardon the comparison – the Black Madonna, painted on a tabletop by Luke the Evangelist, that travelled a long way from Holy Jerusalem to find repose and adoration in our savage land.
Iphigenia is worshipped as a living goddess by Thoas, the leader of the Taurians and, in accordance with his wishes, by his people. As an act of unusual charity, Thoas gives her the keys to authority, thereby anointing a Stranger and elevating her above his People. Thoas makes Iphigenia a priestess of the Tauric Black Madonna, of Artemis, of the Holy Virgin, of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Her likeness, wrought into a statue, had also been a godsend. A black meteor, like the one worshiped at the miraculous shrine in Ephesus and – from time immemorial – at the temple of Athena- the Town Guardian at the Acropolis. Eidolon, an icon worshipped by the Taurians as the Saint of the Saints, for centuries adorned with votive gold, silver, ivory, ebony; clad in diamond or amber dresses. She must have been an object of desire for all kinds of filibusters and plunderers , just like those two “visitors”, Orestes and Pylades. The robbing of sanctuaries was “cool” both in ancient times and, if we recollect the two “fifth column” robbers of the Działosza nad Szreniawa coat of arms, who in 1430 stripped the Black Madonna of its gold and jewels (Długosz) less long ago.
Savages? Infidels? No! Ancestral nobility. Hoodlums inspired by ancient standards of foolhardiness and cheap heroism.
Orestes and Pylades pull the wool over our eyes with their exclamations concerning Apollos manipulation (Apollo had a very low ranking in Euripides). However, they plot like professional cutpurses with Alcibiades-like manners. Iphigenia embezzles all the goods she had received as a gift from the Taurians. She plots and betrays the noble Thoas. Enthralled by two jaded dandies, she directs the initial performance of stealing the Saint of all Saints from the Taurians and her intended ignominious flight. Her laments concerning family bonds, the lost homeland (that had treated her like a slaughter animal) sound calculated to calm her aching consciencein pursuit of a contemptible act to justify betrayal. All that outrageous intrigue is woven into the warp from which there emerge two opposing worlds: that of “these primitive ones” versus “those civilized ones”. Let us go further: “the God-fearing” versus “the enlightened”; “these from the street”, versus “those from the drawing-room”; “these of the third velocity” versus “those of the first velocity”. Whoever can tell which ones are the bearers of truth will become the herald of new joyful news.
