The Ecstacy

“Anyone who hasn’t experienced the ecstasy of betrayal knows nothing about ecstasy at all” 
Jean Genet



Prickly Pears outside my cottage at KSP



So what exactly am I writing up here in the foothills?  Well I'm not sure exactly ...but it is, in theory ... a Play.  Over the last few years I have become interested with the idea of betrayal... in particular the way in which great love can turn to hatred and revenge. Where passion and fire twists into something ugly and vengeful, where any lengths to punish the other seem suddenly  fair and reasonable.  It began with the purchase, on a whim, of a small $1 paperback in a local Good Sammy's "By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept"   After reading this I began to research the life of the Author, Elizabeth Smart ( here  and here ) and her passionate and torrid love affair with poet and novelist George Barker (here and here )  Barker wrote his own version of their love affair in a novella titled The Dead Seagull.   Theirs is a fascinating love story and one I believe has been told very well through various mediums, including a play "Memories of You" by  Canadian playwright Wendy Lill in 1989.

From there I began to wonder about love and its endings...I know that love, when it sours, can be rapacious, intractable and cruel.   And I began to see a pattern in how this plays out in our society, the way in which institutions support a kind of public horror show of the ending of a marriage or a relationship.  There is a script that is followed of vilification and accusation and such a horrendous tearing apart of all that was once loving and supportive. I have watched as a terrible puppet shows is enacted (over and over again), with  all the parts pre-destined and I have come to realise that Greek Tragedy, with all its excesses and cruelty is alive and well in our Family Court system and in the day to day suburban lives of our society.

What price is it fair to exact upon the Other for the ending of love?  For their indifference, or betrayal?  Medea, at least according to Euripides, murders her own children in revenge at Jason's betrayal.  For a modern day interpretation of this atrocity see some of the comprehensive research into Parent Alienation Syndrome.

So, that's what I am exploring up here in the foothills, modern day Greek tragedies, bohemian poets and the family court - its all terribly cheerful...  I'm thinking... a four hour liturgical musical with interpretive dance and an elephant that nobody speaks of...

As a footnote:  just when you find yourself immersed in something, you come across other projects that lie alongside, or across your own... one such project I have just discovered is 97 positions of the heart an international dance/theatre/spoken word collabaration based on the lives of Barker and Smart!