EYE OF THE MATADOR

The production notes and date for the world premiere (staged reading sponsored by Seven Stages, about 1988) of THE EYE OF THE MATADOR have been lost.

So has the play. Bye-bye.

"I rather see them as plays viewed on a television screen in a room that has nothing to do with theater. I suppose this has to do with my remembering watching plays on TV when I was a child. Here was the mundane living room with its yellow light and not much ever going on, and the television tube always on, and then there would be on it a play, something quite different from the normal television fare. A play beamed from a place that lived beneath the skin of everyday life, in which present personals were stripped away and all that remained was myth and symbol (no matter how modern the piece). I wanted my plays to be like the cards you pick up at a fast food place, and you scratch at the card to see what is hidden there which tells you if you have won a coke. I wanted the forces which were operating beneath the mundane; I wanted the everyday on stage but alien for the personals had been scratched away, present time had been scratched away, and what remained were the squares, circles and triangles that made up the fundamentals. I wanted anti-history."

The myth of Jason and Medea

The following are the essentials of the myth of Jason and Medea, as presented by Robert Graves in "The Greek Myths."

Graves writes, After the death of King Cretheus the Aeolian, Pelias, son of Poseidon, already an old man, seized the Iolcan throne from his half-brother Aeson, the rightful heir. An oracle presently warning him that he would be killed by a descendant of Aeolus, Pelias put to death every prominant Aeolian he dared lay hands upon, except Aeson, whom he spared for his mother Tyro's sake, but kept a prisoner in the palace; forcing him to renounce his inheritance. Now, Aeson had married Polymele, also known as Amphinome, Perimede, Alicmede, Polymede, Polypheme, Scarphe, or Arne, who bore him one son, by name Diomedes. Pelias would have destroyed the child without mercy, had not Polymele summoned her kinswomen to weep over him, as though he were still-born, and then smuggled him out of the city to Mount Pelion; where Cheiron the Centaur reared him, as he did before, or afterwards, with Asclepius, Achilles, Aeneas, and other famous heroes. A second oracle warned Pelias to beware a one-sandalled man...

When Jason appears to claim his throne, he wears only one sandle, the other having been lost in the river Anaurus, by the contrivance of a crone who, standing on the farther bank, begged passers-by to carry her across. Jason let her ride on his back, this crone being no one other than Hera, and staggered under her weight.

Jason identified himself to Pelias as Jason, formerly called Diomedes, son of Aeson. Pelias glared at him balefully. "What would you do," he inquired suddenly, "if an oracle announced that one of your fellow-citizens were destined to kill you?"

"I should send him to fetch the golden ram's fleece from Colchis," Jason replied, not knowing that Hera had placed those words in his mouth.

Thus was Jason sent to retrieve the Fleece, Pelias suggesting that should he free the country of a curse then he could have his throne. Jason then learned that Pelias was being haunted by the ghost of Phrixus, who had fled from Orchomenus a generation before, riding on the back of a divine ramn, to avoid being sacrificed. He took refuge in Colchis where, on his death, he was denied proper burial; and, according to the Delphic Oracle, the land of Iolcus, where many of Jason's Minyan relatives were settled, would never prosper unless the ghost were brought home in a ship, together with the golden ram's fleece. The fleece now hung from a tree in the grove of Colchian Ares, guarded night and day by an unsleeping dragon.

Other versions of the myth exist where Aeson willingly gave up his throne to Pelias' guardianship, on the condition receive it upon coming of age.

Phrixus had been taken to a mountain top by his father, Athamus, where Athamus was to sacrifice him. But Heracles appeared and intervening saying his father didn't want sacrifice. He gave Phrixus the golden ram upon which to escape. Which seems to be a version of the Hebrew story of Isaac and Abraham.

Jason sails to Colchis with his fifty argonauts. Medea, the daughter of King Aeetes (who had been ruler of Corinth but emigrated to Colchis) is compelled to fall in love with Jason and give him all her aid in accomplishing the tasks he must complete in order to gain the Golden Fleece. In doing so she betrays her father and countrymen, who are not willing to give up the Fleece. As she flees with Jason, one story has her as cutting her brother Aspyrtus to pieces and throwing him in the sea, knowing this will slow her father's pursuit as he stops to gather the body of his son. Another story has her as calling Aspyrtus to her aid, pretending she has been kidnapped, whereupon Jason slays Aspyrtus.

Returning to Pegasae, Jason demands an immediate assault on Iolcus, but his argonauts thought it wiser to disperse, each to this own home and there, if necessary, raise contingents for a war on Jason's behalf. So, single-handedly, Medea undertakes to reduce the city. She promises either Pelias, or his daughters, that she has the power to regenerate the aged Pelias, and proving her word cuts an old ram to pieces, boils it in a cauldron, and rejuvenates it. Placing Pelias under a sleeping charm, she has his daughters cut him up, but doesn't restore Pelias' youth. But rather than taking over the kingdom, Jason, fearing the vengeance of Acastus, Pelias' son, resigns it to him and goes with Medea to Corinth which possesses a richer throne that is rightly Medea's.

Aeson, Jason's father, is by some given as having, rather than being killed by Pelias, committed suicide by drinking bull's blood. Other's have it that Aeson rejuvenated him for Jason and that this is how she persuaded Pelias to undergo what he believed would be the same treatment.

It is in Corinth that we have Jason finally abandoning Medea for Glauce, the daughter of the Theban, Creon. Medea contrives to give to Glauce the gift of a golden cape or gown, which is coated with poison, so that when she puts it on she is consumed with a poisonous fire. Numerous plays have been written on the tragedy, many ending with Medea slaying the children she and Jason had together, either out of vengeance, or grief for the estate to which they've fallen.