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Sunday 3 May 2009

The Oresteia, A Play

" What prayer can touch my father?
Should I say I bring him love from his woman,
My mother?!
I have no taste for that,
No words to say...
Lord of the world above, and of the quiet world below.
Lord of the dead, help me now~"
- Electra (The Oresteia)

Five days ago, one of my friends called me, asking if I could please please please fill in a part of Electra in the Oresteia, seeing as the girl who was supposed to play it was not feeling up to that anymore. They had all been rehearsing since January orso, after we (me included) had given up on this specific play last summer, after a few meetings.

--> A short explanation about the Oresteia for those who do not know it:
After ten years of (the Trojan) war, Agamemnon comes home to his wife, Clytemnestra, only to be murdered by her, because she has a lover, and he brought with him Cassandra of Troy as a slave/mistress. Electra, daughter of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon, cries at her father's grave for the return of Orestes, her brother, to take revenge on her mother. After having egged on Orestes, she helps him disguise himself and takes him to her mother, who welcomes him as a stranger. He kills her and her lover, and then gets tried by Apollo as a judge, whilst the furies (goddesses) attack him, and Athena defends him.

I said yes, mostly because I am not one to say no, definitely not when it's so necessary they find someone quickly. She assured me my role would not be big, so my bad as anything memory would not have to struggle too much with the text.

The cast was incredibly warm, welcoming and nice. Not just the girls I already knew, mind, but everyone was really helpful, encouraging and motivating!

The day before the performance (which was last night) I fell off the stairs coming from my aunt's, tried to hold unto the railings, and ended up spraining my whole right side's muscles, my lung diaphragm, and then proceeded by bumping with my lower ribs onto the marble stairs.
Lucky as hell that my character does not have to move around a lot, else I would have had to disappoint them all, and worst of all myself. I really felt like finally I had something to look forward to, so canceling it was out of the question in my mind~

We were at the place from noon, hanging around, half rehearsing, absolutely stressed, till we got dressed and ready for 20:00. Mum had called me to tell me she, sis and two cousins had already arrived and were seated, which only made me more anxious if anything.

Turned out that worrying had been all for nothing, everything went absolutely flawless, just as planned. The whole cast kept telling me to raise my voice in the rehearsals, whilst I always thought my voice was the loudest of my friends >.<

But after the play ended I got to hear my voice, along with Showeikh's and Adham's, were the clearest and loudest voices there were. My performance was called "great", "sincere" and "genuine" amongst lots of other compliments. Seriously my ego must've inflated double it's size over the two hours after the performance! So woot!


Can't wait for the video to come out :3
Here are some pictures of Electra (me with a wig! Oh! And drawn on evil eyebrows I wiped off before he actual performance cause I didn't like 'em much.) xD
Enjoy!








Electra~
C'est moi.
(without the atrocious make-up)





Showeikh (The Narrator) & moi.








Adham (The Herald) & me!









Me and Sara (part of the chorus, and one of my good friends)






xxx
The Gypsy

4 comments:

  1. Mohamed Showeikh3 May 2009 at 20:33

    It was so lovely to have u again with us Jess, u were so nice on stage . See u soon in the next performance in sha2 allah

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  2. Cute x3

    Sorry I've been gone so much. I had to train the new guy this weekend and stay late and close for pretty much everybody. I'm still kinda pissy about it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. good going...i wanna see the performance too there little girl....anyway...keep it up and dont go too wild on the ribs....you and your drunken parties...wait till the actuall springbreak next time...:p :P :P

    Breaz

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