CHRYSOTHEMIS by Meg Braem

The Canadian  Play Thing is proud to feature the full original student cast of the cancelled premieire production at the University of Alberta! 

HOW TO ATTEND Click the link below at showtime  - "doors" 5 minutes prior - latecomers welcome! Audience does not appear on screen. Capacity 100. https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87005863123

ABOUT THE PLAY

There is no shortage of war stories which recount the heroism and glory of the battlefield, but war stories can also tell us of valour of a different kind. While monuments of stone and bronze tell us of the ultimate sacrifice of soldiers, there are few statues commemorating their parallel pains: that of family members, often women, who suffered distance and separation, unknowing at home.

Chrysothemis, daughter to the warrior king Agamemnon and his vengeful spouse Clytemnestra, sister to Iphigenia, Orestes and Electra is forgotten like those left longing and wondering. She is known, if known at all, as the invisible sister. The fragments of her story betray her unwillingness to fight alongside the others. Because she does not participate in a retaliative, violent act, she is cast as passive and forgettable. I would argue that the choice not to fight, while not fitting into our visceral war fantasies or solemn remembrance, is no less brave. This is not an adaptation but a story created around the events of Aeschylus’ trilogy, “The Oresteia.” Set in the midst of the murders of King Agamemnon and Queen Clytemnestra, Chrysothemis is the imagined story of Chrysothemis, the lost daughter in the house of Atreus. She is the only child in the myths who does not have a play accounting her voice…until now.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Meg would like to thank Jan Selman, Kate Weiss, the U of A drama department (especially the 2020 BFA class).

ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT

Meg is a Alberta based playwright. Her plays have been nominated for a Governors General’s Literary Award and won the Alberta Literary Award for Drama, the Alberta Playwriting Competition and Playwright Theatre Centre's “The News Competition.” Her work has been presented at the University of Lethbridge, Lunchbox Theatre, The Belfry Theatre, Sage Theatre, Sparrow and Finch Theatre, Theatre Transit, Atomic Vaudeville, and Intrepid Theatre.  Most recently Meg premiered Flight Risk at Lunchbox Theatre and her play The Josephine Knot was published by Playwrights Canada Press. Meg is co-author of Amplify: Graphic Narratives of Feminist Resistance (University of Toronto Press, 2019) with Norah Bowman and Dominique Hui. Meg has spent the last three years in Edmonton as the Lee Playwright in Residence and is looking forward to starting her position as the Canadian Writer-in-Residence as part of the Calgary Distinguished Writer's Program at the University of Calgary.