- Two Names That Should Not Be Spoken,
- 2021
- 5 male - 3 female [minimum number of actors: 2]
Playwright: Katerina Louvari Fasoi
- A free adaptation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Book XI, 414–748: Ceyx and Alcyone. Ceyx, King of Trachis, sets sail for the oracle of Apollo at Claros in Ionia, hoping to receive a prophecy that will enable him to save his people from the devastation caused by a wolf and a plague of locusts. Queen Alcyone prays for his swift return, but Ceyx is caught in a violent storm at sea. The gods seek to punish the couple because Ceyx and Alcyone call themselves “Zeus” and “Hera”, believing their union to be as perfect as that of the Olympian pair. Ceyx loses his life in the raging sea. Unaware of his death, Alcyone continues to offer sacrifices and lavish libations to Hera. But the goddess will not tolerate offerings made on behalf of a dead man and, after a nighttime quarrel with Zeus, orders her attendant Iris to seek out Hypnos, the god of sleep, and ask for his help. Hypnos sends his son Morpheus, who assumes the form of Ceyx, into Alcyone’s dream to tell her that he has drowned in the storm. The Queen wakes in terror and, still hoping for her beloved’s return, goes down to the shore. There, the waves carry Ceyx’s lifeless body back to her. Overcome with grief, she resolves to join him in the underworld by throwing herself onto the rocks. Taking pity on the lovers, the gods transform them into brightly coloured seabirds and grant them, every winter, a brief period of calm and warmth in which to breed — the halcyon days.