15 Heroines

15 Monologues Adapted from Ovid

Various

• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9781848429864
• eBook ISBN:
  9781788503532
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

Two thousand years ago, the Roman poet Ovid gave voice to a group of inspirational women – queens, sorcerers, pioneers, poets and politicians – in a series of fictional letters called The Heroines. They were the women left in the wake of those swaggering heroes of classical mythology: Theseus, Hercules, Ulysses, Jason, Achilles…

Now, drawing inspiration from Ovid, fifteen leading female and non-binary British playwrights dramatise the lives of these fifteen heroines in a series of new monologues for the twenty-first century.

15 Heroines was commissioned by Jermyn Street Theatre, London, and first performed – online and in three parts – in November 2020, presented in partnership with Digital Theatre. This edition of all fifteen monologues is introduced by directors – Adjoa Andoh, Tom Littler and Cat Robey – and writer, broadcaster and classicist Natalie Haynes.

The War tells the untold stories of the Trojan War: Oenone, Hermione, Laodamia, Briseis and Penelope, written by Lettie Precious, Sabrina Mahfouz, Charlotte Jones, Abi Zakarian and Hannah Khalil.

The Desert is about women going their own way: Deianaria, Canace, Hypermestra, Dido and Sappho, written by April De Angelis, Isley Lynn, Chinonyerem Odimba, Stella Duffy and Lorna French.

The Labyrinth is about the women who encountered Jason and Theseus: Ariadne, Phaedra, Phyllis, Hypsipyle and Medea, written by Bryony Lavery, Timberlake Wertenbaker, Samantha Ellis, Natalie Haynes and Juliet Gilkes Romero.

THE WAR

OENONE: The Cost of Red Wine

Lettie Precious

LAODAMIA: Our Own Private Love Island

Charlotte Jones

HERMIONE: Will You?

Sabrina Mahfouz

BRISEIS: Perfect Myth Allegory

Abi Zakarian

PENELOPE: Watching the Grass Grow

Hannah Khalil

OENONE

The Cost of Red Wine

Lettie Precious

Character

OENONE

OENONE	Ann Ogbomo
Director	Adjoa Andoh
Designer	Jessie McKenzie
Lighting Designer	Johanna Town
Composer/Sound Designer	Nicola Chang

OENONE to Paris.

Are all men like this?

Are you all thieves of hearts and monsters who crush them:
savages put on this earth to
make a mockery of love?

Tell me, Paris, don’t look away,
I want to see your eyes.

Beat.

(Tenderly/pleading.) Please…

Beat.

What is it about her that is so different from me?
So enticing?

Her bed cannot be warmer than mine, surely?
Mmh?

Her arms?

Her meals cannot dance better on your palate,
or mix well with that red wine you love so…
red wine rich with flavours and history,
or have you changed that too?

Scoffs.

Beat.

Of course you have,
you now drink white wine, don’t you?
You drink her…

I hope you know her grapes and spices will not leave you drunk
with a passion as deep as ours.

I’m woman enough, aren’t I?

…full-breasted,
thick-thighed and curved in the right places?
What is it about her?

What does she have that I do not?
Ah,

I know.

We know our men well,
men dark as us,
born from the same roots.

They change when they get a little success, a little status.

We know that look in your brown eyes,
the gaze over the horizon that sees greener grass.

Itchy feet

Fluttering hearts.

Cock hard for her skin tone,
Cock hard for her pale eyes,
Cock hard for a new status,

A fetish born from your enslaved minds.

Your prize,

Your, your, your trophy.

All eyes on you!

All eyes on you!

Isn’t that right, Paris?

She is a measure of your success in the world.

You have finally made it to the stars.

You, you, fuckwit!

Are you just going to sit there and not say anything?
Mmh?

Are you?

I know why you love her

She erases your past.

You fool.

You hate yourself don’t you Paris?

Some people from the tribe think you do,

‘Nymphs belong with creatures who look like them’, they say;
And they do say it, Paris,
they really do,
In their houses,

Around dinner tables,
Around campfires,

And yet here you are, Paris,
mixing with the types of Helen.

What sort of name is Helen anyway?

Is my name not good enough

Too strange on your tongue now;
an outcast to what is accepted as normal in the category of
names?

You make me sick!

Beat.

Shit, sorry, sorry,
I don’t mean that.
Fuck.

Don’t give me that look.
That look.

Yes,

That one…

I get it.

(Rhetorical question.) You see yourself reflected in me, don’t
you, Paris?

You see what society tells you to see.

Perhaps that is why you left.

Is it?

Men like you leave for the horizon,
turn your backs on the nests we’ve built you with our bare
hands.

Our callused hands,
Tired hands…

I’ve seen the children she bears,
they are beautiful,
a concoction of you and her…

Perhaps when you closed your eyes while we slept,
you imagined how ours would look;
perhaps the thought gave you nightmares.
Perhaps because you don’t see the beauty in you,
you assumed the world would not see the beauty in our
children.

Is that why you’ve left me for her?

(Irritated.) Will you stop for a second!

Enlighten me, you son of a bitch!
man whore!

I hate you!

I hate you!

(Gently.) But, but,
I love you…

For fuck’s sake!

I suppose I sound bitter.
Do I?

Do I sound bitter, Paris?
You know what?

(Childishly.) If that, that Helen was here,

I’d wring her neck,
pull at her hair,
the very hair I imagine you stroke in tender moments,
while you cudd–

(To herself.) Why am I torturing myself?

You have turned me into this, this, person I do not recognise.

I just want to let my fists have a field day on your chest,
beat it with all my might and leave bruises I know will heal,
unlike the ones you’ve left in me.

No, no! (Warning.) DO – NOT – touch me!

Prolonged silence.

I gave you that on your last birthday,
No, take it, I have no use for it,

It’ll only serve as a reminder… (Sigh.)

Does she know I built you piece by piece?
carefully,
delicately,

Tell her next time you enjoy a couple’s dinner,
Tell her,

Tell her you are the fruits of my labour she now enjoys.
You disgust me!

You motherfucker!

You motherfucking fucker!
Do you feel pity for me?

Well don’t alright.

Don’t.

Prolonged silence.

We bought that together on our third anniversary,

God
we talked all night about everything and nothing.
I miss our conversations…

Do you remember them, Paris?
Our conversations?

Perhaps your high status has stolen your memories,
and buried them in roasted quail and fish eggs.

I wish I could hear you speak now…

Does your tongue curl differently because you sit around a
bigger table with the rich?

Do you pronounce your Ts and Rs now?
I bet you bathe in milk too;
too good to dip your hands in river waters because the white of
the milk makes your skin smooth.

Isn’t that right, Paris?

(Dismay.) Oh my, you want to take that too?
Wow, you know what?

Take it,
No, no, no!
Take it…

After all, I made you that coat,
remember? Stayed up all night…

(Scoffs.) What, what if I, I iron my mane to look like hers,
stop eating to look slender,
hide from the sun so my skin pales,
and, and with enough lemon juice on
my green-coloured blue-black skin,
anything is possible,

I can be just as pale,
so, my kinfolk say.

Would you come back then?

Pause for thought.

I hate myself.

I hate me!

I hate (Quietly.) Men.

Perhaps women are better suited for me now?

I don’t think I could ever go through this again.

You wept and saw my eyes filled with tears:

The elm’s not smothered,
by the vine, more closely
than I,
your arms entwined with my neck
we both mixed our grief and tears together
how your tongue could scarcely bear to say,
‘Farewell!’
our last dance.

I didn’t imagine that,
did I?

Come,
sit with me for a minute,
sit with me on our hammock like we used to,
Just one last time,

(Vulnerably.) Please…

You know, Momma used to tell me,
I come from gods and goddesses,

Tribes and music way deep in Africa’s lands.

She would say my forest-green skin means I belong to the earth,
to the rivers.

I, nymph,
I, Oenone,
wounded, complain of you.

Pause for thought, deep sigh.

I’m leaving,

Don’t act so surprised,

My bags are already packed,

I’m leaving the chaos for the sand dunes of the Kalahari,
You ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Programme
• Contents
• Introduction
• The War
• The Desert
• The Labyrinth
• Copryright Information