King Eteocles must defend the seven gates of Thebes
The two sons of tragic Oedipus agree to share the kingdom of
Thebes. Eteocles takes power, but then
refuses to give it up to his brother Polynices.
Polynices raises an army, featuring seven brave heros, including
himself. After analyzing each attacker’s
shield, Eteocles assigns an appropriate Theben defender. The final attacker is Polynices -- Eteocles goes
to fight him himself and each brother kills
the other.
This is a drama that is not so very dramatic, but I liked it. It’s more like a philosophical logical musing,
a story that, like Song of Roland, comes from a time before television and
novels, when people were entertained by the lengthy descriptions of valiant warriors. Eteocles describes each of the attackers and
assigns a complementary defender. It reminded
me of a children’s card game, or of Tarot, in which the strengths and
weaknesses of each card are analyzed. The best one was the warrior with the blank
shield. He could be anything you wanted
him to be. You would have to do
something really interesting for the staging, however, to keep the audience engaged.
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