William Butler Yeats’ Deirdre, a play that was a milestone in the leading Irish poet’s theatre production, was presented for the first time in Greece by Pulsar theatre group, directed by Vicky Georgiadou, at Skrow Theater (Archelaou 5, Pagrati, Athens) from 22 April until 29 May 2015.

Deirdre (1907), a short tragedy for love and the freedom of will, that describes the final hour in the life of the most legendary love couple of Irish mythology, Deirdre and Naoise, was presented in April 2015, honoring the 150th anniversary of the birth of W.B. Yeats.

Translation – direction: Vicky Georgiadou

Set – costume design: Kyriaki Tsitsa

Lighting design: Melina Mascha

Music and sound design: Costas Andreou

Cast:

First Musician: Electra Gennata

Second Musician / A dark-faced Messenger: Dina Vidali

Fergus / Conchubar: Thanassis Dovris

Deirdre: Genovefa Zagga

Naoise: Vassilis Mavrogeorgiou

Production: Pulsar group

The starting point of the legend

The legend wants Deirdre to be born under the star of a deadly fate: if she grows up, her beauty will be the cause of a quarrel that will bring death to many men of Ulster. Ulstermen decide to kill the fatal baby. But King Conchubar saves Deirdre and entrusts her to an old witch to nurse her until she puts on womanhood. Then he will marry her and her beauty will become the capstone of his royal prestige.

But when Deirdre grows up, she is seized by the excitement of life: “A month or so before the wedding-day”, she meets Naoise, a young warrior of Ulster. Their love is fulminant, the two lovers are persecuted and are forced to leave Conchubar’s kingdom. They wander in Ireland and Scotland and, after fighting for a long time, they retreat in a remote Scottish island.

Seven years later: Conchubar has managed to control his revengeful fury. He uses the reliable Fergus and sends a delegation to the lovers to express his forgiveness and his wish to allow the lovers to return save in Emain Macha. Instead of a welcome, the lovers experience Conchubar’s treacherous trap. The “traitor” Naoise is murdered and Deirdre dies of sorrow or, according to another version of the myth, she commits suicide on Naoise’s grave to avoid the humiliation of living with her lover’s murderer.

Fergus realizes that he has become a pawn in Conchubar’s revengeful game, he gathers an army and he takes his revenge in a war with a lot of casualties that burns down Conchubar’s kingdom.

The prophesy is fulfilled, but the two lovers gain eternal life and are set as examples of faith in love and love of freedom.

Yeats’ hour

Yeats wrote his Deirdre in 1907. He used, according to his words, “the noblest woman in Irish Romance” and her story, and he wrote a short tragedy that isolates the events of the last -literally- decisive hour in lovers’ life in order to talk about the adventure of human will, the longing of the soul for freedom and independence, the importance of defending love in order to gain a life of integrity, dignity and faith.

In this hour, everything happens in a forest, in a remote guest house, where lovers’ welcome will take place.

Present, however, are only three wandering Musicians. They have witnessed obscure preparations for a wedding reception in Conchubar’s palace and they have noticed a mercenary army of barbarians wandering around the guest house. Their intuition assures them that they are in front of the fulfillment of a wicked plan and, when Fergus comes announcing lovers’ return, they warn him for the approach of lovers’ fatal end.

Despite the signs, the deserted guest house and the lack of Messenger, Fergus insists on the fact that he has “accomplished a good deed”. Fergus, a former king of Ulster, who was also a victim of Conchubar’s deceitful nature, regains his lost glory of influence by the fact that he persuaded Conchubar to forgive the lovers. Although he understands, sees and hears, he refuses to believe that king’s decision involves a treacherous plan of revenge and he insists that king’s decision was the outcome if his own noble persuasion.

Lovers’ arrival thickens the clouds of the imminent danger. Naoise realizes the presence of an ominous chessboard associated with the legendary King Lugaidh’s betrayal and slaughter. Deirdre hears from the Musicians that the king is about to welcome a bride in his palace. The bride’s will shall be trapped by magical stones torn out of Libyan dragons.

The lovers disagree: Deirdre tries to persuade Naoise to run away again and Naoise insists on keeping their word and showing confidence. Deirdre prefers them to live as wanderers in order to save their lives and their love and Naoise insists on gaining their live again by keeping the oath he gave as a knight.

The Messenger arrives: he announces the ultimate proof of treachery. Naoise throws down the glove to the king only to experience the messenger’s reproachful depreciation. And Fergus, with his credibility collapsed, departs to gather an army in order to avenge the deceitful king.

The two lovers are left alone with the Musicians who are the only witnesses of their eternal love in this moment of absolute crisis: they agree to play chess quietly and wait for their end in dignity, hoping that the Musicians will praise their love in eternity.

Conchubar arrives: Is it because he accepted Naoise’s call to duel or is it to see if Deirdre’s beauty is still worth hunting?

Naoise retrieves his fighting strength, he runs to attack Conchubar, but he is captured by the barbarian army. Conchubar sets the terms of the bargain: Naoise may go free, if Deirdre accepts to become his queen and leave Naoise.

The final confrontation between two worlds is inevitable. The clash of armies and warriors, kings and knights, is narrowed down to a game of minds and roles between Deirdre and Conchubar. The final outcome immortalizes the flame of love that nevertheless burns the connections with life.

But this absolute love-story of faith will travel to eternity through the songs of the wandering Musicians who were the eyewitnesses of Deirdre’s actual story.

The chronicle of contradictions

Yeats wrote his Deirdre in order to present the chronicle of a confrontation between contradictions that can lead life to its essence and existence in its fullness.

Deirdre and Naoise confront with their fate and the absolute limits of their feelings. They decide to overcome their fears and the social conventions. Only with their will as a weapon, they decide to chart their own destiny and they accept that the longing for life may integrate a destructive element but never loses the perspective of freedom.

The conflict between Conchubar and the lovers is the attempt of a possessing power which believes that it can buy soldiers, magical stones or consciences, but it cannot possess the vitality of love that forms a free and uncompromising soul.

Deirdre’s and the Musicians’ way of perceiving reality and the chivalrous code chosen by Fergus and Naoise bring forth a conflict between intuition and social conventions. Intuition becomes a protective power of life, and confidence in the social conventions of a treacherous world becomes the gravestone of innocence and good intentions.

The conflict between hypocrisy and sincerity stimulates also in Yeats’ Deirdre a complex and elaborate role-playing game: Conchubar plays a role in order to win a life that does not belong to him and Deirdre adopts Conchubar’s techniques and plays a role in order to gain a death that will make her life’s choices worth chosen. Conchubar’s request is ownership, whereas Deirdre’s is independence. But both adopt the bleakness of an acting technique that covers the flame of a becoming or not becoming love.

But all these conflicts and contradictions make up the harmonious universe of Yeats’ art that inspires the absolute both in the dramatic person and the actor.

The dramatic persons in Deirdre, especially the two lovers, are characterized by the combined power of the fiery vitality of the body and the extreme burning function of the mind. The action of the soul of the characters (either positive or negative) integrates an extreme energy that unites all the elements of existence in a tumult of life.

The fixation of existence in reality and the opening of the soul to a human universality was Yeats’ ultimate artistic vision and the combination that immortalized the choices of the legendary Deirdre.

Vicky Georgiadou, 24/01/2015