We're off seeing "The rape of Lureatia". It will take place on friday the 20th march and is put up on the old stage on Kongens Nytorv. I'll need to know by the latest on Sunday if you're coming and how many tickets you'll need. (Youth ticket under 30 = 76 kr., and regular 215 kr.). Tell me on sunday if you want to join and please bring the money too, so I can bye the tickets asap. See you soon!
Over and out, from the far, far away school
Nina
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The rape of Lureatia
Act 1
Today, in a dimension apart from ours, the spirits of Lucretia and Tarquinius are setting the scene to tell their own story on the theatre. Tarquinius' spirit wants to show Lucretia's spirit what really happened during the events that led to the myth of The Rape of Lucretia. The plot that they are staging is set in 500 B.C. in Rome, which is ruled by the Etruscans.
An army camp outside Rome
Two Roman generals, Junius and Collatinus, are spending the evening drinking together with the Etruscan Prince, Tarquinius. They say that most wives have been unfaithful during their husbands' absence, amongst them the wife of Junius. Only Collatinus' wife, Lucretia, has been found chaste at home. The unmarried Tarquinius teases Junius about being a cuckold, and they fight. Collatinus manages to separate them, and they all toast the chaste Lucretia.
Junius is devastated because his political career is threatened by Tarquinius, who turns Lucretia's faithfulness into a fashion. However, he hides his growing hate and pretends to be compassionate both towards the unmarried Tarquinius and towards Collatinus, who confesses how desperate his marriage with Lucretia really is.
When alone with Tarquinius, Junius provokes the Etruscan Prince to put Lucretia's chastity to the test. Knowing that Lucretia's happiness with Collatinus is an illusion and that she and the passionate Tarquinius are attracted to each other, he can hope that a love meeting between them might shatter her world enough to make her kill herself. This would give him the victim he needs to collect the Roman hate against the Etruscans under his command. Eventually, Tarquinius rides off to Lucretia's home.
Lucretia's house
Late at night, Lucretia is still spinning wool together with Bianca and Lucia. Together with Lucretia's spirit, whom they do not notice, the women tell of the pain that love means for them. Lucretia rebels against this idea, but Bianca calms her down again.
Tarquinius arrives and suggestively asks Lucretia for shelter during the night, although his own palace is not far away. Lucretia passes the test when she accommodates the Prince's request politely, but does not respond to his advances.
Act 2
Lucretia's spirit reads about the achievements of Etruscan culture.
Collatinus, Junius, Lucia and Bianca give air to their growing hate against the Etruscans.
Lucretia's bedroom
At night, Tarquinius approaches Lucretia in her bedroom. When he kisses her, she awakes and vehemently rejects him, despite being passionately attracted to him. He tries to seduce her. In a calm moment, they recognize their love for each other.
This makes that Lucretia is suddenly able to see through the collective self-deception that her previous life was. The cardboard world she had been living in falls apart, and she can see herself as the emotionally mature, passionate woman she could be, just as the ancient fertility goddesses. She can also see the spirits of herself and Tarquinius, and the different renderings of the Lucretia myth that they have collected over the centuries.
Unable to embrace the immense changes that these new recognitions would demand, Lucretia sends Tarquinius away.
In a hymn to Virgin Mary, Lucretia's and Tarquinius' spirits bemoan that Lucretia is not able to embrace the truth about herself.
Lucretia's house
When the sun is rising the morning after, Lucretia's servicewomen pull their cardboard universe back into place and decorate it with flowers.
Lucretia enters, trying to keep her countenance. When presented with the orchids to arrange for Collatinus, she loses control. She sends after her husband, binds the orchids into a wreath and leaves. Bianca tells Lucia how she raised Lucretia as a princess of purity.
Collatinus arrives with Junius to find out what has happened. Lucretia enters, fighting hard to suppress her pleasant memories of last night. Her husband implicitly asks her to renounce her love for Tarquinius, but she cannot do that. When Junius and her servants hand her a knife, she kills herself.
The dead Lucretia is celebrated as a martyr. Showing her off as a victim, Junius manages to collect the Romans behind himself. Soon, he and Collatinus will rule Rome as the first Roman Consuls.
The spirit of Lucretia has now understood how Lucretia's death was brought about. Horrified, she breaks down in mourning and despair. She receives consolation from the spirit of Tarquinius, who knows that Christ, who stands for unconditional love, is stronger than Lucretia's wasteful, misused death.
