In the dramaturgical notes for my adaptation, I noted that the 1984 TV production “features a peculiar hodgepodge of costuming that leads me to believe that the director and the costume designer wished to evoke the concept of the plague over a great span of human history,” including, but not limited to, “the Medieval period of the Black Death, the Jewish ghettos, and other such plague-infested times.” It took no great stretch of the imagination to translate the plague motif to present day climate change scenarios: flood-stricken communities, homes consumed by raging forest fires, springs gone dry, coastal waters adrift in dead fish, reeking of red tide stench. In short, Florida in the not so distant future.


The signs were already here, and prophets were pointing them out, but like the tragic souls of plague-stricken Thebes, we didn’t want to acknowledge them. This blindness to the facts of our dire fate was aided and abetted by leaders who, like Oedipus, were invested in keeping the truth under wraps. And if there was a prophet out there, like the blind seer, Teiresias, to expose the big lie that promised to doom our state and planet, he wasn’t getting much screenland exposure. In my production, Teiresias will get his screen time, as will Oedipus, a perfect candidate for the “if it bleeds, it leads,” 24/7 newsfeed.



• • •


Gregg Jones is one of the Hippodrome State Theatre’s most outstanding, versatile and wildly comic actors. Gregg was an esteemed member of our Fine Arts faculty at Santa Fe College and his productions were as varied as they were experimental. His use of life-size puppets and multi-media elements had earned him great praise. Turns out that Gregg was joining me in retirement. I simply couldn’t pass up the opportunity to work with him on my first serious attempt at playwriting and production. It would be an honor to join him in a final bow to our respective careers.


After Gregg had an opportunity to read my rough draft of the script, we met over coffee at the campus café and it was clear that not only was he on board, but also that he had pages of notes that took my concept of a multi-media production to a higher level. By the time we had a working script and he was ready to hold auditions, we had engaged the entire Fine Arts Department. Art students would design and build the set, the Dance Department would orchestrate the Theban ritual dances and the Music Department would work on the score, translating the traditional Greek chorus into a series of hip-hop style chants.


Inspired by Ethan Hawke’s Hamlet, set on Wall Street in modern day New York City, and which employs the use of security cameras and video-replay of the dramatic action, Gregg and I cast students in the Video Production program to portray aggressive, camera-wielding reporters who regularly interrupted the action of the play to interview the actors and broadcast their salacious coverage projected on large video screens on either side of the stage. It is a convention of Greek tragedy that the more horrific events in the play happen off-stage, their grisly details narrated after the fact by the actors. This would simply not do for an audience accustomed to the 24/7, “if it bleeds, it leads” reportage that feeds our insatiable appetite for red meat TV viewing.


In the case of our adaptation, it made sense to translate the action from ancient Thebes to a dystopian Florida. Our location and the play’s title were inspired by our mutual affection for the spring-fed Ichetucknee River, whose waters were once so crystal clear that the fish seemed suspended in air. The river became so popular for tubers looking for a lazy float on a hot summer’s day that access to the park had to be limited in peak season. Anyone who had made the float back in the 1960s and 1970s, as Gregg and I had, could report there was now trouble in paradise. The crystal clarity was gone and invasive plants were taking over the increasingly silty waterway.


In my research, I learned that springs were considered sacred in ancient Greece and that those who despoiled them were subject to punishment and cursed by the gods. I also happened upon the existence of Electra, Florida, now a ghost town with a forlorn cemetery. That there existed a city not far from the Ichetucknee named after one of the most famous figures in Greek mythology added an air of fate and mystery to our endeavor. We kept much of the English translation of Sophocles’s play while introducing selective references to our vision of a dystopian Florida where, late in this century, sea level rise has swallowed much of the coastline, driving a desperate population inland to not much higher ground. Temperatures have soared to life-threatening levels and the resulting drought has destroyed most of the indigenous crops and exhausted the aquifers.


In our play, an angry and anguished citizenry, desperate to remove the cursed weather, seek consolation from their leader and an explanation as to how these conditions came to exist. Our King boasts of a superior intelligence, modeled after Oedipus’s own hubristic claims that after solving the Riddle of the Sphinx he is worthy to be their ruler. We knew our audience would see the striking comparison to Florida Governor Rick Scott, who had banned the mention of the terms “climate change” and “global warming” from state documents. Having been invited to meet with the State’s climate change experts, Scott ignored their prognostications by stating he couldn’t comment because he was not a scientific expert himself, even as portents of the coming plague made news headlines. There are none so blind as those who will not see. Fast forward to the DeSantis regime and Florida’s sacred springs are still cursed by reduced flow and continued degradation due to the administration’s willful blindness to signs that any who visit these springs can see.


Thanks to Gregg’s inspired direction, our production was totally immersive from the moment the audience entered the theater lobby. As described in Gregg’s director’s notes, “they encounter members of the cast, dressed in a modern version of peasant-type robes or tribal garb that is identified with geometric patterns, logos, insignias, as well as tattoos, all of which represent the various tribes of the Polis. Yet another group is dressed in more militaristic /governmental uniforms (The Palace Guards) who are there to keep order and control the crowd.” I should add that roving news reporters and their cameramen are filming the action in the lobby and aggressively interrogating audience members even as the guards order them to their seats inside the theater. Audience members will see a replay of themselves in the lobby as they enter the theater and take their seats.


In the opening moments of the play, the character of the Priestess begins her lament in words fresh from Florida news coverage of the present day plague: “Tides red as blood kill our fish, while the very sea itself devours our shoreline…Our springs are as empty as our stomachs and as dry as our mouths.” Shortly thereafter, Gregg introduces a shadow puppet chorus whose ode is delivered in contemporary hip-hop syncopation:


In another time you helped us,
to save our sacred land,
by driving off the plague,
We humbly ask you again
The pains that we bear
you know that there are many
now our people have nothing
when once we had plenty…


Water-to-water to-no water to- drink,
Water-to-water to-no water to-drink,
Water to-water to-no water to-drink…


My contribution was the inclusion of a “Media Reporter” who delivers a running commentary throughout the play projected on two large TV screens stage left and right. One such scene is presented as “archival footage covering Laius’ murder—some years previously:


MEDIA REPORTER (ETHAN): We’re here at the Crossroads Inn where King Laius has been killed in an apparent drive-by shooting along with four of the King’s advisors. Details are sketchy but Laius was apparently at this site investigating the alleged defilement of the Sacred Spring, Ichetucknius. As you know, Laius has been a great protector of our sacred springs. Our investigators have turned up evidence that local farmers were grazing their cattle next to Ichetucknius, threatening the purity of water by polluting the sacred springs and angering the gods. In previous reports we had also documented that water from these sacred springs , so vital to our sacred ceremonies, was being transported and sold in regions where the springs and rivers had run dry. We think whomever was involved in this tragic murder might have had some involvement in these illegal activities. We’ll report on further developments as soon as we have them—this is an ongoing investigation. Back to you Brooke.


I composed the reporter’s lines based on my research findings that in ancient Greece farmers were prohibited from grazing their cattle in close proximity to sacred springs. In the four decades since I had produced the film Seven Ways to Kill the Suwannee, vast acreage in the counties bordering the river and its tributaries has been transformed by chicken feeding operations and other forms of industrial food production. In spite of attempts to introduce “best practices” to control the volume of waste material generated by these agribusinesses, the level of nitrates and other pollutants has steadily risen as the water quality declined.


To emphasize the relevance of the tragedy being enacted on stage, especially to the students in the audience, and again following the model of Hawke’s Hamlet, we opened with a barrage of news video reporting, twitter scrolls and the like, revealing the various environmental calamities that lead to the present moment, as the citizenry (chorus) approach what appears to be the steps of the Florida Capital building with their petitions for help with relief from the plague. The intense video news coverage continues to build, sparing the audience no shortage of “if it leads, it bleeds” coverage, such as Jocasta’s suicide When Oedipus gouges his eyes out, we get a tight close-up shot of blood-red fabric streaming from the King’s eyes.

In a review of the play in The Gainesville Sun, I referred to the production as our “swan song” and that, “I felt I needed another medium to communicate my concern for the environment.” Gregg expressed his “hope that students feel the permission to explore, to stretch the boundaries of the art form.” Gregg added, “I think I’ve really tried to do that offering productions that are cutting edge—that are different and exciting and relevant to them, and giving them permission to go out there and do that on their own.”


I reached out to Gregg while working on this chapter and he reported the recent completion of “a new puppet-building studio/man cave.” I replied that we needed to spill some whiskey on the floor of his cave, christen it properly, and perhaps hatch a new production.


As I took my final bows on closing night, it occurred to me that the theater is even more ephemeral than film and video. It is mysteriously alive in its real time vibrancy, now you see it, now you don’t, live presentation. My attempt to capture the production on video was thwarted by the technical limitations of our sound system. Fortunately, John Moran, whose photos we had featured in the Wild Alachua film, took a series of stunning photographs of the production that I am thrilled to include here. As gorgeous as they are, these images can only hint at the sensual pleasures of this multi-media production—the smell of incense wafting from the ritual altars, the hypnotic movement of the dancers to the sound of a hip-hop choral chant, the shifting moods of stage lighting and musical score, and the energy our actors brought to their embodiment of humanity’s eternal struggle with fate, destiny and hubris.

We can only hope that, in fact, there is wisdom to be gained through suffering; the COVID pandemic and climate woes have provided plenty of the latter. And with mostly ourselves to answer to, and no gods or blind prophets to turn to, future playwrights will have to reimagine tragedy for our indeterminable fate.