Broken Things - or forgetting the dust at your feet is you
By Alex Wardrop
This sound poem of a play touches vengeance and justice, shit and wool, healing, hurting and what hope might feel like when hope was lost long ago.
This is also a very real experiment. The author trying for the first time to write with sound and share this.
Broken Things - or forgetting the dust at your feet is youNov 04, 2020
Broken Things 8
This is the final episode of this play.
Orestes continues to shovel shit. Orestes lets go and talks of hope.
Electra completes her sacrifice.
The Chorus sing their final song of, and for, broken things.
The ending is not happy. It is bloody and violent. It is futile.
Broken Things 7
The penultimate episode sees the Chorus be still and the knitter still knitting.
Electra prepares her final sacrifice. All that is left is shit and teeth.
Orestes tries to make sense of all this. Orestes tries to make holy all this shit.
Broken Things 6
Episode 6 sees Electra and Orestes still talking. They are now almost listening to each to other. They talk about the state of affairs.
Orestes wants Electra to fix him so he can fix things and find order. Electra sees everything as already always broken. Orestes cries again.
The Chorus sing and dance for the ancient wounds of the state.
Broken Things 5
The conversation continues in this episode, and Electra and Orestes still can't find it in their ears to hear each other.
We hear brother and sister talk of justice and its underneath.
The Chorus sing of trauma and grief as architecture.
The Narrator can’t find the feeling or the words for the fury that is gravity in this place.
Broken Things 4
In this episode meet Electra's brother, Orestes. He seems only held together by his arrogance.
We listen to brother and sister talk to each other and not listen to each other.
The Chorus remind everyone, once more, that sometimes what is left after war is not peace.
Broken Things 3
The Chorus laugh and sing and dance and hold hands. What is left of Fate does not speak but knits and breathes and knits.
Electra realises hope is not here.
Broken Things 2
We are introduced to one of our protagonists, Electra. She has been a priestess and now spends her time trying to die.
We find her burying herself in the dust.
Broken Things 1
This is the preface or first episode introducing us to the poetic play song for what happens after the end of the world. This song takes some myths and words from ancient Greece and unravels them into song of, and for, broken things.
There is an atmosphere of dust, dusk and red half-light that makes the edges of things hard to make out. There is the sound of knitting needles and what is left of life that carries us through each episode with an exhausted urgency.
We hear from Alice Walker, Dariusz Stola and David Wojnarowicz.