Teucer

Teucer was a Greek warrior, the younger half-brother of Ajax Major; both were sons of King Telamon of Salamis. Through his mother, Teucer had Trojan blood, which means that during the war, he was fighting against many of his cousins and other relatives. Teucer was a skilled archer, and made an effective fighting duo with his brother Ajax: Ajax would hold up his shield to protect Teucer as he aimed his arrows. After Ajax committed suicide, Teucer oversaw his funeral rites. However, their father, King Telamon, blamed Teucer for having failed to prevent Ajax’s suicide and for burying the body in Troy instead of bringing it home. Telamon disowned Teucer and forbade him to return to Salamis Island. Teucer then “set out upon the vast ocean,” in the words of Horace. Eventually, he went to Cyprus and founded the city of Salamis there, naming it after his beloved home island.

Writer Marissa Skudlarek says: “I am drawn to the story of Teucer, and particularly the moment when Telamon disowns his son, for many reasons. It shows how grief can lead people to do irrational things that just end up causing more pain. It emphasizes how uncomfortable we, as a culture, are with the idea of suicide and how poorly we deal with it. It’s a very male story — all about fathers, sons, and brothers, stoic warriors who are not always sure how to handle their emotions. My play is set in contemporary America; Teucer gives the eulogy at his brother Ajax’s funeral, only to be confronted by their grieving father. It’s the most severe emotional test of Teucer’s life, but it also permits him to step out of the shadow of his famous older brother and become a hero in his own right.”

TEUCER by Marissa Skudlarek
Directed by Charles Lewis III
staged reading on Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Eli Diamond (Teucer)

Carl Lucania (Telamon)

Marissa Skudlarek is thrilled to be back for a fourth year with the San Francisco Olympians Festival. After serving as box-office manager for the 2010 festival, she wrote the full-length drama Pleiades in 2011 and the screenplay Aphrodite, or the Love Goddess in 2012. Pleiades will be published in Heavenly Bodies, the forthcoming collection of plays from the 2011 Olympians Festival, and will receive a staged reading in Myrtle Beach, SC in April 2013. Additionally, Skudlarek wrote the introduction for Songs of Hestia, a published collection of five plays from the 2010 Olympians Festival. Her other full-length plays include Deus ex Machina (Young Playwrights Festival National Competition winner, 2006), Marginalia, and The Rose of Youth (Marilyn Swartz Seven Award and Vassar College production, 2008; staged reading at the EXIT Theatre, 2013). Her shorter plays have been produced by San Francisco Theater Pub, Un-Scripted Theatre, Wily West Productions, and the San Francisco One-Minute Play Festival. Theater Pub is also producing her new translation of Jean Cocteau’s Orphée in April 2013. Skudlarek writes a twice-monthly column, “Hi-Ho, The Glamorous Life” for San Francisco Theater Pub’s blog. She can also be found writing about books, music, theater and more at marissabidilla.blogspot.com, or on Twitter @MarissaSkud.

The piece of art for Teucer was created by Kaitlin Jann!