SF Olympians

Echidna was the Mother of All Monsters in classical Greece. She had the torso and head of a beautiful woman and the body of a giant snake. She was, according to some sources, an immortal nymph. Her parentage is disputed among classical writers, but all insist that her parents are primordial beings, most of them associated with deepness and danger. She married Typhon, who was a giant man-serpent with a hundred dragon heads. The two of them attached the Olympians and were defeated and subsequently punished by being separated and buried deep underground. Echidna and her sizeable brood of children were buried deep in a cave and allowed to live to act as challenges for future heroes. Depending on the sources, her children include: Cerberus, the three-headed dog that guarded the gates of Hades; the Lernaean Hydra; the Sphinx, whose riddle was solved by Oedipus; The Colchian Dragon, which guarded the Golden Fleece; the Chimera; the Caucasian Eagle, which ate Prometheus’ liver every day; the Gorgons; Scylla, the sea monster Odysseus had to escape; the Nemean Lion, which was one of Heracles’ twelve labors; Ladon, the dragon that guarded the golden apples in the Garden of the Hesperides; Orthrus, a giant, two-headed dog; the Crommyonian Sow; and the Teumessian fox. Apollodorus states that she was eventually killed by the hundred-eyed giant Argus Panoptes.

In Neil Higgins’ play about Echidna, Deadbeat Detective Argus of SFPD has been allowed to rest on his laurels after catching a serial killer several decades ago and hasn’t done a day’s worth of real work since. When a wave of gruesome murders of public figures starts to plague San Francisco, he is pulled out of inactive duty to solve at least one of them. The murders, equally grisly in their own way, don’t appear connected, but Argus starts to notice tiny details that suggest that these aren’t a series of random murders. In his frenzied investigation, he discovers that each of these figures—politicians, social activists, socialites, celebrities—was hiding a disturbing secret as to the less than legal means of their success.

Does Argus have what it takes to stop these grotesque murders? How can someone really tell what is right and just? How fine is the line between citizen and criminal? What separates a man from a monster?

ECHIDNA by Neil Higgins
Directed by Melinda Marks
Staged Reading on Saturday, November 22, 2014

Ben Grubb (Inspector Argus)

Audrey Hannah (Inspector Diana Tasso)

Andrew Chung (Inspector Lopez)

Dan Kurtz (Salvatore Gabrioni/Officer Piorkowski)

Abhi Kris (Johnny Lau/Tomás Gutierrez)

William Leschber (Tony Dimonato/Officer Murphy)

Charles Lewis III (Commander Harris/Elliot Benson)

Trinity Nay (Dr. Prashad/Peggy)

Nicky Weinbach (Bartender/Dave Wu/Drew Hedley)

Alaska Yamada (Maria Gabrioni/Mother/Old Woman)

Jean Forsman (Stage Directions)

Neil Higgins has been with the SF Olympians festival since its first divine manifestation onto the SF theatre scene. He acted in the first year; wrote, acted, and directed for the second year; wrote and directed for the third year; and wrote and acted for the fourth year. He has also worked with: SF Theater Pub, SF Playwright’s Center, Thunderbird Theater, PianoFight, Boxcar Theater, and Performers Under Stress. He has a day job, which is a boring topic of conversation, so ask him about Romantic languages, that time he was on a night train from London to Paris, or his killer sangria recipes.

The image of Echidna was created by Lacey Hill Hawkins!