Oreads
Chelone was an Oread, a nymph consecrated to a particular mountain spot and devoted to its protection. Chelone’s particular spot was Mount Chelydoria, which was covered with tortoises, and so this made Chelone also the guardian of tortoises. Chelone was the only immortal who declined to attend Zeus’s wedding with his sister Hera, who he deceived into intimacy and then forced into marriage. Chelone said frankly she’d rather stay home, and not witness the humiliation and defeat of her friend Hera. Zeus happened to overhear this and he made heaven and earth shake as he thundered and hurled lightening bolts at her house. “If you like it so much,” he shouted, “carry it with you forever.” Her house collapsed onto her back, and Chelone was instantly changed into a tortoise.
Of her play about Chelone, Leah Halper writes, “Women in Greek myth seldom fare well. Chelone’s effort to make her own choices ended ironically, as she was transformed into the vulnerable animal she had tried to protect. I wondered how this story would play out today in Silicon Valley, where brogrammers with balls aren’t afraid to bare them (often with nubile, ambitious interns) and where a new Gold Rush, male-majority culture excuses sexual harassment as pranky randiness. What if Chelone was a Silicon Valley success with a turtle rescue operation on the side? CEO Zeus’s personal assistant Hermes-who of course wears Hermes-might be sent to hand-deliver an invitation to Zeus’s destination wedding. Can Chelone get out of a hospitality imperative that is just as much about ego, power, and wealth today as it was in ancient Greece? Maybe in the 2.0 version there’s a way for Chelone to emerge intact-but don’t expect Hermes to help.”
OREADS or POWER FORWARD by Leah Halper
Directed by Scott Baker
Staged Reading on November 5, 2014
Xanadu Bruggers (Chelone)
Fatima Zahra El Filali (Hera)
Rose Marie Fox (Stage Directions)
Nick Trengove (Hermes)
Steffanos X (Zeus)
Leah Halper has a quirky global consciousness, historical wit, and a skewed view of what Silicon Valley hath wrought. She’s had many short plays produced and stage-read from San Francisco to DC. Her home companies are the Pear Avenue Theatre in Mountain View, Monday Night PlayGround at the Berkeley Rep, and City Lights in San Jose. Leah’s contributed for many years to Pear Avenue Theatre’s Pear Slices, work-shopped at the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, and enjoyed a week-long developmental intensive at Hollywood’s The Blank Theatre. Her short “Ready” was a Heideman finalist in 2008, and “Home Front” was voted PlayGround Audience Favorite in 2011. Leah is a Dramatist Guild member and recipient of an Arts Council Silicon Valley Fellowship in Playwriting. She is working on a full length play about the Concord Transcendentalists, teaching history between theatre gigs, and supporting tortoise rescue organizations now that Chelone has come into her life.
The image of the Oread was created by Cody A. Rishell. You can see more of his work at here and here.