Pan
Pan was the son of Hermes and the wood nymph Dryophe (according to most versions of the tale) and he was the god of “everything”, being, like his father, a jack of all trades and a bit of a trickster. He looked like a satyr, with the legs of a goat and curling ram’s horns on his head. He was a nature god, the king of animals, magical and otherwise, and rural spirits, the protector of roads through the wilderness and the travelers who followed them, shephards, goatherds, young lovers, hermits and poets. He played the pipes (some say he invented them when a reluctant lover turned herself into a patch of river reeds) and was thus a music god too, and his involvement in the Battle of Marathon (where he assisted the messenger who brought the call for help from Athens to Sparta) made him a god of athletics and war (his scream was able to send whole armies running in fear of their lives, and is where we get the word “panic”). He was a lover of the Moon (Selene) and the nymph Echo was his soul-mate. A joyful and benevolent god, his stories were told to delight children and adults alike, and he exists as one of the few beings in Greek mythology to lack a dark side. He is also the only god said to have “died”, as a Christian sailor reported a mysterious voice calling to him from an unexplored shore crying, “The Great God Pan is dead!” Centuries later, when the horned, cloven-hoofed image of Satan began to permeate early medieval artwork, it was obvious Pan had never died in the collective unconscious, and today he has re-emerged as a popular figure in modern paganism.
“Pandemonium” will be a first for the Olympians Festival- an adaptation not only of a myth, but also of a collection of short stories by early 20th century British novelist E. M. Forster. Exploring man’s relationship with nature, passion, chaos, the divine and the cycle of life and death, the adaptation will be a revisioning of the original text into a dramatic storytelling cycle chronicling how a shared moment between travelers reverberates throughout the rest of their lives.
PAN or PANDEMONIUM by Stuart Bousel
Directed by Stuart Bousel
Staged Reading on November 8, 2014
Stuart Bousel (Narrator)
Megan Briggs (Mrs. Lucas)
Andrew Calabrese (Graham Lucas)
Mikey Conner (Boy)
Alisha Ehrlich (Rose Lucas/Emily Lucas)
James Grady (Lord Harcourt Worters)
Brian Martin (Eustace)
Radhika Rao (Miss Beaumont)
Nickolas Rice (Leyland Inskip)
Kim Saunders (Lady Mary Worters)
Ron Talbot (Mr. Sandbach)
Stuart Bousel is the founder of the San Francisco Olympians Festival, and the only writer to contribute work to all five years of the festival. His first year play, JUNO EN VICTORIA, was published as part of the collection SONGS OF HESTIA, and was later produced by Wily West Productions. His other Olympians plays are HYPERION TO A SATYR, TWINS and SEE ALSO ALL. A founding artistic director of the San Francisco Theater Pub, he wrote their play THE BOAR’S HEAD (adapted from HENRY IV and V), and directed their productions of MEASURE FOR MEASURE and TAMING OF THE SHREW, and continues to manage their online presence, The San Francisco Theater Public, and run a monthly event (with Megan Cohen) for writers and actors called Saturday Write Fever. He has directed a number of plays for Custom Made Theatre Company (PRELUDE TO A KISS, THE MERCHANT OF VENICE, M. BUTTERFLY), Atmostheatre/Theatre In the Woods (TWELFTH NIGHT, THE FROGS, A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM), and No Nude Men Productions (EDWARD II, PHAEDRA, HAMLET, LOVE’S LABORS LOST, OASIS, MERCHANTS, WOMAN COME DOWN). His one acts have been three times featured in the Bay One Acts Festival (HOUSEBROKEN, BRAINKILL, SPEAK ROUGHLY), and his full lengths (which include THE EXILED, THE EDENITES, AGE OF BEAUTY, VINCENT OF GILGAMESH, and THE ATTACK OF THE KILLER SPACE ZOMBIES) have been performed all over the country and the globe. His adaptions include GIANT BONES (based on stories by Peter S. Beagle) and RAT GIRL (based on the book by Kristin Hersh). You can find out more about his work at www.horrorunspeakable.com.
The image of Pan was created by Brian Yee!