King says, \u201cAlmost every part of the story is turned on its head.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMedusa: Reclaiming the Myth\u201d is about buried stories of sexual assault, about the repercussions on women\u2019s careers and believability, about women\u2019s rights to express themselves. The show says \u201cpeople heal from trauma, eventually, when they\u2019re supported.\u201d It\u2019s about \u201cdismantling gender\u201d and \u201cqueering the story,\u201d King says. \u201cIt speaks of empathy as the ultimate cure to patriarchy.\u201d<\/p>\n In Ovid\u2019s \u201cMetamorphoses,\u201d Medusa was attacked by Poseidon. \u201cShe is a priestess of Athena and she is very beautiful and is raped by Poseidon in Athena\u2019s temple,\u201d King says. \u201cPriestesses of Athena are supposed to be virgins. So that\u2019s offensive to Athena. She punishes Medusa by turning her into a monster. So that\u2019s obviously problematic.\u201d<\/p>\n Perseus arrives and, with help from a mirrored shield from Athena, cuts Medusa down\u2014and beheads her. Then he uses Medusa\u2019s head as a weapon to turn enemies to stone. He rescues Andromeda from a sea monster and weds her. He uses the head to petrify a king seeking to marry his mother. Finally he gives the head to Athena, who makes it part of her shield.<\/p>\n \u201cAthena punishes Medusa,\u201d King notes, \u201cbut then she ends up being her protection, her symbol of power.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDoes this make sense that Athena would be punishing Medusa?\u201d King says he asked his friend, the poet and priestess Timotha Doane, around 2010. \u201cTimotha said she\u2019s giving her a new role. \u2026 I think she wanted to give her power because her power is taken away. Her body was violated by Poseidon and this is someone who was dutiful priestess to her. In the play, it\u2019s how can she help this woman. \u2026 After the rape of Medusa, she\u2019s like, \u2018Okay, something needs to change.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Some historians suspect Medusa tales might represent Greeks supplanting Minoan worship of a snake goddess on Crete\u2014or, alternately, of women who worshipped with snakes there. \u201cShe represented a different way of thinking, a different civilization,\u201d King says. \u201cTurning her into a monster was the beginning of European patriarchy.\u201d<\/p>\n From these strands, the Gloucester musician originally conceived a stage play. It sprouted during the 2016 presidential election as he watched how Hillary Clinton was treated, \u201cthe way they were vilifying her because she was a woman.\u201d<\/p>\n Then in 2018, James Wetzel, co-producer of adult programs at the Museum of Science, invited What Time Is It, Mr. Fox? to conjure something for the planetarium. The play grew into an immersive multimedia spectacle accompanied by the live band (King joined by Renee Dupuis, Nathan Cohen, Joe Cardoza and Dennis Monagle). Plus a cast of nearly 30 actors recorded like an audio play. Plus animation by Norah Solorzano and Ruth Lingford (\u201cIt\u2019s almost like moving paintings\u201d). Plus planetarium graphics by Jason Fletcher. Plus help from lots of friends.<\/p>\n \u201cI think some people come in thinking this is about Medusa,\u201d King says. \u201cIt really is the story of all these women\u2014of Medusa, of Athena, of Artemis, of this woman of Crete. It\u2019s about collaborating with women, working together instead of this theme that gets repeated in literature of women against each other, women trying to take each other down, women fighting over men.\u201d<\/p>\n King says, \u201cIn the story, ultimately it shows that often there\u2019s a different story. And in my perspective the opposite of patriarchy is super multiplicity and collaboration despite differences. \u2026 They all work together towards one vision of equality for women.\u201d<\/p>\n If this is the kind of coverage of arts, cultures and activisms you appreciate, please support Wonderland by contributing to Wonderland on Patreon<\/a>. And sign up for our free, weekly newsletter<\/a> so that you don’t miss any of our reporting.<\/em><\/p>\n One of the terrible things about the way the story of Medusa is usually told is that her iconic snake hair and petrifying visage are a punishment\u2014for being the victim of rape. \u201cI really felt there\u2019s a lot more to that tale,\u201d says Brian King, who sings and plays guitar and piano in the \u201cbaroque […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15074,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[101,110],"tags":[37,680,676,679,75,677,678],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15071"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15071"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15086,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15071\/revisions\/15086"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Brian](\"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/i-fmbcP2p-X5w-1024x684.jpg\")
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