The Greek philosopher Plato figures heavily in Athol Fugard’s new play The Shadow of the Hummingbird, which had its opening night last night at Long Wharf Stage II. Here are a choice quote from Fugard’s script, which is a dialogue between a grandfather (Oupa) and his grandson (Boba).
Boba, I’ve spent enough time watching real hummingbirds … to last me for the rest of my life. But that’s not the point. It’s that shadow on the wall … the central image in Plato’s Republic. In his case, of course, it wasn’t an untidy little room where an old man is waiting for the end to the monumentally boring story of his life, but a cave in which all the people sit chained watching shadows on the wall …
(Opening an book from his bedside table.)
Here’s how Plato described it:
“Imagine men who live in an underground cave, which emerges into the
outer light that seeps into the cave’s depths. From childhood, these men
have their legs and necks chained in such a way that they are forced to
remain in one spot, and can only see what is in front of them. Behind them,
higher up, and a slight distance away, imagine a fire burning; between the
prisoners and the fire is a road with a low wall running beside it, like a
screen over which puppeteers perform their shows.”
Plato also figures in the big Broadway revival of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, currently in previews at the Belasco Theatre with opening night scheduled for April 22. The song “Origin of Love” adapts the bit from Plato’s Symposium where Socrates and Aristophanes present alternate theories about the nature of desire.
The song was composed by Stephen Trask, who was living in New Haven (on Hamilton Street) when Hedwig was having its initial success Off Broadway in the late 1990s.
The “Origin of Love” lyrics:
When the earth was still flat,
And the clouds made of fire,
And mountains stretched up to the sky,
Sometimes higher,
Folks roamed the earth
Like big rolling kegs.
They had two sets of arms.
They had two sets of legs.
They had two faces peering
Out of one giant head
So they could watch all around them
As they talked; while they read.
And they never knew nothing of love.
It was before the origin of love.
The origin of love
And there were three sexes then,
One that looked like two men
Glued up back to back,
Called the children of the sun.
And similar in shape and girth
Were the children of the earth.
They looked like two girls
Rolled up in one.
And the children of the moon
Were like a fork shoved on a spoon.
They were part sun, part earth
Part daughter, part son.
The origin of love
Now the gods grew quite scared
Of our strength and defiance
And Thor said,
“I’m gonna kill them all
With my hammer,
Like I killed the giants.”
And Zeus said, “No,
You better let me
Use my lightening, like scissors,
Like I cut the legs off the whales
And dinosaurs into lizards.”
Then he grabbed up some bolts
And he let out a laugh,
Said, “I’ll split them right down the middle.
Gonna cut them right up in half.”
And then storm clouds gathered above
Into great balls of fire
And then fire shot down
From the sky in bolts
Like shining blades
Of a knife.
And it ripped
Right through the flesh
Of the children of the sun
And the moonAnd the earth.
And some Indian god
Sewed the wound up into a hole,
Pulled it round to our belly
To remind us of the price we pay.
And Osiris and the gods of the Nile
Gathered up a big storm
To blow a hurricane,
To scatter us away,
In a flood of wind and rain,
And a sea of tidal waves,
To wash us all away,
And if we don’t behave
They’ll cut us down again
And we’ll be hopping round on one foot
And looking through one eye.
Last time I saw you
We had just split in two.
You were looking at me.
I was looking at you.
You had a way so familiar,
But I could not recognize,
Cause you had blood on your face;
I had blood in my eyes.
But I could swear by your expression
That the pain down in your soul
Was the same as the one down in mine.
That’s the pain,
Cuts a straight line
Down through the heart;
We called it love.
So we wrapped our arms around each other,
Trying to shove ourselves back together.
We were making love,
Making love.
It was a cold dark evening,
Such a long time ago,
When by the mighty hand of Jove,
It was the sad story
How we became
Lonely two-legged creatures,
It’s the story of
The origin of love.
That’s the origin of love.