The Damnation of Clytemnestra
Pre-writing notes: This is all based on personal readings of performances. Others will have wildly different opinions. Not all performers play the roles the same, and the interactions have changed somewhat in recent months. This is based on performances seen in 2022.
It’s not exactly a surprise that in a show like The Burnt City, there aren’t all that many entirely innocent characters. At one point or another, practically every character is involved in something morally damnable. Even innocent-appearing characters such as Eurydice and Macaria take part in the blinding of Polymestor. I was trying to think of a character in the show who does not take part in or facilitate the death/maiming of another, and I realised… I can’t. If you consider the 1:1s as part of the show and the story – which I very much do – then there are only two characters who do not assist in, if not outright commit, a murder and/or maiming.
The Oracle and Laocoön are the only two I can think of that aren’t directly involved. However, due to their gifts of foresight, it could be said that they could have stopped what was happening, or at least warned the victims. Whether that means they’re facilitating the deaths or not is a question I’m not ready to answer.
But what has this got to do with the damnation of Clytemnestra?
Towards the very end of the show, the final quarter of loop 3, Persephone has remembered who she is and is once again ready to take her place in the Underworld as their Queen. She returns to Hades and the two share a touching moment in the office before he asks if she’s ready. She says she is. Hades reaches into a bucket and wrings out a cloth, handing it over.
The two then go out into the town square where Hecuba has just blinded Polymestor. Persephone approaches, takes Hecuba’s hands, and cleans them of the blood. She absolves Hecuba of her violence, ready for the loop to start again.
I’m always reminded of the line in Hadestown “It might turn out this time. I learned that from a friend of mine.”
When the story begins again, with Persephone once again reigning alongside her husband in the Underworld, perhaps the next time will be better. Perhaps it won’t be such a devastating day.
As Persephone goes over to Mycenae, most characters have already gone up to the stone table. They’re already descending back into their spirit state. The only two who remain, as of yet still entirely who they are, are Neoptolomus and Clytemnestra.
Persephone crossed Mycenae and finds Neoptolomus grieving on the tank trap. She reaches up to him. Depending on the performers, she will wash their hands. Like Hecuba, she washes the blood of their crimes from their skin, giving them a fresh slate to start again. Iphigenia, Polyxena, Patroclus… deaths Neoptolomus feels responsible for, she cleans it all away.
Persephone and Clytemnestra cross paths at the top of the stairs, Persephone just having climbed through the falling bodies, Clytemnestra descending down into them.
At the bottom, as Clytemnestra is surrounded by the falling spirits, and she alone remembers who she is and what she has done, she stretches her hands up to Persephone and Hades, standing together up on the balcony and watching the shades dance and fall.
She openly pleads with Persephone, offering her hands, begging for them to be washed clean.
But Clytemnestra killed her husband, and after everything Persephone has been through just to return to Hades, to her husband, Clytemnestra’s crime is one she cannot abide. Not only does she not descend to wash Clytemnestra’s hands free of the blood she has spilled, she turns away from her, beaming at her own husband and sharing a pomegranate and a kiss.
Clytemnestra is forever damned, and now matter how many times she goes through this story, it will never be better the next time, because Persephone cannot forgive her.
