Whoa guys
I found another play I should have written
Lemme just write it real quick:
(Oh PS I’m gonna start trying to link to my source material on these)
ORESTES BY EURIPIDES
BY FAKE OVID
AHEM
The place is Argos. The time is way-the-fuck-old-times. Electra is here, being dumb because she’s female or something
ELECTRA:
HOLY SHIT I’M SO FUCKING DUMB. IT MUST BE BECAUSE I’M A WOMAN. Oh also my brother Orestes has been crazy for six days now because he killed our mom and I helped. He did that because our mom killed our dad, and she did that because our dad was Agamemnon and he was getting tail from all sides during the trojan war. Oh shit here comes Helen of Troy.
HELEN:
Yo girl you need to get laid
ELECTRA:
Yeah that seems to be working out real well for you so far. Hey how are all those wars you started?
HELEN:
Pretty good. Mostly over now. Hey could you do me a solid?
ELECTRA:
What?
HELEN:
Could you bring these flowers to your mom’s grave for me?
ELECTRA:
What? Why?
HELEN:
Because everyone in the city pretty much wants to kill me. You know, cause of all those wars I started.
ELECTRA:
Fuck you, do it yourself.
HELEN:
Nah. I’ll just make my daughter do it. Her name is Hermione, like in Harry Potter.
So that happens. Oh yeah, and Orestes was napping on the couch this whole time, but now he wakes up
ORESTES:
Hey Electra! I’m not crazy anymore!
ELECTRA:
Dude seriously? You are literally foaming at the eyes
ORESTES:
Oh no you’re right. Still crazy!
ELECTRA:
Fuck this, I’m going inside the castle.
ORESTES:
Wait, we aren’t in the castle? Where the fuck are we, then?
MENELAUS:
No time for that! I’m home from the Trojan war, what’s up?
ORESTES:
Oh not much dude. Just TOTALLY WEASELDICK CRAZY
MENELAUS:
Whoah, why?
ORESTES:
I killed my mom.
MENELAUS:
Go on…
ORESTES:
Dude I straight stabbed my mom in the neck. I’m like overcome with grief
MENELAUS:
I see. When did this grief begin?
ORESTES:
I dunno, probably right around when I set my mom’s corpse on fire.
MENELAUS:
Okay well I’m sure you’ll get over it. Anyway I gotta go bang my hot wife Helen, who everybody hates. See you later.
LATER:
RANDOM SOLDIER:
Holy shit everyone, Orestes just murdered Menelaus’s hot wife Helen, who everybody hates!
EVERYONE:
How unexpected!
RANDOM SOLDIER:
Yeah he was totally stabbing her and then her daughter was there too and then she like disappeared or something and I don’t know I’m pretty high right now. Good thing I escaped all that murder by running away.
ORESTES:
PSYCHE! NO YOU DIDN’T!
SOLDIER:
Oh noooooooo. Hey dude don’t kill me. I think it’s totally cool that you’re killing all these women all the time
ORESTES:
For real? You’re not just saying that?
SOLDIER:
I mean … yeah! Yeah! They totally had it coming or something.
ORESTES:
Sweet! Well, I’m off to go murder more women. Enjoy the rest of your life!
SOLDIER:
You too, buddy.
Menelaus shows up because where the fuck was he all this time
MENELAUS:
Oh no not more bullshit with Helen
ORESTES:
Yeah sorry dude. And now I’m standing on the roof like a supervillain, holding Hermione hostage.
MENELAUS:
Dude don’t kill her, she’s totally defenseless.
ORESTES:
Yeah I know, that’s kind of my thing.
MENELAUS:
Well shit, I’m out of ideas.
So is Euripides! Here comes Apollo, descending from space!
APOLLO:
Hey dudes, it turns out Helen isn’t actually dead. We just noticed that she was causing even more problems and we were like “fuck it, let’s put her in space where she can’t cause any more problems.” So she’s in space now. Sorry about that, Menelaus. You can have Sparta as a consolation prize. Oh and Orestes, you get to marry Hermione.
ORESTES:
Who?
APOLLO:
That girl you were just trying to stab.
ORESTES:
Oh yeah of course. Let’s get married.
EVERYONE:
IT LOOKS LIKE IT ALL WORKED OUT IN THE END.
HERMIONE:
Because women are currency!
CHORUS: The moral of the story is that Euripides probably did not get laid very much.
THE END.
So many flavours of “dafuq?”
So little time.
But I gotta catch ’em all!
Assuming the accuracy of your thematic reading of this text, it kind of puts paid to the whole “proto-feminism in Medea, The Bacchae, The Torjan Women etc” argument I’ve heard so much about.
Also also I can’t remember if you’ve done it yet but if you ever feel like retelling the Oresteia by Aeschylus that would be awesome.
Dude, seems like you totally haven’t told about several ladies Zeus tried to bone by turning into animals, like Leda or Europa.
And also the big epic story of Theseus is still waiting to be retold. Last time I checked your tales the minotaurus was still alive.
So uh I thought Neoptolemus was supposed to be in this story or something? How does he fit in?
He comes into this because Orestes has burn off his bad mom-killing karma by going on a long pilgrimage to some podunk kingdom up north where the natives killed everybody, and Menelaus figures, “Whelp, he’s never coming back, guess I’ll just give my daughter to Neoptolemus instead.”
So Orestes comes back and finds that daughter-of-Helen hotness he’s been looking forward to banging is now married to another dude. Another dude who’s a complete asshole and ignores her in favor of spending all his free time raping Hector’s widow instead.
Three guesses how Orestes solves this, based on his previous behavior. And the first two don’t count.