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The Golden Ass: A PLAY by Thomas Palakeel
 

The Golden Ass is an 1800 year old Latin novel by Lucius Apuleius. Widely regarded as one of the first novels ever written, this complex work captures the many intellectual anxieties of the old world of mythical religion as it was being challenged by Christianity. The story is simple: Lucius, the philosopher hero, is turned into an ass because of his “sacrilegious” curiosity; then the thinking animal sets out on a perilous journey in search of an antidote--a rose-flower, which he spots on the crown of Venus and he pursues the goddess as a devotee, eager to reverse his metamorphosis. He also learns from everything he sees and hears on the way, particularly from an old wife’s tale about the love of Cupid and Psyche.

The play begins at the moment when a theater troupe captures the “talking ass” and forces him to perform the story of Cupid and Psyche, which is basically a great romantic story about a young woman’s triumph over the gods. When a jealous Venus dispatches her son Cupid to punish Psyche, the boy falls in love with the mortal girl, who is so beautiful the whole world starts calling her “new Venus.” Venus wants to humiliate Psyche, but Cupid arranges to have her father, the King, abandon her on a cliff as a sacrifice to the gods. When she is brought to the cliff, Cupid carries her away to his ethereal chamber, where she attains perfect happiness in her self-abandonment, although she never gets to see Cupid--she can only feel his presence. Of course, her two elder sisters arrive and sow seeds of doubt in her; they tell her he might be a serpent preparing to eat her. Cupid himself cautions her that if she saw him, she would lose him. And that their child would be born as a mere human being! Psyche tries to “see” him with the help of an oil lamp and ends up scalding the god, who departs into heaven, where he keeps longing for Psyche on earth, who faces the relentless fury of a mother-in-law. Will Psyche stand up to an almighty mother-in-law? Will she even rise up from her fallen state? Will she regain her beloved Cupid who himself is suffering because of his loss? Will he have the courage to go against the wishes of his mother? Only a thinking animal can answer such questions, and the ass does it well in this play, but will the ass regain his human form? Will the god of love win his love? Who will be god’s savior?

The Cupid and Psyche story has been inspiring poets and artists ever since it returned to popularity during the intellectual ferment of the Renaissance, obviously, because of its dramatization of a human being’s triumph over the gods. In any future production of this play, slides of some of these paintings by Botticelli, Raphael, Roubens, Velasquez, Waterhouse, Rosetti, Burne-Jones, Odilon Redon, and other great artists will be incorporated into the staging.

First performance:
A staged reading organized by Apollo Professional Theatre and Bradley University Theatre Department:

Hartmann Center Theatre, Bradley University, Peoria, IL
Saturday, October 18, 2003: 7:30 PM
 

THE CAST:

The Golden Ass … Stephen Heroux
Venus … Helen Engelbrecht
 (also Ceres and Juno)
Psyche … Tiffany Albers-Lopez
Cupid … Matthew Rafferty
Corinthia … Shelly Doeller
Helia … Katherine Sisco
The King … James Marlott
Musician #1… Matt Adams-Wenger
Musician #2 … Chris Corrie
Eunuch … David von Behren
The Director … Ryan Self
Centurion: Keith Kristinat
Devotee #2 … Chris Corrie
Voices… Amber Mack
Voices … Kassandra Merrill
Voices … Melanie L. Champ
Voices … Stephen Heroux
Audience … same as Voices
Stage directions: Ryan Self

About the playwright: Thomas Palakeel, a native of India, teaches English and creative writing at Bradley University. This is his first play, the present version very much a work-in-progress.
 

Writing tips for playwrights: Chekhov's one act play: The Boor (annotated for students)

Writing for the Movies Introduction to Screenwriting
 

Find Robert Graves' The Golden Ass

 
Another recent play based on The Golden Ass:
Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, London: (yes, the Globe!)


Previewed 3 August, Opened 16 August 2002, Closes 29 September 2002

The Golden Ass or the Curious Man:
Play by Peter Oswald directed Tim Carroll.

C. S. Lewis: Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold
a retelling of the Cupid and Psyche story by giving a radical new role for Psyche's sister Orual who is ugly, who is loved by Cupid, by god of love.
The Birth of Pleasure
by Carol Gilligan
An immensely important new reading of the story, by the distinguished Harvard psychologist whose early work on the development of girls,  seems to be  the  definitive modern  restatement of the  relevance of the Cupid and Psyche myth