Mercedes Blankenship

Argonautika — Director's Note

When I was tasked with finding a play for my debut as Blake Stage Company director, this was one of the first plays that came to mind. And at the interest meeting, when I had the students vote between this and another play, Argonautika won an overwhelming 67% of the vote. Which taught me something right away: These students were ready for a challenge. 

Argonautika is not an easy or lightweight play. The language is complex and sometimes peculiar, the tone is constantly shifting between comedic and dramatic, and the technical requirements are extensive and specific. And on top of that, I gave the students even more of a challenge by opting for an anachronistic, out-of-time, Ancient-Greece-but-also-Modern-Day-but-also-sometimes-neither approach to this production. But the cast and crew have never ceased to amaze me with how they have embraced this play’s challenges. And in a way, that feels appropriate for this subject matter. After all, when the original Argonauts took on the challenge of finding the Golden Fleece, some of them were as young as the members of the cast and crew.

When I’m directing a show, I have to constantly ask myself what that show is about. Not in the literal sense — obviously I know that this play is about Jason and the Argonauts — but in the artistic, thematic, more abstract sense — what is this play really about? And in directing Argonautika, I found that question more difficult to answer than in any of my previous projects. But I think I’ve landed at some solid answers, which I present to you all in the form of questions:

• What does it mean to be a hero?

• What are the costs of achieving greatness?

• Do we have free will, or are our fates predestined? 

• How can adversity help us to discover our truest selves?

• How do you cope with success, especially when it doesn’t look the way that you thought it would?