Erica Böhr
The Hyena and the Alchemist
A contemporary allegory
Degree Show Performance and Installation, 2011
CAST
(With thanks to Kate, Georgie, Jo, Ajay, Mandy, Vanessa, for three separate performances)
HYENA 1: Matriarch of the clan
HYENA 2: Matriarch’s sister
HYENA 3: Matriarch’s heavily pregnant sister
NARRATOR
ALCHEMIST: Umthakathi Mkhulu (the Great Wizard)
SANGOMA: The female diviner
VOICES 1, 2 and 3
IMPISI MHKULU: the Great Hyena Ur-ancestor, played by Hyena 1
The Hyena and the Alchemist will be performed for the first time at the Degree Show Private View at 7.30pm, on Thursday 2nd June 2011.
(English translation)
NARRATOR: As the sun rises on the African Bushveld, north of the Tropic of Capricorn, we head to the apex where South Africa, Zimbabwe and Mozambique meet at Crook’s Corner. It is mid-summer and the temperature will soon rise to 39 degrees...
HYENA 1(interrupting): Are you sure they need to know all of this? This is supposed to be MY story, my moment of glory?
NARRATOR: OH MY GOD! I knew this would happen! You ask me to collaborate, then you start your narcissistic shit again. It’s always got to be about you, hasn’t it? Anyway, you’re coming into it soon. So, where was I? Ah, yes, it’s really, properly sweating-buckets-hot already, the air is crackling with the sound of cicadas and we have come upon three hyenas scavenging at a zebra kill...
HYENA 1 (interrupting again, angrily): SCAVENGING? SCAVENGING? Let me guess. You’re thinking the lions did it? Well, my friend, let me tell you something, We did it! We hunted down and killed this fucking zebra ourselves! I am so pissed off with this scavenging myth! Hyenas actually hunt more than lions, but we get all the bad press.
VOICE 1 (hissing): Scavengers!
VOICE 2 (hissing): Witches!
VOICE 3 (hissing): Soul Stealers!
VOICE 1 (hissing): Sorcerers!
VOICE 2 (hissing): Creatures of the night!
VOICE 3 (hissing): Always laughing...
VOICE 1 (hissing): Cackling, Mad, Sneering
VOICE 2 (hissing): Shape Shifters!
VOICE 3 (scathingly): Generally loathsome.
