Upcoming:
The Metamorphoses of Ovid and Apuleius, with the Métamorphoses Association, Bretteville-sur-Odon, 2027.
Abysses, group exhibition with the Dire Autrement collective, La Bouée, Cherbourg, 2027.
“Father, when will you come back?” Telemachus whispers at the beginning of Waiting for Telemachus (and His Dog).
A son waits for his father on an Ithaca where Odysseus is conspicuous by his absence. Telemachus grows up too quickly, torn between anger, admiration, and longing. He watches his mother weave, the suitors invade their home, and dreams of the sea, of battles, and of the adventures of the man whose name he bears.
But how can you become the man you admire when you were never given the chance to grow up alongside him?
Through an intimate and repetitive address to his absent father, the play explores lineage, waiting, and the burden of an impossible inheritance. Telemachus wants to leave in his turn, to discover the world and become Odysseus. Yet everything keeps him inside.
An intimate and sensitive rewriting of the myth of Odysseus, told from the point of view of the one who stayed behind.
Written in 2024 by Léna h. Coms, this play continues her exploration of waiting, and particularly of Penelope’s waiting.
About
Father, when will you return?
Father, how can we grow up when our father is absent?
Father, how can we become whole when someone is missing from our lives? We are like an empty vase, incomplete.
Father, do you think of me every day?
Father, how dare you leave me alone to drive away all those suitors who lust after your wife's breasts and covet the title of lord of this estate?
Father, you left me here alone when I was a child, leaving me no choice but to become a man before my time, to watch over our home alongside my mother.
**
Father, you are far away, and you cannot see them, all those plunderers who devour your wealth and covet your bed.
**
Recently, Mother began weaving a tapestry. It is strange. I know nothing of women's work, but it seems to make no progress, though she spends day after day working on it, while you remain conspicuous by your absence.
**
Father, what have I done to make you abandon me? What does a child whose father is absent deserve? What does a father who never comes home deserve?
**
Father, help me! Can you not see all these plunderers who covet your life? Those who are absent are always in the wrong. I hold you responsible. I resent you so much.
**
Father, I have so much to tell you. When are you coming home? We could spend evenings by the fireside, with me listening to tales of your battles and adventures, and you listening to the love a son bears for his father.
**
Father, sometimes, to me too, you are nobody.
**
Father, do you know how much I miss you?
**
Father, I too want to sail beyond those fearsome seas and discover new scents and new skins. I too want to leave this land and fight monsters and enemies. You have already shown me what cunning in battle means, and I am indeed the son of the most cunning of men and a skilful woman.
Father, I too want to leave.
But I cannot.
Two Kinds of Waiting: Telemachus and Penelope
The Return of Odysseus and Telemachus’ Waiting tell the same myth from two different places of waiting: The Return of Odysseus gives a voice to the one who stayed behind; Telemachus’ Waiting gives a voice to the one who grew up in absence. And in both cases, Odysseus’ absence ultimately becomes more real than his presence.