February 5, 2012 - Written by:

Basic Instinct

So the other day in one of my drama classes we were exploring the chorus of Euripides’ Greek tragedy The Bacchae.  

So if you’re not familiar with this delightful play in a nut shell it’s about this gobby King called Pentheus who pisses off the god of wine and ultimately gets torn to pieces by a chorus of highly sexual, divinely possessed, primitive, crazy ass women.

 So we started the class running around until exhaustion set in, then we added some heavy breathing, we started dodging about the tables and chairs, plunging into empty spaces, turning our attention to our sensory apparatus… man it was getting heated. The exercise was all about losing our inhibitions and tapping into our primal instincts. I was getting really into the whole thing too!

The class got split into two groups so we could focus on particular scenes of the play. My group decided to look at the scene when where Pentheus gets murdered by these lunitic chicks who coincidently drag him down from a tree and pull his limbs off.  I was so thrilled to play the role. After we performed the scene we sat around our professor and debriefed for the day.

During a highly academic discussion on the theatricality of Greek drama, a voice trembled up at the back of the class: ‘It was really good. But I was genuinely a bit scared. You see… the thing is… JOY* BIT MA LEGG’.

What? Me? There was an uproar of laughter. I had gone so utterly and completely mental during the scene that I had actually sunk my teeth into this poor innocent drama student’s left calf. OOoo shiiiiteee! The poor guy!! I didn’t even realize until the scene was over what I had done.

I don’t know exactly what came over me that day but despite semi-assaulting my class mate in a sexually charged performative attack, I actually felt sort of liberated. I left my class feeling revitalised, awakened, relaxed like I had just been on an emotional detox or something. Damn it felt gooood!

Now I’m not saying you should go round biting people (I am totally a lover not a fighter guys!!!), and am not saying I condone violence on any level, BUT I guess what I am saying is that deep, deeep, oh so deep, within each and every one of us there is a primitive, cave-woman-like maniac (yes, even you lads), who is just waiting to be unleashed.

What caused me to munch on this dudes tibia? What drove me to maul him? Maybe it was a release of tension? Maybe I was for those moments freed from my self-consciousness? I was immersed in the task in hand and my focus was so vigorous that it caused me to do unexplainable things. I felt Iike Prince must have done when he changed his name to a symbol!

We shouldn’t undermine our primal nature because I think it exists in all of us. You hear about these amazing stories where mothers have lifted up heavy cars to free their trapped children, men who have out run fast and dangerous predators… I don’t know how my experience contributed to my survival or the survival of my offspring (I have no offspring, don’t worry dad) but it was pleasant to know that my inner primal woman was there if I needed her.  

People do weird and sometimes incredible shizz when basic instinct sets in. It can be a life saver or just damn right freaky. Either way I will certainly be a lot more aware of my alter ego in the future, coz damn! I wouldn’t wanna mess with her – that bitch is crazzzy!

So that was just some of my weekly musings….

Next Sunday I will be ranting about… yes you guessed it… VALENTINES!!!  Dum dum DUM!!! Yes, the wankiest day of them all has returned. (Yes, I am saying that it is wanky because I secretly love Valentines day but like alot of us hate to admit it.)

Have a super week peeps!

x



Tags:

Categories:

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *