Persephone was the daughter of Demeter before she was the Queen of the Underworld, before she was the wife of Hades, before she delivered the dead to their resting place. That is not in question. It is a commonly known fact. Also commonly known is that Demeter punishes the world with her grief for the months that she is separated from her daughter. When Persephone is in the Underworld, the earth is barren and cold. It’s a very northern hemisphere idea…

The story of Persephone is very clearly a story about motherly love in addition to being a sort of creation myth answering “Why do we have seasons?” - neglecting those tropical climates where it’s simply a dry and rainy season. Demeter mourns the loss of her daughter while Persephone never mourns being parted from her mother. The word “Eleusinian” refers to the Eleusinian Mysteries that were performed in Eleusis as rites to the three-part goddess Persephone, Demeter, and Hecate. Hecate, incidentally, was the only one who heared Persephone’s cries when she was taken to the underworld and is the goddess responsible for telling Demeter what went down.

Now I’m trying to write a play about all these characters - updated, modernized, and about the descent into insanity… it’s a strange thing to be working on. It works beautifully but the structure is really unwieldy. A friend suggested the other night that perhaps the structure is so large that I can’t yet see it. This is possible - terrifying but possible.

I believe it will be the best thing I’ve ever written if I can do it. I’m looking for a title because on some level, I feel like that will pull things together. The play is about mothers and their daughters, trying to protect against the world but also against the genes already in play like predestination. It’s interesting that people used to believe in predestination but we no longer do… I don’t. But I think about the way genes interplay on a person’s life and I think about that sense of dread when you meet certain people - that sense that this person will not make it out of here alive. It all comes from their background. Perhaps we’re foolish to discount these larger forces. Perhaps we’ve just misnamed them.

This play is about predestination on some level - uncontrollable forces that like weather can bring calm or take a life in its grip - and two mothers who rail against them, stand in the center of the storm and scream out at anyone who will listen - offering up all else for their daughters - at odds with the universe and each other.

It’s hard. I don’t know how I’ll do it. But it feels necessary.