Prologue
A PRAYER FOR PEACE

A ruined city. The arts (poetry, painting, architecture, theater, music and dance) are in chains. They pray for peace, hoping to restrain the violence in their own hearts. They beg Venus, the Goddess of Beauty, to return to Earth again to seduce her husband, Mars, the God of War, and to put him in chains, because the world is consumed by war and human society has been destroyed.

Venus descends in mourning, and will not speak to her estranged husband. She asks their son, Amor, to shoot his father with an arrow of love. Mars, struck by the arrow, and wounded, surrenders to “the empire of humans”. For a few precious minutes, there is peace on Earth and in human hearts. Then Mars’ security detail panics, shoots Amor in retaliation, and Love lies bleeding on the floor.

Act 1:
WAR AND REVENGE

The funeral of Castor, who has just been shot by his rival Lynceus, is dark and heartbreaking. Castor’s brother Pollux is immortal, and together with hispartner Phébé, he craves the satisfaction of revenge. Télaïre, Castor’s fiancée, partner Phébé, he craves the satisfaction of revenge. Télaïre, Castor’s fiancée, does not want revenge. She wants her love. Alone with her lover’s body, she sings to the dark stars in the night sky, emitting light as they die. She turns her back on her father, the Sun, forever, to take refuge in her own darkness.

Pollux returns triumphantly, placing the blood-soaked corpse of Lynceus at Télaïre’s feet. The bloodthirsty chorus of self-justification and revenge (“Let Hell applaud us”) keeps being interrupted by the reality of broken families and devastated survivors embodied in Télaïre’s silent grief. There are celebratory dance battles (“Unite, grab your weapons, these are the best days of our lives.”) Pollux has been waiting to make his move on his dead brother’s girlfriend, and he pours out his love to Télaïre. She is shocked.

And then shocks Pollux by telling him that he can help her by going before Jupiter, his father, to convince him to bring Castor back from the dead and give him new life.

Act 2:
“WE LOVE, AND WE ARE LOVED”

Pollux is in crisis: what will rule his heart – the old selfishness of his unchallenged status, privilege and nature, or love, which demands that he makes a sacrifice to help another being? For the first time he becomes aware that his selfish choices have always punished others, but he cannot relinquish his overwhelming urge to possess Télaïre. How do you gods expect mortals to respect you, she counters, when it is clear that you immortals don’t even have power over your own lusts? Love is for mortals, who learn to live with loss, and who learn the powers and meanings of love through adversity and transcendence.

The Heavens open and Jupiter appears. Pollux tells his father that immortality is a curse, and now a torture for him every day. He is only beginning to feel the loss of his brother, whom he must now rescue in the land of the dead. Jupiter ignores Pollux’s tears and explains that Castor could be set free but that Pollux will have to take his brother’s place among the dead. Jupiter can sense that his troubled son Pollux is ready for deep change. He leads the young immortal into the first stages of the old Sufi ritual of “dying before you die”. As you lie in your own coffin, you look back on your life and you can see everything you failed to do in this world with painful clarity. This ritual was adopted by the masonic movement in Enlightenment Europe, and also appears in Mozart’s Magic Flute and Clemenza di Tito. It is a process of letting the ego die, and returning to this life newly motivated, with a higher and urgent sense of purpose.

Jupiter leaves Pollux with a poignant last taste of earthly life, surrounding him with the grieving spirits of women whose tenderness, wisdom and deep humility shine with radiant beauty in the darkness. “We love and we are loved.” Pollux is shocked, and moved. Panicked, he asks the women three times, as in a masonic ritual, “spirits, what do you want from me?” Meanwhile the spirit of Castor, who was torn from this world so suddenly and so violently, appears to Télaïre in a dream to say goodbye. He cannot speak; his voice has been transmuted to the sound of a flute. In her dream, Télaïre knows that there is a secret refuge where we can truly say that we love, and that we are loved.

Act 3:
EVERY HELL

Pollux descends into a Hell of his own making composed of all of the love he has withheld from Phébé, and his self-absorbed indifference to his own human brother Castor, for which he will never be able to forgive himself. Phébé tries to hold Pollux back from these Gates of Hell. She still loves him. “Can’t you see my tears?”. she pleads, but Pollux cannot hear her or see her tears. “I only see my brother.” Phébé watches helplessly while Pollux battles shadows and demons. Télaïre begs Pollux to pull himself together, to truly believe in his higher destiny. Above all the thunder and lightning she has a vision of new gods, waiting to be recognized.

Pollux reaches out to the two women who are trying to save him. In a flash, Phébé sees that he never loved her, and that he has always been obsessed with Télaïre. For two minutes, three people enter the hell of a loveless marriage, frozen in time, in which each moment of deception, self-deception, rejection and denial lasts an eternity.

As in every Hell, the slaves rise up demanding freedom, breaking their chains, shaking the Earth. They assault and defile the precincts of privilege and set the air on fire. Burning with outrage, hunger, impatience, and thirst for justice, they challenge the power structure of Jupiter himself. Pollux cannot break his chains alone and searches everywhere for his brother Castor. The revolt in Hell enters Phébé’s enflamed heart and eats her alive.

Act 4:
IMPATIENT SOULS

Castor awakens in a restless pre-dawn shadow world. He longs to be back on Earth. He still sees Télaïre and still feels Love’s fiery arrows piercing his being. The beauty and calm surrounding him in this new world make no impression. Nothing will calm his impatient soul. Shadow beings emerge and gather in the twilight, caught between worlds. Dawn arrives gradually. Each being bears their own gentle light. These are the ones who have suffered and endured. Their light will shine across time. Among these fugitive shadows Love continues to shoot fiery arrows. In this world, there are as many loves as flowers, as many lovers as beauties.

The beauties are always faithful, the flowers are always new. There is a disturbance in Heaven: Pollux breaks in. This is a Pollux we have not seen before – he is quiet. He is ready to die. Pollux thinks he sees his brother in the distance. They were never close. They recognize each other. Referencing past cruelties and failures, Pollux tells his brother that it is not enough to give him back his life, but he has arranged for Castor to now be an immortal. Only if we share immortality as equals, Castors replies immediately. Pollux lowers his voice to say that they will not be equal because he has chosen to die. Castor asks about Télaïre and Pollux starts weeping. Is she dead? Is she in Hell? No, Pollux replies. Another man loves her, I am that man. I am here to give you your life by sacrificing my own.

Castor interrupts: Télaïre would never accept whatever criminal backroom deal you have made with your life. Return to Earth and rule. But Pollux orders Castor to go back to Télaïre immediately. She needs you. She is dying. I know because I love her. For the first time in his suddenly mortal life, Pollux understands that love is sacrifice. Castor surrenders. He will return to Earth to see Télaïre, but for one hour only. Then he will come back immediately to his place in the shadow world, restoring his brother Pollux to his worldly kingship and altars. Mercury appears and bears Castor across universes. The chorus sings the music of return – how do you re-enter your previous life, step into your previous body, and inhabit your previous mind? A flute traces the backward spiraling path through tiny shards of memory.

Act 5:
WE NEED MORE LIGHT

And Phébé is travelling in the opposite direction. She hopes to meet Pollux in the underworld. The path she chooses to get there is suicide. Télaïre tells the reincarnated Castor that she was ready to kill herself when he was murdered, and that it was only his voice that called her back. “We will live together, faithfully, forever. You will never die.” Castor replies, “You will live, we must say farewell now, forever.” “At last I see you, finally I can breathe, Castor, and then you abandon me?” Crowds arrive to celebrate the happy couple. Castor tells them to disperse. “I cannot abandon my brother in Hell.” Télaïre answers him back: “Jupiter, your father, will save Pollux. Are the gods who saved you so heartless?

We love. Are we guilty? If these gods have ever loved, they would show mercy to lovers.” Télaïre’s fervent stand for equality shakes the Heavens. There is thunder and then “une symphonie mélodieuse.” Jupiter descends on an eagle to set forth the Law of universal Brotherhood. Pollux arrives with Phébé. They have rescued each other from Hell. Jupiter opens his celestial palace.

And the planets, the Sun, and the constellations open into infinity. The vast cosmic order sustains and embodies the balance, equilibrium, harmony and reciprocity of pure friendship and radiant, tender, infinite love. Suddenly Jupiter stops the sun in its operations and asks it to shine twice as brightly, giving our solar system more light. But Jupiter decides that the human world still needs more light. We need a light that is brighter and stronger than the King.

We need new stars, and diverse lights – every human being must shine with their full radiance. That explosion of light will truly become the praise song of the universe. And as if on cue, a planet (ours) begins to sing: “Shine, shine new stars, adorn the skies, rule the waves, guide mortals across the seas. Shine in the night, follow the day star, compete with each other for the glory of being useful to the world.”