Odysseus Comes Home

"Odysseus Comes Home" depicts Odysseus and Penelope's first night together after his 20-year voyage. This is a less heroic view of Odysseus and Penelope. It depicts how people who know each other rather well have to, from time to time, rediscover each other. After Odysseus's long absence, sharing a bed must have been awkward at first.

This is less a story of sexual compatibility, than of sleep compatibility. Sharing a bed is an act of love, but also a practical matter. Difficulties arise when one partner likes to sleep without a blanket, but the other always sleeps with one; when one partner snores; if there is a dip in the bed so that one partner is always squished; when one partner can't sleep, but doesn't want to disturb the other; etc. It takes time to work through such matters, as in so many areas of marriage.

A marriage begins with one set of people, but continues to change as the partners grow and change. Odysseus and Penelope will have had to get to know each other again when he returned. So, too, even a couple that sees each other every day, may become estranged. We grow apart, then find ways to return to each other. In a long marriage, this may happen several times.

As the piece opens, the couple is separated by a sheet: a sail that stretches across Short's shoulders, the shroud that Abrams has repeatedly woven and unwoven in an attempt to hold off her suitors. The sheet also covers Abrams as she lies at a right angle to Short, awkwardly sharing the same bed. Abrams begins to turn, rolling up the sheet, pulling Short off vertical and onto the floor.

The couple scrabbles over the sheet. It becomes a hiding place, alternately covering Odysseus's and Penelope's bodies. It becomes a rope held taut between them. Short rolls himself in it; Abrams whips it off, spinning him around.

They drop the sheet, but are not free. They cling to each other, hands held, as they struggle. Short reels Abrams to himself, and she yanks away, pulling him underneath her. She rolls him over her shoulder, and he flips her over his back. Odysseus's first night back is fraught with mistrust. The couple ends slumped together, spent, but parallel.