Monday, November 18, Red Bull Theater will present a reading of Shelley’s “lyrical drama” Prometheus Unbound, directed by Craig Baldwin and featuring John Douglas Thompson, Adam Green, Jennifer Ikeda, Miriam Silverman, and Marc Vietor among the stellar cast. For tickets to this rare theatrical treat, click here.
Reprinted below is a fascinating overview of the piece from The Romanticist Research Group of New York University:
Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound: The Essential Background
While in Italy in 1818, Percy Shelley began thinking about his next major work, Prometheus Unbound, and the intricacies required to launch what he expected to become his magnum opus. Because of his high regard for the theater, his great work would be a “lyrical drama” intended neither for the stage nor for mass circulation. In the play’s Preface, 
the poet explains he sought “simply to familiarize the highly
refined imagination of the more select classes of poetical readers with beautiful idealisms of moral excellence.” But despite its esoteric content and suitability for “more select classes of poetical readers,” he made several efforts to get his drama published. Given this history and Shelley’s intentions, our decision to stage the play onNovember 18th should stir numerous rich conversations on this site and during the post-show discussion.
In writing the drama, Shelley hoped to answer a question that had perplexed him for most of his life: how could society successfully eliminate injustice and despotism without violence? As a second-generation Romantic poet living in the post-French Revolution, Napoleonic era, Shelley did not directly witness the bloodshed and despair that the events in France had caused, as Wordsworth had years earlier. However, the widespread disillusionment was still palpable for those of his generation. The Reign of Terror and the subsequent rise of Napoleon had caused many to lose hope in lofty Enlightenment principles like “Liberty” and “Equality” that had originally stirred the revolution’s fervor. Moreover, Shelley lived through more than 20 years of war across Europe. These realities shaped his thinking and literary works.
In 1819, Shelley ruminated over the prevention of violence and injustice in his poem, “The Masque of Anarchy.” He composed it in response to the Peterloo Massacre in Manchester, where English soldiers killed innocent civilians who were demanding parliamentary reform. The poem details one of the first—and finest—descriptions of mass civil disobedience. Its memorable refrain, “ye are many – they are few,” would serve as an inspiration to both Thoreau in the States and, later, Gandhi in India. In his verse, Shelley addresses the multitude directly: “Stand ye calm and resolute,/ Like a forest close and mute,/ With folded arms, and looks which are/ Weapons of an unvanquished war” (ll. 319-322).
When he turned to his “lyrical drama” that same year, he wanted to offer another kind of response. But this version, he thought, would require a more proactive and sustainable formulation—rather than the reactive prescription offered by his “Masque.” Not only was he thinking about the prevention of violence; he also wanted to conceive a world that could rid itself of oppression. And he believed that the fusion between elevated poetry and drama would serve as the correct genre for the content he would put forth. His objective, however, would prove to be an ambitious one since it demanded restarting human history by literally going back in time. It is no coincidence that part of the play’s setting takes place in the Indian Caucasus, the locale believed at the time to be the site of human kind’s origins. This “second chance,” as it were, would also necessitate the renovation and reformation of the human psyche. Indeed, Shelley hoped to provide the blueprint for tyranny’s non-violent overthrow as well as a cosmic-wide revolution.
The Classic Promethean Myth
Shelley turned to the Promethean myth itself because he was convinced it, too, needed rethinking. The story dates back to Hesiod’s Theogony from ancient Greece, c. 8th Century BCE, who describes the Titan as a trickster deity. Approximately three centuries later, Aeschylus turned the popular story into an elaborate dramatic trilogy, of which only its first part, Prometheus Bound, survives. It wasn’t the classic story about the stolen fire bequeathed to humans that unsettled Shelley. What troubled him was that Aeschylus’s account reconciled the “Champion (Prometheus) with the Oppressor of Mankind (Jupiter).” Jupiter’s absolute despotism and intractable nature not only persist after Prometheus’s release; they also go unaddressed. In its Greek iteration, after Prometheus “discloses” his secret knowledge about Jupiter’s potential downfall, Jupiter allows Hercules to unbind Prometheus. For these reasons, Shelley committed to producing a markedly distinct version. The poet explained: “The Prometheus Unbound of Aeschylus supposed the reconciliation of Jupiter with his victim” only after the Titan reveals the threat to Jupiter’s “empire.”
Because Shelley staunchly resisted the acquiescence that perpetuated the very power relations he wished to eradicate, his protagonist does not make peace with Jupiter. Instead, Prometheus collaborates with the drama’s other equally important characters to make Jupiter’s autocratic reign obsolete. This lofty objective is not achieved through violence, revenge, or retribution. It becomes possible through forgiveness, love, self-awareness, and shared understanding.
The First Three Acts
Initially, Shelley wrote three acts of the play. Though the first act rehearses much of Aeschylus’s plot, the poet presents one radical difference at the onset: Prometheus’s recantation. As the act opens, the Titan appears already in chains. Soon, a projection of himself recast as the “Phantasm of Jupiter” is displayed. The cinematic-like portrayal recreates his wrathful curse at Jupiter for enchaining him. When the Titan’s mother, Earth, confirms that he had indeed uttered the diatribe, Prometheus recalls it and admits his error. This marks one of the play’s two major climaxes; it also incites the god’s profound mental transformation. This turning point allows him to resist any subsequent physical or verbal torment by Mercury or the Furies—sent by Jupiter to obtain the secret known only to the Titan. Thereafter, beautiful spirits of nature console Prometheus with hope and ideals and, more significantly, echo his new found interior fortitude.
Shelley’s second act introduces the play’s heroine, Asia, who is equally, if not more, important than her counterpart. This represents yet another major change from the original Greek plot. The act features the play’s crucial underworld journey undertaken by Asia, the representation of love, and Panthea, Asia’s sister. As the act opens, Panthea describes two dreams to Asia that presage Prometheus’s release and the world’s imminent renewal. This revelation is followed by their mystical underworld journey led by beneficent spiritual forces and fauns as well as enhanced by various echoes and songs. Toward the end of their fantastical expedition, they come face to face with Demogorgon. Literally the “people’s monster,” Demogorgon is a multi-dimensional, genderless emblem—an inactive and reflective energy that requires activation (to be described more thoroughly in a future post). It is during this encounter that Asia literally and metaphorically uncovers the “deep truth”: her literal descent to the deep is but a figurative reflection of the profound journey into her own unconscious. Among the many aspects Demogorgon represents, the spirit symbolizes the truth and potential that Asia herself had already possessed. Their dialogic exchange arguably serves as a prototype of modern psychoanalysis. Following her personal discovery, Asia ascends back to the earth on a beautiful winged chariot as time and history restart. It is at this point that love (Asia) literally announces the emergence of a “diviner day.”
In Act III, Jupiter, after marrying and raping Thetis, makes his first and only appearance. Sitting on his high throne, he awaits the offspring of their union. Demogorgon, the self-admitted offspring who also symbolizes Jupiter’s futility in the recently sprung Promethean society, brings Jupiter down into the “bottomless void.” Following this event, Hercules releases Prometheus, and the Spirit of the Hour proclaims the good news around the world: that the “sceptreless” and “classless” multitude, now living harmoniously, can relish the new freedoms that the joyous revolution has introduced. The spirit also announces an extraordinary achievement for women who “[speak] the wisdom once they could not think,/ [Look] emotions once they feared to feel,/ And changed to all which once they dared not be” (III. iv. 156-159). Meanwhile, Prometheus and Asia—reunited at long last—retire to a cave to cultivate the arts, one of the major founding principles of the newly conceived civilization.
The Cenci and Prometheus Unbound Act IV
It was after writing these three acts that Shelley turned to writing The Cenci, a historical tragedy based on a 15th Century Italian story about a notorious father who raped his own daughter, Beatrice. In this play, that Shelley hoped would actually be staged in London, he depicts Beatrice’s gradual transformation into her father’s own tyrannical-like qualities (we will also feature a more detailed post about the relation between these dramas). This transformation can be likened, of course, to the French Revolution that had already offered Europe the specific paradigm of trading one tyranny in for another.
After creating this controversial tragedy, then, Shelley returned to Prometheus Unbound to add a fourth act. This addendum constituted a single scene that would extend the revolutionized global order—already established in Act III—to the cosmos. Shelley audaciously created his own apocalyptic vision. It would materialize as a colossal celebration containing songs and dance that would spread the new world cheer; it would also emblematize the celestial harmony arising in the wake of Prometheus’s mental reformation and Asia’s successful mission. Promethean society, in other words, represents an entirely renovated universe: a revolution spanning the inner reaches of the mind to the outermost layers of space.
And Shelley’s bold undertaking would serve numerous functions. It would establish the society’s lasting harmony. It would also offer a structural symmetry to the play: a perfect balance among the number of acts and scenes. Lastly, it would give the drama’s final lines, a series of instructional directives for maintaining the new social harmony, to Demogorgon–the “people’s monster” or “people’s potential” itself. Struck by her husband’s achievement, Mary Shelley considered this act the play’s culminating “hymn.”
Staging the Play and Upcoming Posts
Given the drama’s highly complex, abstracted, and even ethereal nature, one might puzzle over our decision to stage it. In our next series of posts, we will offer additional thoughts on this specific subject. In the meantime, however, we can preliminarily affirm the following. As we learned with staging Sardanapalus last year, any admonition against bringing a presumed “unstageable” play to life—even directly from the author himself—provides a signal for us to undertake just the opposite. It seems the warning transforms into a platform that, as in the case of Demogorgon, unleashes an unknown and unprecedented potential.
-Omar F. Miranda
Prometheus Unbound
Monday, November 18, 7:30 p.m.
Red Bull Theater
Lucille Lortel Theater
121 Christopher Street
Between Bleecker and Hudson
Click here for tickets.
Red Bull Theater 