Characters:

Clio, Muse of History

Saint Catherine

Judith

Artemisia Gentileschi

Agostino Tassi

Man 1

Man 2

Traveler, female

Setting:

1600s Italy

2017 USA

Reading Note:

Bold words indicate important words

Do not feel obligated to use accents, or to speak old Italian.

This story transcends time, and the language used is intended to reflect that. In other words, if it sounds modern, it could be intentional.

Disclaimer:

While the characters in this play are based on historical figures, this work is purely speculative. The Playwright is a big fan of Signorina Gentileschi but not so big a fan of research. All events depicted in this play are fictitious or based loosely on historical events as the Playwright remembers learning them.

Content Warning: Discussions of rape.

Darkness, then—

A TRAVELER appears. She crosses the stage, passing three large paintings. Each painting is spotlit as the TRAVELER passes and admires each.

Three women appear from their respective paintings: CLIO, SAINT CATHERINE, JUDITH.

These women comprise the Chorus.

They speak.

CLIO

1611. Florence.

JUDITH

Look at all that art.

CLIO

Don’t raise your voice.

JUDITH

You’re not my father.

SAINT CATHERINE

Clio knows the rules of the city.

JUDITH

Rules can change.

SAINT CATHERINE

Rules do change, eventually.

CLIO

But now it’s 1611. Layer your skirts, preserve your virginity, and keep your voice down.

JUDITH

I wish I could behead the whole social institution.

CLIO

Every Holofernes has a second in command, Judith.

SAINT CATHERINE

We have a story to tell.

CLIO

A spark has landed.

Lights up on ARTEMISIA. She paints.

SAINT CATHERINE

Artemisia Gentileschi, female, age eighteen.

CLIO

An artist overshadowed by her father in name alone.

JUDITH

A name to remember.

SAINT CATHERINE

How do you quantify success?

JUDITH

Talent? Notoriety?

CLIO

A name in history books.

SAINT CATHERINE

What if your name never makes it into the books?

JUDITH

Wouldn’t be the first time.

CLIO

Recording history is difficult.

SAINT CATHERINE

Censoring history is easy.

JUDITH

Some names set a spark. Some names are kept out of the books for the safety of the flammable authority who writes them.

ARTEMISIA has painted “Clio, Muse of History”. She wipes her hands on a rag.

CLIO admires the piece; she is identical to the woman in the painting.

ARTEMISIA

Clio, Muse of history.

CLIO

From Greek, meaning “to recount”, “to celebrate”.

ARTEMISIA

Blessed are the ones whom the Muses love.

A bar. MAN 1, MAN 2, and AGOSTINO sit and drink.

MAN 2

Orazio Gentileschi?

MAN 1

Artemisia. His daughter.

MAN 2

She any good?

MAN 1

Word is she’s better than he is.

AGOSTINO

I know Orazio. He rivals Caravaggio, in my opinion.

MAN 2

This girl must be some painter then.

AGOSTINO

I’m shocked Orazio even lets her near his studio.

MAN 1

What’s the harm? It’s his daughter.

AGOSTINO

I suppose I have morals.

MAN 1

You, Agostino? This is a surprise.

AGOSTINO

There’s no room for a woman in art.

MAN 1

You say so, but she’s making a name for herself.

MAN 2

You don’t get out enough to hear about her otherwise.

MAN 1 and MAN 2 laugh.

AGOSTINO

Have you seen her work?

MAN 1

Not personally.

AGOSTINO

How do you know if she’s any good?

MAN 1

Word spreads.

AGOSTINO

Rumors spread.

MAN 2

What are you saying?

AGOSTINO

Could it be a stunt? A ploy?

MAN 1

To what end?

AGOSTINO

I don’t know yet.

MAN 2

Is our friend Agostino jealous of a little girl?

AGOSTINO

You shouldn’t be too quick to believe gossip.

MAN 1

Come on. You don’t have to worry about direct competition. She’s a portrait artist like her father.

MAN 2

Maybe you should be worried. Hills and trees don’t have faces.

AGOSTINO

Landscape painting is plenty impressive. My work is highly demanded.

MAN 2

Don’t get defensive.

AGOSTINO

Don’t get so blown away by a bitch you’ve never seen paint.

CLIO hands AGOSTINO a letter.

He reads it, frowns.

A studio. ARTEMISIA paints.

ARTEMISIA

So my father sent for you.

AGOSTINO

Blame him if this doesn’t work out.

ARTEMISIA

Given your tone, I’m very optimistic.

AGOSTINO

You have a sharp tongue.

ARTEMISIA

I am attempting to maintain a positive outlook, though for what, I am not sure. You do not seem enthusiastic about this arrangement.

AGOSTINO

I doubt my being here will be of much benefit to either of us.

ARTEMISIA

Should I not trust in your ability as a painter?

AGOSTINO

That’s not—

ARTEMISIA

Consider my expectations revised then.

AGOSTINO

My work is very highly demanded.

ARTEMISIA

In certain circles, I’m sure.

AGOSTINO

Landscape painting is a well-respected area. And I am very well-known for it.

ARTEMISIA

My father likes you at least.

AGOSTINO

Surely you trust your father’s preferences?

ARTEMISIA

How much can you trust the taste of a man who has been surpassed by his own daughter?

AGOSTINO

Your father seems to think you have room for improvement.

ARTEMISIA

If you can show me where, you really are as good as he says.

AGOSTINO

I find it hard to believe that a respectable man like Orazio could rear such an insufferable child.

ARTEMISIA

I’ve been without a mother’s soft sensibility for six years.

AGOSTINO

Hm. My condolences.

ARTEMISIA

Keep them. You don’t like me.

AGOSTINO

I sure am sorry you don’t have any female sensibility. You would make a much better pupil that way.

ARTEMISIA

And less insufferable?

AGOSTINO

There is no way to know for sure.

ARTEMISIA

When will you teach me something useful, Signor Tassi?

AGOSTINO

Our first lesson will be tomorrow.

ARTEMISIA

That does not answer my question.

AGOSTINO

I am looking forward to this arrangement already.

ARTEMISIA

Bring some of your mythical sensibility and we’ll call it a profitable exchange.

The Chorus descends as the scene freezes. Several days pass.

SAINT CATHERINE

Some might call this the blaze.

JUDITH

Fire spreads like rumors.

CLIO

Commissions increased.

JUDITH

Our girl Artemisia was impossible to ignore.

CLIO

And impossible to teach.

A new day.

AGOSTINO

You’re impossible.

ARTEMISIA

To resist? To deny?

AGOSTINO

To stand.

ARTEMISIA

No true master gets frustrated on the first lesson.

AGOSTINO

Are you trying to get me to show weakness?

ARTEMISIA

Why? Is it working?

AGOSTINO

A true master would not succumb to childish taunts.

ARTEMISIA

Let me know when he arrives.

AGOSTINO

Show me what you’re working on.

ARTEMISIA

Prepare to be blown away.

ARTEMISIA grabs and displays a painting. AGOSTINO studies it, frowns, smiles.

AGOSTINO

It’s amateur work.

ARTEMISIA

Is it?

AGOSTINO

It is.

ARTEMISIA

Funny, because I grabbed one of my father’s portraits.

AGOSTINO

That’s not your work?

ARTEMISIA

Some friend you are. Can’t even recognize Orazio’s brushstrokes.

AGOSTINO

Enough games.

ARTEMISIA

I was finally enjoying myself. Please tell me again how amateur you find my father’s work.

AGOSTINO roughly grabs a new painting.

AGOSTINO

Is this one yours?

ARTEMISIA

You’re no fun.

AGOSTINO

Is it yours?

ARTEMISIA

Yes, that one’s mine.

AGOSTINO

It’s…

ARTEMISIA

It’s?

AGOSTINO is blown away, but he would never tell her that.

AGOSTINO

It’s adequate work. Certainly not as good as the real masters.

ARTEMISIA

Matter of taste, I suppose.

AGOSTINO

I should take this… To study. To prepare for our next lesson.

ARTEMISIA

Oh no, signor. My work stays here. In my studio. With me.

ARTEMISIA takes the painting, stands a little too close for a little too long. Eyes meet, dart away.

AGOSTINO exits.

SAINT CATHERINE

And the blaze continues.

JUDITH

Artemisia Gentileschi was the name on every tongue.

CLIO

And the face she reused in many of her works

SAINT CATHERINE

Her own face

CLIO

was the image in everyone’s mind.

ARTEMISIA turns the painting she is holding toward the audience.

It is “Self-Portrait as Saint Catherine”. SAINT CATHERINE admires it; she is dressed the same as the woman in the painting, but this is a self-portrait of ARTEMISIA.

ARTEMISIA

Saint Catherine of Alexandria.

SAINT CATHERINE

So devout that one hundred great rhetoricians could not sway her from her belief. 

A new day.

There is an underlying flirtatiousness to these lines that neither AGOSTINO nor ARTEMISIA want to directly address.

ARTEMISIA flirts like a teenager.

She is one, after all.

AGOSTINO

You are impossible.

ARTEMISIA

To teach? To respect?

AGOSTINO

To resist. To forget.

ARTEMISIA

You’ve got me on your mind, Signor Tassi?

AGOSTINO

In a purely professional sense.

ARTEMISIA

Of course.

AGOSTINO

Fetch your painting.

ARTEMISIA

Anxious to see my genius at work again?

AGOSTINO

I’d rather watch you at work this time.

ARTEMISIA

The genius herself.

AGOSTINO

Let your painting speak for itself.

ARTEMISIA

It will sing praises for its creator.

ARTEMISIA paints.

When will I see some of your work?

AGOSTINO

I am not the student.

ARTEMISIA

So I am simply to trust that you’re worth listening to?

AGOSTINO

Do you trust your father?

ARTEMISIA

Not when it comes to art.

AGOSTINO

Do you trust me?

ARTEMISIA

That depends.

AGOSTINO

Keep painting.

CLIO

There comes a point in every tutorship when nothing more can be gained by either party.

SAINT CATHERINE

Debatably that point came very early in this case.

JUDITH

I would say, nearly immediately.

A new day.

AGOSTINO poses while ARTEMISIA paints. Things are flirty until they are not.

AGOSTINO

Why do you hold your head that way?

ARTEMISIA

Just sit still.

AGOSTINO

I am your tutor. I must understand your behaviors in order to rectify them.

ARTEMISIA

What makes you think you think all of my habits should be corrected?

AGOSTINO

Your father pays me to improve your skills.

ARTEMISIA

My father is wasting his money.

AGOSTINO

You still don’t trust me?

ARTEMISIA

The inclination comes and goes.

AGOSTINO

I can never tell how you feel about me.

ARTEMISIA

That is by design.

AGOSTINO

You’re impossible.

ARTEMISIA

You’re impatient. And mediocre.

AGOSTINO

Oh?

ARTEMISIA

You’re mediocre. I saw some of your paintings.

AGOSTINO

Surely you cannot assess my skill without studying my complete body of work.

ARTEMISIA

That’s why you’re modeling for me.

AGOSTINO

And? Do you like what you see?

ARTEMISIA

You don’t have the stature of an artist.

AGOSTINO

You can’t know that.

ARTEMISIA

I’m clever. I can tell.

AGOSTINO

What does an artist look like then?

ARTEMISIA

I picture longer hair. Softer face. More curves in more attractive places.

AGOSTINO

You picture a woman?

ARTEMISIA

I draw from personal experience.

AGOSTINO

What am I then? What is your father?

ARTEMISIA

There are so many of you. Each male artist is redundant.

AGOSTINO

Men do not have wandering minds or snapping tongues.

ARTEMISIA

Men do not have patience or empathy or understanding of the female form. Those things take a feminine eye.

AGOSTINO

I think we are done for today.

ARTEMISIA

I was just getting warmed up.

AGOSTINO

I cannot teach a girl who does not want to learn.

ARTEMISIA

Then I fear our entire acquaintanceship has been a waste of time. There is nothing you can teach me that I can’t already do better.

AGOSTINO storms out.

Later, the bar.

AGOSTINO

The rumors are true.

MAN 1

Are you impressed?

AGOSTINO

Quite the opposite.

MAN 1

But she is your student.

MAN 2

Surely some of that success could be attributed to you.

AGOSTINO

There is nothing I can teach her that she does not already know. Her words, but in her absence, I am inclined to agree.

MAN 2

Could it be that landscape and portraiture just don’t overlap?

AGOSTINO

Even my technique is… subordinate to hers.

MAN 1

I’m sorry, old friend.

MAN 2

Don’t let the critics know. Your name will take the same hit Orazio’s has. No use for the girl to surpass two great masters.

AGOSTINO

Great masters.

MAN 2

Well, aren’t you?

AGOSTINO

Weeks ago I would insist on it. But now.

MAN 2

This girl really has broken you.

MAN 1

Maybe you can learn from her.

AGOSTINO

Impossible.

MAN 1

Put your pride aside. She’s talented. You can use that.

AGOSTINO

She has instinct. Real talent like that you can’t teach, and I can’t learn.

MAN 2

So what? You’re just going to mope about it?

MAN 1

This is an opportunity, Agostino.

AGOSTINO

For growth? I am too old, too set in my ways. I’ve been painting the same pictures for years.

MAN 1

And you’ve been popular. Successful. This girl does not change that.

AGOSTINO

She’s entered the art world now. My world. Her name is tied up with mine and will cast me into shadow.

MAN 1

What are you going to do?

AGOSTINO

I can’t let her ruin my reputation any further. She must be silenced.

MAN 2

You can’t kill every woman who makes you feel inferior.

AGOSTINO

Kill her? No.

MAN 2

I sense a but.

MAN 1

Good god, Agostino. What are you thinking?

AGOSTINO

I cannot take her life.

MAN 1

Right. Good.

MAN 2

But?

AGOSTINO

But I can take her virtue.

MAN 1

Marrying her will not improve your art or your status.

AGOSTINO

It is not marriage I am suggesting.

JUDITH

Nothing like some seventeenth century locker room talk.

CLIO

Let’s skip ahead.

JUDITH

History really likes to gloss over the rapes, doesn’t it?

CLIO opens a folder. This is her case file.

CLIO

A young woman, an eighteen-year-old girl, with an older male teacher. An authority, a mentor, a friend of the family.

SAINT CATHERINE

Eight out of ten perpetrators are known by the victim.

CLIO

A man deranged by jealousy and anger.

JUDITH

A monster.

CLIO

Agostino Tassi, the defendant, entered the studio.

SAINT CATHERINE

He was drunk.

CLIO flips through her folder.

CLIO

Was he?

JUDITH

Does it make a difference?

CLIO

The defendant entered the studio.

SAINT CATHERINE

Artemisia’s studio.

CLIO

The defendant entered the plaintiff’s studio.

JUDITH

Spit it out, will you?

CLIO

The defendant grabbed the plaintiff. The defendant disrobed the plaintiff. The defendant penetrated the plaintiff.

JUDITH

Raped. Just say raped, you coward.

SAINT CATHERINE

This is the water. The end. The conclusion to a victorious blaze.

CLIO

Smoke rises.

SAINT CATHERINE

Smoke masks the crime. Casts doubt.

JUDITH

If a woman is raped, and she’s the only witness, did the rape even happen?

CLIO

The affair continued for several months.

JUDITH

Affair?

SAINT CATHERINE

Don’t condescend, Judith.

ARTEMISIA

It was rape, okay? He hurt me, for sure. But we’d gotten closer in our lessons. I knew him. And he was hard to resist.

SAINT CATHERINE

But your father pressed charges. So what changed?

ARTEMISIA

He was supposed to marry me. He broke his promise.

CLIO

No man wants to marry an impure woman.

SAINT CATHERINE

Read out the charges again.

CLIO

The plaintiff’s father has charged the defendant with deflowerment.

SAINT CATHERINE

Rape wasn’t a punishable offense in those days.

JUDITH

Orazio pressed charges for making his daughter undesirable.

SAINT CATHERINE

And only after learning Tassi had no intention of marrying Artemisia.

CLIO

The defendant was convicted but never served jail time.

SAINT CATHERINE

Artemisia was tortured and ridiculed in court, forced into an unhappy marriage, and chased out of the city.

JUDITH

But hey, everyone knows sexual assault is a new trend, right?

ARTEMISIA

He was charming, in a way. Not particularly talented. Certainly arrogant. But he was an artist. And a friend. And my teacher, to my constant complaint. How could I have known? Could I have seen the signs? Were there signs at all?

A long hall of paintings. CLIO holds a tour guide flag and leads the other women. They stop at each painting.

CLIO

Susannah and the Elders.

SAINT CATHERINE

Old men harassing a nude young woman.

JUDITH

The pressures of a young woman in a man’s line of work. Oppressed, overwhelmed.

SAINT CATHERINE

Looked down on.

CLIO

Danaë.

JUDITH

The only reason the hero, Perseus, was born was because Zeus raped his mother first.

CLIO

Portrait of a Young Woman as a Sibyl.

SAINT CATHERINE

Orazio’s tribute to his daughter, Artemisia. That’s her face.

JUDITH

Artemisia was tortured by sibille during the trial.

SAINT CATHERINE

Sibyls speak the truth.

JUDITH

Those broken fingers sure proved she wasn’t lying about being raped.

Good thing we take women at their word nowadays.

JUDITH glares at the audience.

The words, “Trust Women”, appear in neon letters in the background.

It’s really no wonder that Artemisia painted so many self-portraits as a female martyr.

Maintaining eye contact with the audience, the Chorus backs up, returns to their large paintings.

ARTEMISIA unveils “Judith Slaying Holofernes” on the wall.

A young female TRAVELER approaches. She is nervous.

TRAVELER

Judith Slaying Holofernes.

The Chorus talks among themselves from their respective paintings. ARTEMISIA and the TRAVELER cannot hear them.

JUDITH

The widow Judith who killed the general Holofernes to protect her people. 

CLIO

The canonicity of the Book of Judith is widely debated.

JUDITH

Censoring history is easy.

ARTEMISIA

The original was destroyed.

TRAVELER

She looks strong. Angry.

JUDITH

She is.

TRAVELER

Look at the blood drops, wow.

ARTEMISIA

Violent acts demand graphic depiction.

The TRAVELER approaches “Portrait of a Young Woman as a Sybil”.

TRAVELER

This one isn’t yours.

ARTEMISIA

You have a discerning eye.

TRAVELER

It is a great likeness though.

ARTEMISIA

My father was a great artist.

TRAVELER

You’re better.

ARTEMISIA

Everyone knows, but many are scared to admit it.

TRAVELER

Um. I wanted to thank you.

ARTEMISIA

For?

TRAVELER

Just for making it. I mean, a successful woman in the 1600s. Your story is so impressive, but people haven’t really ever heard about you.

ARTEMISIA

History is funny like that.

TRAVELER

You are such an inspiration to me.

ARTEMISIA

Are you an artist?

TRAVELER

How…?

ARTEMISIA

I can always tell. You have the stature.

The TRAVELER smiles.

The Chorus reappears.

CLIO

This is what happens after a fire has been extinguished.

SAINT CATHERINE

From smoke and dust rises a new structure, stronger and wiser than before.

CLIO

Like a phoenix from the ashes.

JUDITH

History knocks us down, erases us.

SAINT CATHERINE

What does a director look like? What about an engineer?

JUDITH

A doctor? A CEO?

CLIO

Picture yourself working for us.

JUDITH

Picture yourself.

SAINT CATHERINE

The books aren’t gospel. History is constantly being written.

CLIO

And rewritten.

JUDITH

Who says fame is only quantified by your name in dusty old books?

CLIO

Make an impact, take a stance, and rumors spread.

SAINT CATHERINE

Talk to people, make connections, and stories spread.

JUDITH

Women rise from the ashes.

SAINT CATHERINE

Women raise each other up.

CLIO

We persist.

ARTEMISIA

We succeed.

END OF PLAY.