The plot of Thespis, with its elderly gods tired of their life in Olympus, is similar to some of Offenbach's operas, notably Orphée aux Enfers (Orpheus in the Underworld).
"To underlings he is o patron, to elderly farmers God," says an observer.
Among the offerings was an incense-burner in the shape of an elderly underworld god, sitting on a stool made of human bones and holding a severed head in his hands.
A line in a prominent prayer recited on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur addresses this portion of the elderly population: "(God), do not cast us out when we are old, do not abandon us when our strength fails".
It stars some older than I, thank god, elderly, ok, really older thespians, but unlike the charming and fun Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, which was populated with retirees yet still managed energy, vitality and hope... this was death on wheels!
It portrays the king as the elderly Maya maize god and has imagery that seems to deliberately parallel the tomb lid of the Palenque king K'inich Janaab' Pakal, probably because of Yax Pasaj Chan Yopaat's close family ties to that city.
"Thanks God," an elderly woman said, her face pale beneath a tightly drawn scarf.
In one house, an elderly woman screamed: "May God kill the only son of Karzai, so he feels what we feel".
The victim of discrimination, the impoverished, the sick, the disabled, the unborn, the elderly, are all images of God, mirrors held up to divinity, beings for whom a God would and did die.
The piece was an extravaganza in which the classical Greek gods, grown elderly, are temporarily replaced by a troupe of 19th-century actors and actresses, one of whom is the eponymous Thespis, the Greek father of the drama.
