What soap opera or TV thriller hasn't featured murder, conspiracy and suicide? We all know humans are capable of these things, but a new play, "Hominid," puts a twist on the drama by having human actors re-enact such events that took place in a colony of chimpanzees.
The stories are real and were documented by world-renowned Emory University primatologist Frans de Waal in his best-selling book, "Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex Among Apes."
Dr. de Waal tells me he is very pleased with the play, and notes that audiences won't see any actual chimps. Instead, he explained, "the actors act like chimpified humans!"
Here's a summary of the drama, as provided by Emory:
"A
conniving kingmaker and his young protégé conspire to overthrow a
popular king. Their plot fails, so they murder him instead. The
kingmaker then installs his protégé as ruler. The young king does not
properly reward his mentor, however, so the kingmaker selects a new
protégé. Together, they torment the young king to the point of madness.
He throws himself into the palace moat and drowns.
The brutal power struggle reads like a Shakespearean tragedy, but it
actually happened on an island of captive chimpanzees at a Holland zoo
during the late 1970s."
A preview:
"Hominid" runs through November 22 at the Theater at Emory , which commissioned Atlanta’s Out of Hand Theater to create the evolution-themed work – a collaboration of playwrights’ imaginations and de Waal’s research.
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