Jerry Springer’s Agamemnon

Jerry Springer, the famous day-time television playwright, sits quietly in the greenroom studying the script for his show one last time. He chuckles with delight at the drama of this episode — deceit, infidelity, and patricide. His detractors accused his playhouse of being low-brow, featuring characters from life’s underbelly. In Agamemnon, he had found a royal family to prove his storytelling formula was as old as time.

Audience: Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!

The lights get brighter as Springer bounds onto the stage. He pauses to take in the energy from the audience. Hands clapping and fists pumping to the rhythm of the chant. Springer shakes hands and gives out hugs as he snakes his way to the center of the audience to take in the spectacle on the stage.

Springer: Welcome to the show. Are you stuck in a family feud? My guests today say their family feud has turned into a murder plot. Please meet Orestes!

The camera pans to Orestes sitting in the left-most chair of three chairs on the stage. The other two chairs are adjacent to each other a few paces away. Orestes adjusts himself in his chair nervously as he gives a toothless smile to the audience.

Springer: Orestes says his heart broke when he found out his mom killed his dad with her lover. Orestes, tell us what’s going on.

Orestes: Well Jerry, I’m here to bring my mother to justice in the court of public opinion. The judge ruled it an accidental death but I don’t buy that. My dad is a bald man, so my mom has to explain to me why he would have needed to use the hairdryer in the bath.

Springer: So you’re saying your mother electrocuted your father to death?

Orestes: I’m saying my mom and her lover killed my dad! I was away at school when my dad returned from the decade-long Trojan. He was a decorated general, a respected leader, and a good man. He deserves justice!

Springer: Let’s bring out the mom, Clytemnestra.

The audience jeers as Clytemnestra takes the stage. She tries to avoid Orestes’ glare as she takes her seat a few paces from him.

Clytemnestra: Jerry, I just have to start by saying that my husband, Agamemnon, was not a good man. He was violent. He was abusive. And I’ve never shared this with my son before, but Agamemnon forced me to be his wife after he murdered my husband Tantalus.

Audience: Gasps

Orestes: Don’t believe her. She loves to paint herself as the victim. My dad was only ferocious towards his enemies in battle.

Clytemnestra: Quiet boy! What do you think happened to your sister, Iphigenia? How do you think she died?

Orestes: Iphigenia died —

Clytemnestra: Your father killed her! He killed our baby as a sacrifice to the gods for good fortune to that stupid Trojan war.

Orestes: It wasn’t a stupid war!

Audience Member 1: Ain’t nobody wanna fight in no Trojan war.

Audience Member 2: They ain’t even got oil over there.

Orestes: My father was doing the noble thing in organizing the Greek troops to reclaim his brother’s wife, Helen, from the Trojans. I mean what kind of world would this be if we just let women be stolen from their husbands. What would that say about Greek men? About our ability to protect home and hearth.

Clytemnestra: Well that would be true if your father didn’t bring home that skank from Cassandra back with him from Troy. I mean if women shouldn’t be taken from their home countries, then why did he have to bring her back with him.

Orestes: Maybe I’d believe you if you didn’t spend the ten years my dad was away sleeping with his cousin.

Audience: Ooooooh

Audience Member 2: Damn you, wild girl!

Springer: Aegisthus, why don’t you come on out.

Aegisthus walked out timidly to the bright lights and the raucous. He rushed towards the safety of Clytemnestra’s embrace. After kissing and hugging her, he took a seat beside her still holding her hands.

Springer: So, Aegisthus, you were sleeping with your nephew’s mom while his dad was away at war?

Aegisthus: Agamemnon didn’t love Clytemnestra. He wasn’t capable of love. He was a savage.

Orestes: Don’t talk about my father like that! Why weren’t you in Troy, coward?

Aegisthus: Now what sense does it make to go halfway around the world to fight for the most beautiful women in the world, when she’s already by your side.

Clytemnestra blushes as Aegisthus leans in to kiss her cheek. The audience coos supportively at their love.

Orestes, flush with anger, jumps up and lunges at Aegisthus. Springer’s security detail restrains him from causing any true damage to the other guests.

Orestes: you’re both shameless. Look at you. You deserve each other. A woman that would murder her own husband. And you, her lover, yourself the lovechild of unholy incest.

An old wound was re-opened in Aegisthus’ heart. He released Clytemnestra’s hand and leaped at Orestes. The two men struggled with each other — pushing and shoving to get the upper hand. Springer’s detail tried to corral them. The audience gorged on the free gladiatorial display on the stage.

Springer through a wide grin: I guess you could say all’s fair in love and war.

Audience: Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!

The screen flipped to black. The teenage girl that had been glued to the television turned angrily: “Hey I was watching that!”

Her father chuckled: “Figi, I already told you. I don’t want you watching these trashy reality shows. They’re no good for you. Read a book or something.”