HENINURS: UNCOVERING MAN'S (INNER) DEMON

Imagine a world where men are all knowing, all powerful, and control everything and everyone. Well actually, it's just one man. And he's your father and he is a son of God. And he knows everything. At least, this is what he tells you.

​Enter into the dark and deceptive world of Lucie Alloucie's new play Heninurs which just finished a run at the 2019 NYWinterfest festival at the Hudson Guild Theater. Directed by Sara Ravid, it is amongst the most successfully executed "dark" theatre I've come to see, as of yet.

L to R: Hen (Claudia Thiedmann), Plarissa (Maya Hendricks), Ma (Oumou Traoré), Urs (Lily Lipman). Photo by: Michael Kirshner

Heninurs centers around two shabbily-dressed anxious teenage girls, Henrietta (Hen) and Ursula (Urs) who obey the word of their unseen father (whose name is not revealed, though we can assume is an ode to Adam) with blind submission. Man's power of his two girls (a term he lovingly employs) is deceptively manipulative as he reconfigures narratives taking place beyond the confined space of the limited interior of the room which Hen and Urs are living in – and have lived in for their entire lives.  Inauspiciously, seated among the two girls is a worn out (though well dressed) black woman named Ma who cannot speak. She is gripped with severe pain throughout the story for reasons only to be answered by you imagination.

The curiosities of this isolated room grows throughout the play. For one, the commanding man (Adam-like character) is heard but never seen. His erratic diatribes are startling and abusive. At one eruptive moment, the mention of the evil spirit "Lilith" is met with a retribution of rage and demonic accusations. Almost as if suddenly, a stunning woman appears in the space and is persuading the two girls that she is their mother, Plarissa. An outraged Adam storms forward almost immediately, directing his wrath at the presence of the "demon" who has just approached and contaminated his abode. Plarissa begs for compassion, that she wants her girls to life a life beyond "this confinement."

The man (Adam-figure) of the story rages that Plarissa is the demon Lilith in disguise. He violently diatribes that Lilith wants to eat the children's flesh – her own children – to satisfy her demonic urges. This gesture and the acceptance of it by Hen and Urs displays Adam's megalomania and toxic control over his children (or are they, you begin to wonder).

The harshness of Allouche's story stems from the lore of the Midrash of Lilith – an account of the first woman god had created. As it goes, Lilith was created, like man, from dust and was man's equal. But upon her disobedience of refusing to be man's subservient, she was cast beyond the garden of eden. And god proceeded to make for man a women of his own choosing, one from his flesh – Eve. 

The incestuous gesture of Heninurs symbolizes the manipulative nature of early man (or yet still?) – that they'd rather be with being which is made to their will than one of their own.

Such deception is overwhelming for Lilith who has, upon arriving to see her girls, been demonized, repulsed, and physically apprehended by her own children. The emotional hurt and distrusting nature of the characters of Heninurs suggest that the harrowing narrative unfolding on stage has perhaps been perpetuated since.

Oumou Traoré as Ma. Photo by: Michael Kirshner

Michael Fiocco as Man. Photo by: Michael Kirshner

Maya Hendricks as Plarissa. Photo by: Michael Kirshner