| Nefertiti and Akhenaten a Musical |
| 3000 years of Civillisation, 18 years of tyranny |
| Nefertiti And Akhenaten The Story Part 1 Egypt 1350 BC, its power at its height, its religion and its gold and blue art and buildings already 2000 years old, the most splendid and spectacular the world has ever seen, the wonder of the world. The play opens with the stunning and sensuous orgiastic rites of the temple of Isis. The old pharaoh Amenhotep III has died. Egypt has very high hopes of the new young pharaoh. He is the one who has subsequently been described as the first Scientist, the first monotheist, the first romantic, the first individual...... There was only one problem, he was a misshapen, ugly brute and misanthropist who hated Egypt's ancient religion. He married the 15 year old Nefertiti, a beautiful high priestess of Isis. On their wedding night, contrary to the eroticism of the dance in the ceremony, and her romantic expectations of this highly praised young man whom she had never seen before, she is confronted with a hostile, limping, over tall, cripple. He screams at her, throws a chair at the wall and sits sulking waiting for the dawn, declaring that he hates the night. In fact he is obsessed with the sun which he worships in the form of Aten Ra, "the one true God" which he claims is his father. Despite the inauspicious beginnings she charms him with her wit and intelligence, and they fall in love. Akhenaten sets out to reform religion in Egypt, and to convert it to monotheistic worship of Aten, and to abandon the old gods, Amun, Isis, Osiris, Anubis, and the rest. There is uproar, and resistance. The old priesthood and the aristocracy are against him. The people themselves are in confusion. There is chaos at the bottom..... but opportunism at the top. He moves the capital from ancient Thebes to a new built city called Akhetaten, 200 miles away in the desert. A beautiful city...with a very large police garrison. The new Egypt is being formed, around the new religion of Aten Ra, and the cult of the personality of Akhenaten himself and his young queen Nefertiti. Art and religion are transformed by his will. The romantic and serious minded pharaoh and the new religion of the Sun has reached his zenith. Interval Part 2 Nefertiti's father, a high priest of the old religion, travels to the new city to confront Akhenaten with disturbing news; the labourers of Egypt are all dying before the age of 20. Akhenaten's fierce determination to rebuild the temples and palaces of Egypt is driving the people to its knees. Also opposition is growing, and the people are still worshipping the old gods. Akhenaten has conspirators brought to him, and makes them crawl on their bellies before him, onto a huge brass 'scales of justice' where he weighs them against a feather, and condemns them. Meanwhile Nefertiti has given birth to 5 children, all daughters. Akhenaten's frustration is growing at not having a son. Akhenaten's mother the beautiful Queen Tiye, dies, after condemning him as a tyrant. The drastic changes in Egypt had literally driven her mad, and she imagined Egypt to be flooded by the Nile. He agrees to have her buried according to the old rites, and serves at the macabre opening of the mouth ceremony, an ancient rite where the mouth of the dead person is pushed open to enable it to eat in the after life. The dark mystery of the ancient gods is once again seen in Egypt; Akhenaten has to dress as the god of the dead, Anubis and hold his dead mother's body upright. He suddenly flees in terror from the tomb, back into the blinding sunlight. His mother's death and funeral fills him with horror and he resolves that the old religion will be buried with her, he will stamp it out completely. He sends his men to destroy the old temples, of Isis, Amun, Anubis and Osiris. In his desperation to have a son he decides to marry his own daughter, Mekataten, aged 12. Nefertiti is outraged and turns against him, and begins to consider her own role in setting up what has become a tyranny. She watches her daughter grow big with Akhenaten's child. After nine months the 12 year old Mekataten dies giving birth to a son....Tutankhamen. Nefertiti vows to kill Akhenaten. She berates him for his fear of darkness. There is now growing opposition, and Akhenaten's great scheme is failing. He is also going blind from staring directly at the sun. Akhenaten now faces the open hatred and opposition of his wife Nefertiti, on whom he is increasingly dependant in his blindness, and whom he still loves. In his bewilderment and frustration he even takes to going out onto the streets incognito, amongst the prostitutes and petty thieves, and berating the workers for worshipping the old gods, and on one occasion he is nearly killed, and has to be rescued by his state police. Nefertiti uses his erratic behaviour as a reason to seize power from him, and effectively make herself the ruler of Egypt. She begins to reinstate the old religion, including the sexual rites in the temple of Isis, of which she is once against High Priestess. In grief and despair Akhenaten plans to build his own tomb not, as he would like, dedicated to Aten Ra the sun god, but according to the old "false" religion, thus in his mind condemning his soul to oblivion and endless night. All this to please Nefertiti and to expiate his sins against her. Her goes at night in the frozen desert, with Nefertiti's father, to look at his new built tomb. He goes in alone. There in the tomb, buried deep in the rock, alone in the desert, he is confronted by the god Osiris, god of darkness and the underworld which he has sought to deny, and he drops dead in fright. His body is taken back to Nefertiti, who has emerged from the orgiastic rites of Isis, as she did at the beginning; Akhenaten's body is symbolically held up before her in the arms of a priest dressed as Anubis; she sings his eulogy as the golden sun rises. Akhenaten's body is placed in the arms of Osiris, his place in the afterlife returned to him, as Egypt's golden religion of eternal life is restored. End. There are 16 songs HIGH PRIESTESS AMENHOTEP III Ay Kesperu Ra (Nefertitis father) A PERFECT MAN Ay Kesperu Ra (Nefertitis father) WEDDING SONG Akhenaten NO BROKEN BONES Nefertiti PRAISE YOUR GODS Akhenaten SHIP OF FOOLS Akhenaten BEND MY IMAGE TILL IT BREAKS Akhenaten SLAVES Slave Master WHEN NIGHT FALLS Nefertiti BRING THEM IN ON THEIR KNEES Akhenaten ONE DAY Nefertiti NO BROKEN BONES (reprise) Nefertiti I NEVER KNEW Nefertiti THE DARK PATH OF THE SUN Nefertiti INSIDE THE TOMB Akhenaten Characters AKHENATEN Pharaoh of Egypt NEFERTITI his wife AY KHEPERU RE father to Nefertiti, and a High Priest of Amun QUEEN TIYE, Akhenaten's mother MAID to Nefertiti RAMOSE Vizier and Chancellor of Egypt MAANAKHETEF a noble HIYE a noble MAHU , chief of police MEKATATEN daughter to AKHENATEN, 12 yrs old OLD MAN other daughters at various ages between 3 and 10 A demo-tape of the songs is available on request from gregorymotton@yahoo.co.uk |
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Nefertiti and Akhenaten, CD cover
Nefertiti and Akhenaten, Poster
