category: full length three act play
genre: drama
running time: Two and a half hours
setting: An asylum in South Western England
period: Mid-Victorian Era

characters:
HESTIA, an old maid
DEMETER, her younger sister, formerly mad
HERA, her youngest sister, married with children
HEBE, Hera’s youngest daughter, mother of twins
HERACLES, married to Hebe
EILEITHYIA, Hera’s eldest daughter
ERIS, Hera’s middle daughter
DR. APOLLO, a doctor in a fashionable asylum
RHEA, mother of Hestia, Demeter, and Hera

story:
Hestia, now in her sixties, visits her mother, Rhea, after the later writes a letter asking for advice on a delicate subject. The matter in question is her granddaughter, Eileithyia, who is a nurse at the asylum where Rhea lives, and who appears to be falling in love with Apollo, the resident doctor, who Rhea knows is actually Eileithyia’s half-brother. Together, Rhea and Hestia hatch a plan to get Eileithyia to leave the asylum long enough for Apollo to be lured away, but its execution is interrupted by the arrival of Hebe, Heracles, and their family. Rhea slips into a coma, and the rest of her family is summoned, daughters Hera and Demeter, and grandaughter Eris. United, the two generations of sisters fight amongst themselves until ultimately Apollo’s status as the bastard son of Hera’s husband is revealed to Eileithyia by Demeter, who then walks out on her family, ostensibly forever. Hera also leaves, though she at first tries to comfort Eileithyia, who is later encouraged in her love by Eris and Hebe. Rhea reveals her medical condition was faked, first to her grandaughter, and then to Hestia, who finds that while Demeter is also alone in the world, only she suffers from her loneliness. Following a heart to heart with her mother, Hestia returns to her own home, while Eileithyia reveals she has always known Apollo was her half-sibiling, but has chosen to enter a romantic relationship with him anyway.

author’s comments: 
The final installment of my Greek Mythology/Victorian Literature mash-up about the three sisters at the core of the Olympian pantheon, I had been keeping notes about this play and its characters for years, but only finally finished a draft in 2024. After that I had to promptly go back and make sure the previous installments, JUNO EN VICTORIA and CERES EN VICTORIA, more or less aligned with where the action ultimately ended, and in the process realized that over fourteen years or so I had finished the largest work of my writing career, with the cumulative pages clocking in at 266, and the cumulative running time exceeding that of the ALL OR NOTHING PLAYS (SEE ALSO ALL/NO SINGLE THING). Though the Victorian Trilogy is elegant and quiet, when compared to the sprawling and dynamic nature of the ALL OR NOTHING PLAYS, I do think they contain not only some of my most realized characters, but one of my most realized worlds, a romanticized Victorian England of sunlit parlors, wintry gothic mansions, and autumnal retreats, filled with layered, complex, often hilarious but also frequently tragic figures. This final installment is unquestionably bittersweet, more a meditation on change and loss than questions of honesty and integrity, social manners and scandals, as the first two had been. Work still needs to be done to make everything consistent and thread both major and minor themes into places they can be most appreciated and feel most realized, but for now it emerges as a major jewel in the crown of my playwrighting life, perhaps its brightest jewel of all.