Leonora Carrington wrote “Opus Siniestrus: The Story of the Last Egg” in 1969 as an indictment of the patriarchal societies women have been subjected to for centuries, with a hope that the salvation—or transformation —of our planet lay in the hands of women. With astonishing imagination and wit, the play explores women‘s issues, war, guns, violence, money, cutthroat capitalism, patriarchal power—as relevant today as it was in the seventies, perhaps more so. She even references a bee crisis! I met Leonora in 1967 in Mexico, where she lived from 1942 until her death in 2011. A year later, she described “Opus Siniestrus” to me, which I optioned to produce in 1975 and approached the Guggenheim Museum in New York as a venue. Thomas Messer, director of the Guggenheim at that time, was enthusiastic. And the spiral design of the museum was a natural physical space for the concept of the play. It ends with everything being sucked into The Pit, a black hole. We commissioned the construction of six giant masks, designed by Leonora (see fig. 6), and formed our creative team, exclusively female. Sadly, we could not raise the funding necessary to produce the play. The idea of the Egg came to Carrington in the early ’40s when she was confined to an insane asylum in Santander, Spain. Her memoir, Down Below, documents that journey into madness. “. . .The Egg is the macrocosm and the microcosm, the dividing line between the Big and the Small which makes it impossible to see the Whole. To possess a telescope without its essential half, the microscope, seems to me a symbol of the darkest incomprehension.” Leonora believed that woman’s role is to exorcize violence fromman and the world in order to create more whole human beings (man and woman, often androgynous) and a better world. But in “Opus” the character Mina 1 Leonora Carrington, Down Below, (New York: New York Review Books, 2017), 19. Review: Literature and Arts of the Americas, Issue 100, Vol. 53, No. 1, 2020, 156–167

中文翻译：

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摘自“Opus Siniestrus：最后一个鸡蛋的故事”

莱奥诺拉·卡林顿 (Leonora Carrington) 于 1969 年撰写了“Opus Siniestrus: The Story of the Last Egg”，作为对女性数百年来遭受的父权社会的控诉，希望我们星球的拯救或转变掌握在女性手中. 凭借惊人的想象力和智慧，该剧探讨了女性问题、战争、枪支、暴力、金钱、残酷的资本主义、父权制——在今天和 70 年代一样重要，也许更重要。她甚至提到了蜜蜂危机！我于 1967 年在墨西哥遇到了 Leonora，她从 1942 年一直住在那里，直到 2011 年她去世。一年后，她向我描述了“Opus Siniestrus”，我选择在 1975 年制作并联系纽约古根海姆博物馆作为场地. 当时的古根海姆馆长托马斯·梅塞尔（Thomas Messer）热情洋溢。博物馆的螺旋设计是戏剧概念的自然物理空间。它以所有东西都被吸入黑洞“坑”而告终。我们委托建造了由 Leonora 设计的六个巨型面具（见图 6），并组建了我们的创意团队，只有女性。遗憾的是，我们无法筹集到制作该剧所需的资金。40 年代初，当卡灵顿被限制在西班牙桑坦德的精神病院时，鸡蛋的想法就出现在了卡灵顿身上。她的回忆录《下面》记录了疯狂之旅。“。. .鸡蛋是宏观和微观，是大与小之间的分界线，让人无法看到整体。拥有一台没有其本质部分显微镜的望远镜，在我看来是最黑暗的不理解的象征。” Leonora 认为，女性的角色是驱除来自男人和世界的暴力，以创造更多完整的人类（男人和女人，通常是雌雄同体）和一个更美好的世界。但在“作品”中，角色 Mina 1 Leonora Carrington, Down below, (New York: New York Review Books, 2017), 19. 评论：美洲文学与艺术，第 100 期，卷。53, No. 1, 2020, 156–167