Why did Apollo bring down a plague on the citizens of Thebes? Someone must have messed up royally. But who?
The plague: The Theban men—Oedipus and his pals Tmolus, Dictys and Aristotle (Tom, Dic, and Ari)—can’t hold a logical thought for ten consecutive seconds; The Theban women have been afflicted with trays permanently affixed to their left hands, no two alike. (Jocasta’s is a breakfast tray, Episiotome’s a medicine tray, Tracheotome’s an ash tray (she had just given up smoking!) Pistophone’s a waitress tray. Helen and Mediocrite and Calliope share the same fate. But does it have to be their fate?
Oedipus is the king, he should do something. He solved the Sphinx’s riddle. But now, like the other men, he is too befuddled to figure out the role he has played in the tragedy. Tiresias, a 200-year-old blind prophet is summoned for his advice. But Tiresias, once a he, has recently become a she and is more interested in knowing why she doesn’t have a tray. Is she not a real woman? No, she’s simply not a Theban.
Tiresias advises the women of Thebes to invoke the Goddess for help. The Goddess—not at all how they had pictured her—responds to their incantations. She has an idea for lifting the womens’ plague without the men returning to their pre-plague misogynistic logic. Will it work? Will Oedipus figure out his role in the tragedy and do his duty? Will Apollo call off his punishment? The women are not so sure. The men are clueless.