Modern Performance and Adaptation of Greek Tragedy

1999 ◽  
Vol 129 ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helene P. Foley
Keyword(s):  
Greek Tragedy

The Orchestra as Acting Area in Greek Tragedy

Ramus ◽  
1985 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 75-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graham Ley ◽  
Michael Ewans
Keyword(s):  
Greek Tragedy ◽  
Close Relation ◽  
Central Problem ◽  
Classical Drama ◽  
Considerable Experience

For some years past there has been a welcome change of emphasis towards the consideration of staging in books published on Greek tragedy; and yet with that change also a curious failure to be explicit about the central problem connected with all stagecraft, namely that of the acting-area. In this study two scholars with considerable experience of teaching classical drama in performance consider this problem of the acting-area in close relation to major scenes from two Greek tragedies, and suggest some general conclusions. The article must stand to some extent as a critique of the succession of books that has followed the apparently pioneering study of Oliver Taplin, none of which has made any substantial or sustained attempt to indicate where actors might have acted in the performance of Greek tragedy, though most, if not all, have been prepared to discard the concept of a raised ‘stage’ behind the orchestra. Hippolytus (428 BC) is the earliest of the surviving plays of Euripides to involve three speaking actors in one scene. Both Alcestis (438 BC and Medea (431 BC almost certainly require three actors to be performed with any fluency, but surprisingly present their action largely through dialogue and confrontation — surprisingly, perhaps, because at least since 458 BC and the performance of the Oresteia it is clear that three actors were available to any playwright.

Reading and Interpreting Variants inCome and Go,Va-et-vientandKommen und Gehen

2015 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-86
Author(s):  
Pascale Sardin
Keyword(s):  
Greek Tragedy ◽  
French Translation ◽  
The Uncanny ◽  
Famous Paper ◽  
Textual Variants ◽  
Insight Into

This paper focuses on textual variants in Come and Go, Va-et-vient and Kommen und Gehen and considers these variants as thresholds (Genette, 1997) into these works. This paper aims to show how Beckett's self-translating process, which was prolonged and complicated in the case of his plays when he directed them himself, produces a number of possible textual confusions, but also how these complications constitute insight into the Beckettian text. Indeed variants and rewritings point to moments in the writing and rewriting process when Beckett met ‘resistant vitalities’ mentioned by George Steiner in After Babel (1975). To illustrate this, I study Beckett's first ‘dramaticule’, Come and Go, by examining its pre-texts, the French translation, and Beckett's production notebooks for Kommen und Gehen. In these texts, I explore the motifs of death and ocular anxiety, as studied by Freud in his famous paper on ‘The Uncanny.’ I show how the Freudian uncanny actually reveals the parodic archaism of Beckett's drama, as a parallel is drawn between the structure of Beckett's play and Greek tragedy. Beckett's sometimes ‘messy’ rewritings in Come and Go, Va-et-vient and Kommen und Gehen served the performing intuitive perception in us of death, an issue explored here through the trope of femininity. Furthermore, comparing Beckett's Come and Go and Va-et-vient makes it easier to see Beckett progressing towards what Deleuze called a ‘theatre of metamorphoses and permutations’ in Difference and Repetition – a monograph published in France the very year Come and Go was first produced (1966).

Diversifying Greek Tragedy on the Contemporary US Stage

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melinda Powers
Keyword(s):  
Cross Section ◽  
Performance Studies ◽  
Greek Tragedy ◽  
Live Performance ◽  
Greek Drama ◽  
The Us ◽  
Social Concerns ◽  
Performance Context ◽  
Historical Identity ◽  
Ancient Drama

Demonstrating that ancient drama can be a powerful tool in seeking justice, this book investigates a cross section of live theatrical productions on the US stage that have reimagined Greek tragedy to address political and social concerns. To address this subject, it engages with some of the latest research in the field of performance studies to interpret not dramatic texts in isolation from their performance context, but instead the dynamic experience of live theatre. The book’s focus is on the ability of engaged performances to pose critical challenges to long-standing stereotypes that have contributed to the misrepresentation and marginalization of under-represented communities. Yet, in the process, it also uncovers the ways in which performances can inadvertently reinforce the very stereotypes they aim to challenge. This book thus offers a study of the live performance of Greek drama and its role in creating and reflecting social, cultural, and historical identity in contemporary America.

Classical Presences and ‘Post Dramatic’ Performances

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nurit Yaari
Keyword(s):  
Prime Minister ◽  
Greek Tragedy ◽  
Israeli Society ◽  
The Political

This chapter looks at theatrical productions created in the wake of the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, which sought to convey the shock that permeated Israeli society as a result, and to provide theatrical responses to help the grieving community come to terms with his death. The chapter analyses the theatrical oeuvre of four post dramatic theatre creators—Ruth Kanner, Ilan Ronen, Rina Yerushalmi, and Hanan Snir—who saw Greek classical tragedy as a vast artistic arena where the political, the humanistic, and the artistic-performative merge, encompassing present and past, myth and history. Moreover, classical Greek tragedy allowed them to project their most disturbing concerns about the Israeli present and future by tearing apart the well-known texts, deconstructing their dramatic templates, and editing, adapting, revising, and redesigning their content in the decades after Rabin’s assassination, when hope gave way to despair.

THE BACH PASSIONS AND GREEK TRAGEDY

1946 ◽  
Vol XXVII (4) ◽  
pp. 221-224
Author(s):  
D. C. SOMERVELL
Keyword(s):  
Greek Tragedy
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