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Staging of Classical Drama around 2000
Staging of Classical Drama around 2000
Edited by
Pavlína N. Šípová and Alena Sarkissian
CAMBRIDGE SCHOLARS PUBLISHING
Staging of Classical Drama around 2000, edited by Pavlína N. Šípová and Alena Sarkissian
This book first published 2007 by
Cambridge Scholars Publishing
15 Angerton Gardens, Newcastle, NE5 2JA, UK
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Copyright © 2007 by Pavlína N. Šípová and Alena Sarkissian and contributors
All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.
ISBN 1-84718-318-2; ISBN 13: 9781847183187
TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Illustrations ...................................................................................... x
Preface........................................................................................................ xi
Pavlína Šípová and Alena Sarkissian
Introduction ................................................................................................. 1
Lorna Hardwick
Chapter One................................................................................................. 8
Tragedy, Metatheatre and the Question of Representation
Eleutheria Ioannidou
Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 38
Greek Tragedy in Australia: 1984-2005
Paul Monaghan
Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 59
Performing the Raging Other. Medea and the Refugee Woman
in Finland, 1999
Linnea Stara
Chapter Four.............................................................................................. 71
The Use of Silence in Tadashi Suzuki’s Electra
Akiko Tomatsuri
Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 83
What Ninagawa Did Next: Notes on Productions Following
the End of Medea in 1999
Conor Hanratty
viii
Table of Contents
Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 102
The Influences of Ancient Greek Drama on Modern Egyptian Theatre
Heshām M. Hassan
Chapter Seven.......................................................................................... 122
Sophocles Interpretations in Turkish Theatre
Dikmen Gürün
Chapter Eight........................................................................................... 132
Different Answers to the same questions: Staging Oresteia in Greek
on the Turn of a Century
Gregory Ioannides
Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 141
The Use of music in Greek Performances of Ancient Drama
in the 20th Century
Angeliki Zachou
Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 147
Protagonist and Prōtagonistēs: Doubling in Modern and Ancient Theatre
Andreja Inkret
Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 161
Contemporary Czech Adaptations of Classical Drama
Daniela Čadková
Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 167
The Detritus of Antigone by Roman Sikora
David Drozd
Chapter Thirteen...................................................................................... 176
Antiquity, or Symbolism? King Oedipus in Symbolic Attire
Pavel Klein
Chapter Fourteen ..................................................................................... 183
Translating Greek Drama: Three Czech Electras
Alena Sarkissian
Staging of Classical Drama around 2000
ix
Chapter Fifteen ........................................................................................ 200
Ancient Greek Drama on Slovak Theatre Stages
Dáša Čiripová
Chapter Sixteen ....................................................................................... 211
The Open University Reception of Classical Texts Research Project
Data Base
Lorna Hardwick
Contributors............................................................................................. 216
Index........................................................................................................ 222
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
7-1
10-1
10-2
10-3
10-4
10-5
10-6
10-7
13-1
13-2
13-3
14-1
14-2
14-3
14-4
14-5
15-1
15-2
Eurydice's Cry written and directed by Ţahika Tekand, inspired by
Sophocles's "Antigone".
The tavern (with Teiresias, Oedipus and the chorus).
The tavern (with Teiresias, Oedipus and the chorus).
Peter Musevski as Oedipus, Rok Vihar as Kreon, Boris Cavazza as
the priest.
Boris Cavazza as Teiresias.
Rok Vihar as Kreon, Boris Cavazza as Iokaste, Peter Musevski as
Oedipus.
Rok Vihar as the Korinthian messenger, Boris Cavazza as the
herdsman, Peter Musevski as Oedipus.
Boris Cavazza as Iokaste, Peter Musevski as Oedipus.
Teiresias (L. Lakomý), Oidipus Rex (I. Bareš).
Solicitation of the Shepherd.
Oidipus and Iocaste.
The performance of Valmet Theatre in 2005. Electra (Jana
Stryková).
Electra (J. Stryková) in her room.
Electra (J. Stryková) and Clytaemestra (Dana Syslová). The Chorus
was substituted by the Nurse (Eva Lecchiová) behind Clytaemestra)
Chrysothemis (Monika Zoubková).
Before the murder.
Oedipus Tyrannus. Director: Jozef Budsky, SND Bratislava
(Slovak National Theatre), 27.3. 1965.
Trojan Women
PREFACE
The publication ‘Staging of Classical Drama around 2000’ is based
– in enlarged form – on the symposium organised by the the Institute of
Philosophy-Institute for Classical Studies, Academy of Sciences of the
Czech Republic. It took place in Prague from December 1st to December
3rd, 2005. (See http://www.flu.cas.cz/newweb/divadlo.html).
In the first part of the meeting young researchers from all over the
world (Australia, England, Finland, Greece, Ireland, Japan, Slovenia, and
the Czech Republic) presented and discussed contemporary trends in
staging of ancient drama and different approaches to the theme in different
countries.
The blocks of presentations were chaired by the special guests: prof.
Jan Bažant (Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic), prof. Lorna
Hardwick (Open University, UK), prof. Platon Mavromoustakos
(University of Athens), and prof. Eva Stehlíková (Charles University in
Prague).
The second part of the meeting was focused on presentation of the
following projects:
Databases of European Network of Research and Documentation of
Performances of Ancient Greek Drama, http:
//www.cc.uoa.gr/drama/network (Athens).
The Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama,
http://apgrd.ox.ac.uk/index.htm (Oxford).
Database of Ancient Drama, http://www.olympos.cz (Prague).
The publication, although enriched with more essays than the symposium,
broadly follows the organization principle of the Symposium. First five
essays are devoted to the specifics of staging Ancient Drama on different
continents, while the second part focuses on the Mediterranean tradition of
these performances, due to the special relations of this territory to the
ancient heritage. The third part of the book opens the theme of Ancient
drama in post-communist countries where, briefly said, the artists search
for new methods of interpretation of Ancient Drama on stage, while before
latently anti-communist interpretation had prevailed.
xii
Preface
The last text by Lorna Hardwick informs about the above-mentioned
projects that brought the idea of this symposium forth and enabled the
researchers’ work on their contributions.
Pavlína Šípová and Alena Sarkissian
Prague, January 2007
INTRODUCTION
LORNA HARDWICK
Classical drama on the modern stage is recognised as a cultural and
political phenomenon. The virtual explosion of productions that began in
the 1950s and 60s and intensified in the last third of the twentieth century
shows little sign of abating. The evidence is being extensively
documented, pioneered by Walton (1987) and McDonald (1992) and
subsequently developed by collaborative research projects which include
published databases (see Section 4 of this volume). It is clear from the
work of these projects that performance of classical drama is a major
feature in all types of theatre – avant-garde and experimental, student,
international and fringe, epic and classical, commercial, popular and
canonical. This means that it is closely intertwined with the politics of
locale, environment and geography as well as of language, translation and
culture.
As a result of these features and their interaction with theatre practice,
modern perceptions of Greek drama are gradually becoming decoupled
from traditional emphasis on cultural continuity and reverent transmission
of cultural values associated with specific national or social groups. There
is a stronger sense of the inter-relationship between verbal and non-verbal
aspects of performance. The growing sophistication and problematising of
analyses of space and body within text, performance and theatrical
environment has achieved the status of a third dimension of critical
discourse (along side those of the verbal text and the semiotics of
performance). The impact of reader response theory and reception theory
that places readers and spectators at the centre of the construction of
meaning has turned the focus on to audience research and how the text,
semiotics and physicality of the performance triggers response in the
spectators (or is subverted by it!). These aspects take on particular
importance in the case of classical drama which has to be mediated into
contemporary theatre for audiences who may lack knowledge of the
ancient texts, contexts and theatre conventions. Thus in addition to
questions about the relationship between writers and theatre practitioners
(both ancient and modern) as shapers of performance, research has to
2
Introduction
investigate the impact of performance styles, the relationship between
logocentric and somatic approaches and issues of ‘knowledgeable versus
naïve’ audiences. Changes in educational backgrounds and frameworks of
cultural reference as well as the increasing diversity of audiences often
make it unsafe for producers to assume detailed knowledge of the ancient
legends and myths, let alone of details of particular plays. The assumed
level of theatrical and classical sophistication or ignorance of the audience
affects directorial decisions on language, set and lighting design, costume,
acting style and gesture at all levels and types of theatre. These decisions
are also shaped by the intersection with the director’s other work and the
theatrical traditions underlying it.
Various analyses have been developed to map and account for the
impact of classical drama on the contemporary stage. Herman Altena has
noted the emergence of a ‘canon’ of international productions that receive
most of the critical attention. He has argued the need for extensive
comparative research on ‘local’ characteristics and differences, noting
especially the range of approaches from the reconstructionist to postmodern and the importance of audiences as the realisers of meaning
(Altena, 2005, especially 473). Edith Hall in her introduction to the
collaborative essay collection Dionysus since 69 identified Greek tragedy
as ‘a fertile place in which to explore cultural difference (Hall, 2004, 23)
while cultural politics has been explored in studies of classical drama in
Ireland (Walton and McDonald, 2002) and in postcolonial contexts
including Africa and the Caribbean (Goff 2005 and Hardwick and
Gillespie, 2007). Research has also been informed by detailed work on the
impact of theatre practitioners – writers, adaptors, translators, directors,
designers, actors (most recently in Macintosh et al 2005 and Walton 2006)
while trends in international commissioning and production have raised
questions about the impact of oriental and African theatre on approaches
to classical drama, especially tragedy.
These issues and the demands they place on the formulation of
research questions and on the methods used to address them provided the
background to the conference held in Prague in 2005. The five articles in
this first section of the book all engage with these key aspects of current
research into receptions of classical drama. Individually they provide
detailed discussion of case studies that not only relate to the theatrical
traditions in which the modern productions are embedded but also shed
light on the decisive contributions made by the ‘star’ directors and
performers to the creation of contemporary perceptions of the Greek plays
that will in due course pass into the cultural memory. Collectively they
provide a ‘window’ on the directions in which new scholarship is
Staging of Classical Drama around 2000
3
developing. The research profiles and the international career patterns of
the five contributors provide an implicit commentary on the development
of research in this field, especially the ways in which the formulation of
research questions and the development of methods for addressing them
are now increasingly the result of cultural exchange between traditions
that cross subject disciplines and national boundaries and in turn demand
discussion and evaluation among those determined to extend their own
parameters of investigation and understanding. The section thus
communicates the ethos and working practices that made the conference
held in Prague at the end of 2005 so rewarding for all the participants.
The first essay in the section, Eleftheria Ioannidou’s discussion of
‘Tragedy as Metatheatre and the Question of Representation’ explores the
question of the extent to which ancient Greek tragedy and its modern
representations employ devices that draw attention to its artificiality and to
the theatricality of the life and issues that are represented in it . She
addresses the argument that tragedy and metatheatre are mutually
exclusive and actually represent different philosophical positions.
Ioannidou argues that the multiple rewritings of Greek tragedy provide a
field and a range of examples that enable this contested relationship
between tragedy and metatheatre to be re-examined. Modern rewritings
are, almost by definition, rooted as much in more recent theatrical
traditions as in the Greek and therefore have a tendency to be selfreferential in both text and performance. In her examination of rewritings
and creative responses by Andreas Staikos (Klytaimnestra?), Brian Friel
(The Living Quarters: After Hippolytus), Athol Fugard (The Island) and
Dario Fo (La Medea), Ioannidou examines types of metatheatricality
beyond those of the ‘play within a play’ and examines how both the
classical text and the theatrical art in general can be problematised and
how alternative ideas of the tragic can be brought into play.
Paul Monaghan’s essay on ‘Greek Tragedy in Performance: Australia
1984 – 2005’ takes as its focus the particular artistic and cultural context
of Australian theatre and examines the struggle in the last twenty years
between the dominance of realist/naturalist traditions derived from Britain,
America and Europe and variations on anti-realist Modernist styles
derived from the same areas. In tension with these, he argues, are the
strong influences of contemporary Japanese theatre, especially as
exemplified in the work of Suzuki and in butoh. Monaghan’s starting
point is that the realistic/naturalistic style is the default model for Greek
tragedy in Australia, influenced in part by the acting tradition derived from
Stanislavski and complicated by the layer of what he calls ‘hysterical
4
Introduction
realism’, the psychologically driven performance style injected by ‘star’
actors touring from overseas.
Monaghan discusses the interaction between Australian contexts and
geographical and theatrical spaces and other cultural influences of the
1980s and 1990s, especially those from Japan. He suggests that these,
although still culturally derivative in that they were largely shaped by
‘external’ influences nevertheless allowed roughness and disjunctions to
emerge and opened the way to a more distinctively Australian blend. He
then examines the extent to which Greek drama has been part of this
process, sometimes leading it, sometimes lagging behind and raises
important questions about its capacity to outflank the limitations of
provincialism, which he sees as one symptom of the post - colonial legacy
in Australia. Monaghan draws on his own ‘hybrid’ background as both
academic and theatre practitioner to develop his analysis through
discussion of key examples. These include references to the lasting impact
of James McCaughey’s Oresteia (1976 at the Pram Factory in Melbourne)
which was a prelude to this director’s work on other Greek tragedies that
opened up the potential of the performing body to communicate tragic
force to audiences. Monaghan also discusses the impact of the physicality
of Greek plays produced by the Dutch group KISS and the Italian Renato
Cuocolo’s IRAA Theatre. This acronym is derived from the Institute for
Research on the Anthropology of the Actor and signals the group’s aim to
explore the organic theatre components of space, time, performer and
audience in order to find a theatrical language that can communicate
across cultures to reach people’s deepest levels of experience and
sensibility. In Monaghan’s view the contest between ‘hysterical/realist’
approaches to Greek tragedy and those of ‘body-theatre’ promised a
reorientation of theatrical and cultural space that opened the way to a more
authentically Australian theatre practice, although he is cautious about
making any claims for a lasting transformation in either concept or
practice.
A contrasting theatrical and cultural context is described by Linea
Stara in her essay on theatre in Finland. ‘Performing the Raging Other:
Medea and the Refugee Woman in Finland’ introduces into the wider
discussion some significant questions about how notions of ‘foreignness’
are constructed, communicated and used in theatre and about the extent to
which they can transform social and cultural awareness. Stara starts by
reflecting on the special significance of playing the Other in theatre in
multi-cultural societies where the presence of the ‘foreign’ may be less
noticed, and where to do so may actually change conceptions of what is
perceived as ‘foreign’ and what is regarded as ‘familiar’. She then shifts
Staging of Classical Drama around 2000
5
the focus to discuss the implications of the Medea for a Finland in which
multi-cultural theatre has been marginal and questions of cultural
inclusion have not been widely addressed. She situates her discussion in a
context in which statistics indicate that immigrants in Finland experienced
twice the amount of violence than was the case for the population as a
whole and refers to evidence that many victims felt the violence was
racially motivated. Furthermore, a significantly higher percentage of
immigrant women than women in general was attacked by strangers.
As a case-study Stara examines the 1999 production of Medea by an
all-female group Raiviosat Ruusut (The Raging Roses). She contextualises
the production with reference to the company’s other work on Greek
tragedy (which included televised performances of their Oresteia) and
poses questions about the contribution of productions of the Medea to
raising awareness about social portrayals of the foreign and about selfawareness as well as about the possibly negative attitudes to companies
that are perceived as ‘radical’ and/or ‘feminist’. She discusses how the
production handled questions of sorcery and barbarism as well as revenge
and how it both addressed the question of revenge and asked for the
audience’s pity for Medea. Her analysis brings out the relationship
between approaches based on study of ethnicity and those addressing
gender issues. She also examines the critics’ reception of the production,
which ranged from emphasis on the universality of the myth and its
relationship to injustices that can be understood transhistorically to
specific recognition of the significance of Medea as a paradigm for
refugee women in Finland today.
Akiko Tomatsuri’s essay ‘The Use of Silence in Tadashi Suzuki’s
Electra offers an in-depth study of the implications of Japanese
approaches to Greek drama. Tomatsuri discusses examples of Japanese
theatrical elements that have been prominent in modern productions of
Greek drama. Drawing on the work of the Oxford Archive of
Performances of Greek and Roman Drama she points out that of all Asian
countries Japan has seen the most productions of Greek drama and
provides an introduction to the scholarly literature on the comparative
study of Greek tragedy and Japanese Noh. Having established this context
of Japanese influence she then focuses on the work of Suzuki and
especially his Electra. Moving on from discussion of the acting method
developed by Suzuki, she then singles out the idea of silence as the focal
point for the essay, arguing that the use of silence is one of the most
important contributions that Japanese culture has brought to western
theatre.
6
Introduction
Tomatsuri explains how silence is created and analyses its role. She
argues that the tranquillity associated with silence is particularly important
in representing central and complex Japanese social values such as
‘understatement’ and ‘restraint’ (which in some respects resonate with the
Greek values associated with sophrosyne). In Japanese culture silence may
indicate something that is ‘between’, with all the associated qualities of
energy and tension in relationships with sounds and objects in adjoining
spaces. She points out that this concept can be applied to all arts forms and
that the philosophy of silence also entails an aesthetic that permeates
representations of space and time in a way that has nothing comparable in
the west. Her discussion of the Suzuki/Miyagi production of the Electra
records that Sophocles’ text was meditated by other responses, such as that
of von Hofmannsthal, before it was adapted by Satoshi Miyagi (who also
drew on Aeschylus) and then reconstructed by Suzuki for the stage. The
joint directors exploited the associations of silence through setting the play
in a mental hospital, which gave the opportunity to represent the spiritual
crisis of the modern world and also resonated with psycho-analytic
readings of the play. In this mental hospital silence was not without
sounds. Tomatsuri explains how ‘noise’ is regarded in Japan as a
constituent part of silence in art and music. In this context she discusses
Suzuki’s use of percussion as another form of utterance, contrasting this
with ancient Greek conceptions of musicality and comparing it with its
orgiastic use in cultic rituals.
Tomatsuri’s essay complements that of Monaghan by giving a detailed
example of how in practice Japanese theatre used Greek tragedy as a field
for engagement with western theatre and consciousness. Her essay is in
turn complemented by Connor Hanratty’s documentary study ‘What
Ninagawa Did Next: Notes on productions following the End of Medea in
1999’. Hanratty describes the history of Ninagawa’s iconic production of
Medea and discusses the subsequent developments in Ninagawa’s
interactions with Greek tragedy, especially his Oedipus Rex of 2002. He
contextualises the director’s work with Greek plays in his broader
engagement with western theatre as well as with Japanese theatre. In
addition to documentation the essay includes discussion of Ninagawa’s
use of theatrical space, the effects of gender changes in the Chorus and the
impact of the ‘star actor’, this converging with other essays in the section
and providing points for comparison and contrast. He identifies the
importance of the productions’ creation of associative references to other
aspects of Japanese culture that create additional layers of meaning for the
audience. He also addresses issues of translation for and to the stage and
the steps taken by the translator, the academic Harue Yamagata, to make
Staging of Classical Drama around 2000
7
the translations accessible for those who lack knowledge of Greek culture.
The essay rounds out the spheres of reference of the whole section by
supplying information about when, where and for whom Greek dramas
were performed and by situating Ninagawa’s Greek work in his oeuvre as
a whole. In discussing the influence of Ninagawa’s productions it also
raises questions about a ‘performance canon’ that overlaps with but does
not duplicate the textual canon.
Each of the essays has a specialised contribution to make. However,
the total impact of the whole section will be even greater than the sum of
the parts because the authors not only intersect in their discussions of
common concerns in modern performance of Greek drama but also
provide case studies that will add to the knowledge base and critical
acumen of everyone working in the field.
Works Cited
Altena, Herman (2005), ‘The Theater of Innumerable Faces’ in (ed.) J.
Gregory, A Companion to Greek Tragedy, Oxford, Blackwell, 472 –
489.
Hall, Edith, Macintosh, Fiona and Wrigley, Amanda (eds.), (2004),
Dionysus since 69, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Hardwick, Lorna and Gillespie, Carol (eds.), 2007 (forthcoming), Classics
in Post-Colonial Worlds, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Goff, Barbara (ed.), 2005, Classics and Colonialism, London, Duckworth.
Macintosh, Fiona, Michelakis, Pantelis, Hall, Edith and Taplin, Oliver
(eds., 2005), Agamemnon in Performance 458 BC to AD 2004, Oxford,
Oxford University Press.
McDonald, Marianne (1992), Ancient Sun, Modern Light, New York.
McDonald, Marianne and Walton, J. Michael (eds.), Amid our Troubles:
Irish Versions of Greek Tragedy, London, Methuen.
Walton, J. Michael (1987), Living Greek Theatre: A Handbook of
Classical Performance and Modern Production, New York and
Westport, CT.
—. (2006), Found in Translation: Greek Drama in English, Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press.
CHAPTER ONE
TRAGEDY, METATHEATRE
AND THE QUESTION OF REPRESENTATION
ELEFTHERIA IOANNIDOU
Metatheatre versus tragedy
The relationship between tragedy and metatheatre is much debated,
whether by tragedy one refers to ancient Greek tragedy in particular or to
the tragic genre in general. When Oliver Taplin responds to the scholarly
attempts to unravel metatheatrical moments and allusions in Greek
tragedy, he argues that Greek tragedy, in marked contrast to Old Comedy,
does not tend to employ devices which expose its artificiality.1 Lionel
Abel,2 who was the first to coin the term ‘metatheatre’ in the early ’60,3
defines the distinctive qualities of the metaplay in contrast to tragedy. For
Abel tragedy and metatheatre are not only mutually exclusive, but provide
philosophical alternatives to each other. The encounter of tragedy and
metatheatre in the proliferation of recent rewritings of Greek tragedy
offers a plane upon which the largely contested relationship between
tragedy and metatheatre can be scrutinised.
1
Taplin (1986) contra, e.g., Segal (1982), 215-71, who discusses the implications
of illusion in Euripides’ Bacchae. See Ringer (1998) for an exploration of the selfconscious aspects in Sophoclean dramaturgy.
2
Abel first drew the line separating tragedy and metatheatre in his study
Metatheatre: A New View of Dramatic Form 1963. The 1963 book, together with
the author’s later essays on this issue, was republished posthumously in 2003
under the title Tragedy and Metatheatre.
3
Pavis’ dictionary (1998), 210 refers to Abel to provide the following definition of
metatheatre: ‘This phenomenon does not necessarily involve an autonomous play
contained within another, as in the “play within the play”. All that is required is
that the represented reality appears to be one that is already theatrical, as in plays
in which the main theme is life as theatre […]. Metatheatre, thus, defined becomes
a form of antitheatre, where the dividing life between play and real life is erased.’
Staging of Classical Drama around 2000
9
Far from being focused on the technical characteristics which separate
tragedy and metatheatre, the austere differentiation between the two forms
is grounded on certain ideas of the tragic genre, which are none the less
disputable. According to Abel, unlike metatheatre, the dramatic genre of
tragedy should affirm the solid reality in which the tragic struggle is
embedded. Abel defines the metaplay as a dramatic form which
demonstrates an awareness of its own artificiality to unveil that reality
itself succumbs to illusion and subjectivity. Abel seems to follow Brecht
closely in renouncing the aspiration of realist and naturalist drama to
reproduce tragedy. If for Brecht the adherence of modern playwrights to
the Aristotelian tragic models is alien to the Marxist quest for progress,4
for Abel it denotes the failure of many twentieth-century dramatists to
acknowledge the dynamics of the metaplay.5
The distinction between tragedy and metatheatre is also expressed in
historical terms as the two forms are considered to represent radically
different stages in the evolution of dramatic writing. Although there is no
agreement on the introduction of metatheatrical elements in modern
drama, metatheatricality is largely identified as the distinctive quality of
dramaturgy in the modern world,6 culminating in Brecht and Pirandello.7
The view of metatheatre as the distinctively modern dramatic form
alongside its siting in counterposition to tragedy would appear to underpin
the commonplace that tragedy is incompatible with modern sensibilities.8
Abel is convinced that tragedy has been replaced by metatheatre, but he is
willing to dispense with Steiner’s lament over the demise of tragedy – to
whom his argument seems to respond directly – and to celebrate
4
Brecht (1964), 30: ‘simply to comprehend the new areas of subject-matter
imposes a new dramatic and theatrical form. Can we speak of money in the form
of iambics? […] Petroleum resists the five-act form; today’s catastrophes do not
progress in a straight line but in cyclical crises; the “heroes” change with the
different phases, are interchangeable, etc.; the graph of people’s actions is
complicated by abortive actions; fate is no longer a single coherent power […]
Even to dramatize a simple newspaper report one needs something much more
than the dramatic technique of a Hebbel or an Ibsen’, 30. [added italics]. It is clear
here that Brecht has in mind Greek tragedy and its survival in neoclassical and
realist drama.
5
Abel (1963), 107-13.
6
Abel (1963) and Nelson (1971), locate the emergence of metatheatre in
Shakespearean dramaturgy; Troisi (1996) identifies metatheatrical elements in
both the tragedy and comedy of antiquity, but she stresses the inclination of
twentieth-century playwrights to metatheatre.
7
Abel (1963), 111-2.
8
Ibid, 112.
10
Chapter One
metatheatrical dramaturgy: “Shall we not stop lamenting the ‘death’ of
tragedy and value justly the dramatic form [i.e. metatheatre] which
Western civilization only – and that civilization only – has been able to
create and to refine?”9 Although Abel is not categorical on the
impossibility of tragedy in the contemporary world,10 by no means does he
recognise the possibility that the tragic genre undergoes appropriations in
the course of time.
Modernist drama has used metatheatrical modalities in order to
dramatise anxieties and deadlocks.11 Even when metatheatre depicts the
dominance of illusion over reality, there is not something essentially
dreamy or anodyne in this. The failure of human perception to grasp a
protean world and the entrapment in an aporetic state can be no less
agonising than the oscillation between moral values in Greek tragedy.12 If,
as criticism nourished by phenomenological ideas argues, theatrical art can
be construed as a metaphor of human life, metatheatre as self-reflective
theatre makes analogous allusions manifest.13 In the Theatre of the
Absurd, the theatrical condition becomes synonymous with entrapment,
acquiring ontological symbolism. Similarly, the interweaving of multiple
levels of illusion in the metatheatrical games of the Pirandellian drama
negates any possibility of defining reality. Since modernist dramatists
have employed metatheatrical devices to illustrate their peculiar sense of
the tragic, the disruption of both the illusion and the continuity of the
9
For Abel (1963), 113, metatheatre replaces tragedy even in being an exclusive
product and qualification of Western culture.
10
Ibid, 112: ‘[Realist so-called tragedy] implies an acceptance of values which
contemporary writers are unlikely to hold. I shall not say that tragedy is
impossible, or, as George Steiner has suggested, dead.’
11
Nelson (1958) examines the play-within-the-play convention from Shakespeare
to Pirandello and Anouilh, arguing that especially in the twentieth-century
dramaturgy the tragic genre is moulded in the metatheatrical mode: ‘Like Molière,
Pirandello invites us to the view of human life as itself theatrical. However, the
mask which the modern Italian sees as an integral part of reality is not the smiling
visage of comedy, but the downcast countenance of tragedy’, 132, while Anouilh
employs the play-within-the-play to reflect both tragic and comic aspects of human
existence, 133-57.
12
Troisi (1996), 138-45, focuses on the use of metatheatre in twentieth-century
drama in order to depict negativity and crisis.
13
Wilshire (1982) argues that theatre offers a bracketing of the world, which is an
essential feature of the apparatus of the phenomenological approach, and poses
questions of identity, involvement and authorisation. Pearce (1980), explores the
play of multiple stages in relation to the interplay of objectivity and subjectivity
through which human perception comes to terms with the world.
Staging of Classical Drama around 2000
11
action would not appear to encumber the emergence of the tragic.
Furthermore, in this light, it might be impossible for contemporary
perceptive filters not to read metatheatrical nuances in the tragic texts of
antiquity.
Tragedy and metatheatre not surprisingly, then, collide frequently in
the proliferation of rewritings of Greek tragedy of the last three decades.14
It could well be argued that every rewriting of a pre-existent dramatic
work, and especially a classical one, potentially entails metatheatrical
implications. Rewriting seems to be by definition self-referential, since a
conscious correspondence between literary works lies at its basis. It
exposes the fictionality of the past text and, thus, problematises the
artificiality of every text; and by reaffirming, mutating or subverting
familiar dramatic narratives and characters, it invites the audience to
engage with the interplay between the texts in discourse.15 Recent
rewritings implement the metatheatrical interplay with tragedy either by
transforming their prototype into a play-within-a-play or by integrating
self-referential devices in the dramatic texture in intricate ways. Thus, they
develop various tensions and affiliations with the tragic text as well as
with the genre of tragedy.
Federica Troisi notes that ‘[o]bserving the beginning and the function
of metatheatre means to historicise, at least to a certain extent, the
evolution of the idea of theatre from the modern era to our days.’16 The
recent metatheatrical rewritings of Greek tragedy differ from earlier
paradigms of metatheatrical dramaturgy in the display of a textual
awareness which seems to correspond to postmodern problematics. In the
former works, metatheatre no longer emerges from the enactment of an
imaginary play within the actual play, as in Hamlet, nor from a fusion of
theatre and reality in the Pirandellian vogue; it is Greek tragedy that
14
In, e.g., Tu étais si gentil quand tu étais petit (1972) by Anouilh, The Love of the
Nightingale (1989) by Timberlake Wertenbaker, the trilogy To Gramma ston
Oresti, Parodos Thevon, Deipnos [Letter to Orestes, Theban Parodos, The
Banquet] (1992) by Kambanellis, I Voui [The Roar] (1997) by Pavlos Matesis,
Peeling by Κaite O’ Reilly (2002), I Ithopoioi [The Actors] (2001) by Giorgos
Skourtis. Self-reflective techniques and devices also occur in the following
cinematic versions of Greek tragedy: The Travelling Players (1974) by Theo
Angelopoulos, The Dream of Passion (1978) by Jules Dessin and The Case for
Derision Ö (1991) by Rainer Simon and Antigone (1992) by Jean-Marie Straub.
For the cinematic appropriations, see Michelakis (2005).
15
Cf. Anouilh’s Antigone (1957, originally 1946), which uses the chorus in a
metatheatrical medium in order to problematise the tragic genre.
16
Troisi (1996), 16 [unless there is a published translation into English, the quoted
passages appear in my translation].
12
Chapter One
becomes the play-within-the-play or stimulates other variations of the
metatheatrical mode. Theatre is not depicted as the symbolic topos of
dream or illusion, but as a realm of enactment of a prior canonical text. In
an era that has exploded the idea of one single reality, the epistemological
question posed by modernist uses of metatheatre has been transformed
into a question of performance: the anxiety of grasping the real is reshaped
as an endeavour of embodying a pre-existent text. In most of these
rewritings the tragic text is superimposed onto the theatrical stage and the
entrapment within its limits fortifies the severity of the strains that the
theatrical condition itself involves. The act of performance, far from
signifying the liberation from the text, appears to succumb to the norms
which constitute the very notion of the text.
The following analysis embarks on a discussion of four rewritings of
Greek tragedy which, while originating in different cultural contexts,
employ metatheatre to feature their peculiar response to the classical text:
Klytaimnestra? (1974/5) by the modern Greek playwright Andreas
Staïkos; The Living Quarters: After Hippolytus (1977) by Ireland’s leading
dramatist Brian Friel; the postcolonial reworking of Antigone, Τhe Island
(1973) by Athol Fugard; and La Medea (1977) by the Italian theatre
practitioners Dario Fo and Franca Rame.17 I will show how these case
studies represent different stances to the impasses entailed in the
enactment of the classical text: In Klytaimnestra? and The Living Quarters
the characters/actors experience the tyranny of both the dramatic text and
the theatrical condition. The Island resolves the tensions between page and
stage and gives rise to an affirmative idea of theatre as well as of tragedy;
and in La Medea the inherent metatheatricality of the popular theatre
emerges as the most viable response to the questions posed by the text and
the conventional stage.
17
It is by no means fortuitous that these authors come from cultural contexts in
which the classical tradition has been particularly dominant. For Staïkos as well as
for the Italians Fo and Rame, the classics are central to their literary historical past.
See Jusdanis (2004) and the special issue of the Journal of Modern Greek Studies
20.2 (2002). Friel is also part of a literary cultural history that draws on the
relationship with classical Greece, see Stanford (1976), Macintosh (1994),
McDonald & Walton (2002). Fugard’s play is typical of the postcolonial
revisitings of classics literature, which form a part of an imposed Western tradition
within South Africa as well as a heritage that must be rewritten to articulate
national concerns. See Goff (2005).
Staging of Classical Drama around 2000
13
The Crisis of representation in Klytaimnestra?
by Andreas Staïkos and The Living Quarters by Brian Friel
In both Klytaimnestra? by Staïkos and The Living Quarters by Friel
Greek tragedy is the starting point of a metatheatrical interplay which is
not limited to the convention of the play-within-the-play. Staïkos’s play
presents two women rehearsing the roles of Clytemnestra and Electra from
Sophocles’ Electra. The Living Quarters: after Hippolytus dramatises the
quasi-theatrical reconstruction of a family reunion, which culminated in a
catastrophe following the revelation of the adultery committed by a wife
and her step-son. In line with the theoretical preoccupations of
postmodernism, Klytaimnestra? and The Living Quarters challenge the
alleged cornerstone of the theatrical art, namely the notion of
representation itself.
The idea of representation permeates the Western theory of art.
Although in Plato and Aristotle the notion of mimesis has a variety of
meanings, from the fictional voice assumed by the poet to the reality
represented by the artefact, both philosophers refer to mimesis as the
impersonation of a role.18 Theatre is the representational art par excellence,
where, in most cases, the representation takes the specific form of an
enactment of a prior text that precedes the theatrical realisation. This very
tradition became the target of Artaud, 19 who aspired to liberate the stage
from the literary masterpieces that, he claimed, had been haunting it for
centuries. His theatre of cruelty renounced performance as a mise-enscène of a pre-existent text. Artaud insists that the classical repertory, and
ancient Greek tragedy in particular, is foreign and incommunicable to
modern audiences and that it should be abolished from the modern stage.
He envisaged a theatre that would not be subordinate to written speech and
would, thus, acquire the actuality of a cataclysmic living experience.
Derrida reads Artaud’s theatrical vision as a challenge not only to the
tradition of literary theatre but to an entire theological perception of the
world reverberated by Western metaphysics.20 According to Derrida,
Artaud desired to eradicate the duality that is intrinsic to the idea of
representation [Darstellung]. Representation always defers to the absent
object and is, thus, inimical to actuality and life. The dramatic text in
18
For a discussion of mimesis in Plato and Aristotle as well as for further
bibliography, see Kosman (1992), Woodruff (1992) and Halliwell (2002). See also
Auerbach’s (1953) seminal study on mimesis in Western literature.
19
Artaud (1970), 55-63.
20
See Writing and Difference (1978), 232-50 and Speech and Phenomena (1978),
48-59.
14
Chapter One
relation to its theatrical enactment exemplifies the absent object: ‘The
stage is theological for as long as it is dominated by speech […] by the
layout of a primary logos which does not belong to the theatrical site and
governs it from a distance.’21
In Klytaimnestra? the classical text is employed as the point of
departure for the dismantlement of theatrical representation. Staïkos
follows Artaud in the belief that live performance should lie at the core of
the theatrical phenomenon, but he does seem to agree on the need to
eliminate the masterpieces. In vivid contrast, he pronounces the decisive
role of classical drama in the renovation of theatre:
The creation of modern Greek plays-performances […] will be shaped
and completed during the process, by the parallel and constant dialogue
with the works of the past […] the actor will re-conquer his lost initiative
and the responsibility or creation … while the writer and the director will
retain their place on stage, which they have also lost.22
The writer in Staïkos view is not exiled but he is to be involved in the
creative process equally with the actor and the spectator.
The dramatic action in Klytaimnestra? takes place during a rehearsal.
In the beginning of the play Clytemnestra does her coiffure and Electra
helps Clytemnestra to put her make-up on. After the recitation
Clytemnestra interrupts the action to ask ‘How do I look?’23 The dramatic
space described in the stage directions equally suspends the realisation of
the performance event: ‘a landscape of seats’.24 These seats, however, do
not appear to be arranged as in a theatre hall and ‘Electra in vain tries to
put the seats in order.’25 Although the rehearsal is only a pre-condition of
performance, as it lacks the spectator who is the ultimate prerequisite of
the theatrical event, the characters experience the dictates of
representation. In fact, there is a complete amalgamation of actor and role,
which turns out to be an annulment of the self. Alluding to the question
mark in the title Clytemnestra confesses by the end of the play: ‘I am
21
Ibid, 235.
Quoted in Sivetidou (2000), 67.
23
Staïkos (2001), 118. There are recurrent references to Clytemnestra’s beauty
throughout the play. This alludes to Oxford Classical Text Euripides’ Electra
1069-1075, where the eponymous heroine blames her mother’s interest in her
appearance as characteristic of a debauched woman.
24
«τοπίο καθισµάτων», Staïkos (2001), 115. Sivetidou (2000), 25 acutely notices
the reference to Ionesco’s Chairs. [I quote the excerpts in the original language
where particular notional nuances make translation necessary.]
25
Staïkos (2001), 115.
22
Staging of Classical Drama around 2000
15
neither Clytemnestra nor myself.’26 It is not fortuitous that make-up
replaces the tragic mask and the elements of the costume. Electra powders
Clytemnestra’s face with dust and paints a necklace and earrings on her
body.27 If mask and costume are the means by which the actor transforms
him/herself into the embodied character, this somatic bearing of skeui
connotes that the distance that the actor must traverse to embody the role
has been eliminated.28
The reduction of the characters into artificial beings is intensified by
the classical text, which corresponds to Artaud’s verdict that the
subservitude of the art of theatre to the classical repertory impedes the
evolution of theatre into a vigorous living experience. The depiction of the
figures of Clytemnestra and Electra focuses less on the deeds of the tragic
heroines than on their being dramatis personae. Like Don Quixote, their
‘whole being is nothing but language, text, printed pages, stories that have
already been written down.’29 At the beginning of the play, the two women
recite two monologues from Sophocles’ Electra in a rather obsolete
poeticised translation of Sophocles’ Electra into Modern Greek.30 The
translation, however tuneful and mellifluous, sounds alien to the
contemporary ear underlining the oppression that the text exerts upon the
characters. It is not without some importance that the recitations cannot be
completed and each phrase is repeated several times. When Clytemnestra
abandons this translation to render the same monologue in prose and
colloquial language, the monologue is completed without interruption.31
However, the liberation from the classical text is never achieved. The
characters continue to speak as Clytemnestra and Electra throughout the
play. Every time Clytemnestra tries to tell the story from the perspective
of the enamoured woman, Electra reminds her of her adultery and viricide.
Apart from the monologues from Electra by Sophocles, textual references
to the Oresteia and Euripides’ Electra penetrate the play. Clytemnestra
26
Ibid, 149.
Ibid, 115.
28
In a similar way, Graham in The Dancer’s World (1957) describes the process of
make-up as a gradual dissolution of the character in the role: ‘Make-up is a kind of
magic, the means by which you transform yourself into the character of the play.
You make up your face as you think she must have looked; you dress your hair as
you think she must have dressed hers. And then, there comes a moment when she
looks at you in the mirror and you realising that she is looking at you and
recognising you as herself.’
29
Foucault (1989), 46.
30
The recited monologues are from Sophocles’ Electra, 86-99 and 516-551 given
in the translation of Ioannis Gryparis (1909).
31
It is indicative that the text from that point onwards is no longer italicised.
27
16
Chapter One
bemoans the fact that she ‘gave birth to a snake’, evoking Clytemnestra’s
dream in the Oresteia.32 When she describes the murder of Agamemnon,
her phrase plays with the uncertainty about who killed Agamemnon:
‘Listen, the lover was holding him tight and I was killing him - or the
opposite.’33 When Electra tries to kill Clytemnestra, she hesitates at the
sight of Clytemnestra’s breast as Orestes does in the Choephoroi.34
Staïkos’ Clytemnestra herself demonstrates some awareness of her
artificiality when she says ‘that’s how nature made me and the others.’35
The false moon that Electra hangs up at the beginning of the performance
and takes down before the end, as if the entire action has taken place
within a night is an additional ironic reference to theatrical artificiality, but
it is also reminiscent of the unity of time in neo-classical tragedy, alluding
to the diachronic transformations of the tragic genre.
The two characters of the play are as much haunted by their
artificiality as they are by the classical text. The impossibility of escape
from the realm of theatre is given in a mise-en-abîme image which negates
the possibility of real-life experience. Clytemnestra’s last monologue,
which describes her erotic encounter, is full of highly aestheticised
images, but the sensual experience remains bitterly unfulfilled. The
awakening is described thus:
“The dawn came–alas–and I miserable alone, all alone, I woke up …and I
am falling from precipice to precipice and from precipice to precipice and
from precipice to precipice, I found myself in the precipice–oh, dark
awakening.”36
Almost simultaneously, the exit from the theatrical condition is like an
emergence into the real, but Clytemnestra, in fact, finally finds herself on
the theatrical stage, as Electra interrupts her monologue to suggest that
they should ‘play theatre’.37
There is an affinity between Klytaimnestra? and Jean Genet’s Les
Bonnes, which has not escaped critical attention.38 Clytemnestra asks to
32
Staïkos (2001), 141 and OCT Choephoroi 928.
Staïkos (2001), 129. In Agamemnon Clytemnestra kills Agamemnon, whereas
according to the older versions of the myth Aegisthus was supposed to have
accomplished the murder.
34
Staïkos (2001), 133, OCT Choephoroi, 896-9.
35
Ibid, 126.
36
Ibid, 146.
37
Ibid, 149.
38
Ibid, 146: «Ξηµέρωσε – αλοίµονο –η άθλια µόνη, κατάµονη ξύπνησα – κι ο
ήλιος κοράκιασε – όλα γύρω κοράκιασαν – και πέφτω – από γκρεµνό σε γκρεµνό
33
Staging of Classical Drama around 2000
17
drink the poisoned wine in order to escape; in Genet’s play the poisoned
infusion puts an end to the endless role playing. Clytemnestra in Staïkos’
drama craves for the wine ‘that seals the eyes’.39 Sivetidou discusses the
symbolism of wine as the sacred drink of Dionysus.40 In contrast to the
venom which provides the denouement in Genet’s play, the wine as a
symbolism of theatre itself bears no link to life and, subsequently, to death
but to repetition. According to the stage direction, before the start of the
performance there are pieces of broken glass on the stage floor.41 At the
end, the glasses break and the wine gets spilt implying that the characters
have returned to the point of their departure and are ready to repeat their
performance.42
The plot of The Living Quarters by Friel is vaguely based on
Euripides’ Hippolytus. Had it not been revealed by the subtitle, Friel’s
play could have gone unnoticed as a rewriting. The young wife commits
adultery with the son of her husband, while the latter is away on mission,
but Anna (Phaedra) is not overwhelmed by fervent passion for her stepson
nor is the stepson Ben (Hippolytus) obsessed with virginity. Moreover,
after the revelation of the illicit affair, it is Commandant Frank Butler
(Theseus), not Anna, who commits suicide. In fact, the domestic
surrounding evokes Chekhovian rather than ancient theatre43 and there are
no fragments from the Euripidean tragedy embedded in the dramatic
texture as in Klytaimnestra?. None the less, The Living Quarters is a
rewriting of a Greek tragedy and it similarly questions the classical text as
well as the art of theatre.
The metatheatrical game here takes the form of a re-enactment of past
events that have occurred during a family reunion.44 In a similar way to
Klytaimnestra?, the device the play-within-the play destabilises the idea of
representation. As Richard Cave notes Living Quarters appears to be ‘a
play within which has no further play to situate itself.’45 The dramatic
action oscillates between performance and rehearsal; it is, though, bereft
κι από γκρεµνό σε γκρεµνό κι από γκρεµνό σε γκρεµνό βρέθηκα στον γκρεµνό –
Ω ξύπνηµα µαύρο.»
39
Ibid, 149.
40
Sivetidou (2001), 29.
41
Staïkos (2001), 150.
42
Ibid, 150.
43
Chekhovian influences are explored in detail in the doctoral study by
Timmermans (1994).
44
The dramatic time of that day as well as of the re-enactment lasts one day,
evoking again to the so-called unity of time in neoclassical tragedy.
45
Cave (2002), 109.
18
Chapter One
of the basic prerequisites of theatre – at least in its conventional sense. The
characters of the play do not perform a fictional story; they re-enact actual
events of their past in a condition where, similarly to Staïkos’s play,
‘[t]here are no spectators … [o]nly participants.’46
The naming of the play after Hippolytus poses interpretative problems,
which cannot be adequately explained with reference to the interplay with
the spectator’s pre-knowledge or to the multiple levels of reality that that
entails, as has been argued.47 The authorial choice to place Hippolytus in
the core of the creative and, consequently, the receptive process seems to
relate to the critique of representation as the materialisation of a written
text on stage. The family narrative which is being enacted is fully
documented in a ledger; and a particular character, Sir, is the beholder and
executor of the ledger, a ‘human Hansard who knows those tiny little
details and interprets them accurately.’48
The ubiquitous Sir has been compared to the Greek chorus.49 However,
Sir appears to be a coordinator rather than a commentator of the action.
His presence seems to parallel to both Euripidean Aphrodite’s motivation
of the action and Artemis’s apathy that culminates in the drama rather than
the actions and the words of the ancient chorus, in general, and the chorus
of Hippolytus, in particular. The radical difference, however, is that his
rule here emanates not from divinity but from the possession of the ledger.
His role certainly evokes that of the director in Pirandello’s metatheatrical
dramas, but Sir more than an auteur or a metteur-en-scène is an
embodiment of the text itself as recorded in the ledger. He introduces and
describes the characters in the form of stage directions.50 Most
importantly, he makes explicit that he is not the creator of what lies in the
ledger.51 This would seem to correspond to post-structuralist theory
which, aspiring to the deposition of the Author, often replaces him with a
likewise transcendental Text.52
46
Friel (1984), 181.
Jones (1996) argues that Friel plays with the expectation of the spectator and
also creates an additional level of text.
48
Friel (1984), 178.
49
McDonald (1998), 40.
50
Such a rendering of the stage directions could be viewed as anticipating the reelaboration of dramatic literature in post-dramatic theatre. In post-dramatic theatre
the stage directions are taken over by the characters themselves, a technique that
destabilises the notion of dramatic texts affecting the acting codes as much as the
reception on the part of the spectator. See Sugiera (2004).
51
Friel (1984), 198.
52
Fish (1980), 181-196 and Burke (1992), 20-33, 116-171 argue that poststructuralist
theory returns to the theological models it wishes to abolish.
47