Survey
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
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