GREEK DRAMA STUDY DAY AT WALTON HALL
July 1998

Nowadays, few doubt that performance is at least as important as text for those studying Greek drama. Fortunately the experience of performance has become a reality for many, thanks to the London Festival of Greek Drama and the efforts of companies such as Chloë Productions and the Actors of Dionysus, which tours plays to many of the areas which commercial productions cannot reach.

Performance and study were combined in the first Greek Drama Study Day organised by the Open University Department of Classical Studies in July 1998. The day aimed to introduce aspects of the study of the conventions of Greek drama and to illustrate the evidence from which performance may be reconstructed. We also wanted the audience to experience the range of themes and performance techniques involved in the genres of tragedy, comedy and satyr play. Nearly 300 people came to Milton Keynes on a summer Saturday, from as far away as Liverpool, York and Dorset. Many were students from the OU's Classical Studies courses or from its new Arts foundation course Introducing the Humanities (which features Euripides' Medea). The day was made possible by much-appreciated grants from the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies and the Arts Faculty Tuition Committee of the OU.

The Chloe company in Wendy Pank's specially created masks

The morning session was on Reconstructing Ancient Theatre and the Conventions of Tragedy, devised and led by Russell Shone, Project Director of Chloë Productions. This included sections on theatre design and machinery, masks and costume, dance, tragic stories in Greek iconography, satyr drama and the conventions of Greek drama - prologue, chorus, messenger speech, stichomythia, agon. It included slide presentation, performed readings and dramatic extracts with scenes from [Aeschylus] Prometheus Bound, Sophocles Trachiniae, Euripides Trojan Women and Cyclops. Russell, memorably described in a recent review as a 'Prometheus of our time', proved to be adept at shedding his chains and skillfully leaping from lectern to costume change to agon.

Students examining the masks

The reconstruction from vase painting of the costume and movement of the chorus of satyrs in the Cyclops was especially effective, enhanced by the dance of a satyr round the audience! Afterwards the Chloë company (Annie Benson, Wendy Pank, Christine Saunders, Tamlin Walenn) also made time to talk to students and answer individual questions. Students particularly appreciated the opportunity to handle and discuss the masks created by Wendy Pank. The impact of the Chloë contribution was demonstrated by the front page feature with colour photos in the student newspaper Sesame.

The afternoon began with a talk by Ruth Hazel on Acting Medea. This also featured Tamsin Shasha as Medea, performing the speech to the women of Corinth, which was integrated into the lecture to enable discussion of ways in which performance issues are prominent even when we think we are just reading the play 'in the study'. The Actors of Dionysus then performed the three Jason and Medea scenes with Tamsin as Medea and Mark Katz as Jason. You could have heard a pin drop as the cast, with Director David Stuttard and Stage Manager Jonathan Martin working wonders with the lighting and limited performance space, created a spin- chilling build up to Medea's killing of the children and eventual escape in the (imagined) dragon chariot. The production style, without masks and with the stress on psychological realism, made a valuable contrast with Chloë's earlier emphasis on reconstruction. Finally, all the tensions were released into laughter as Tamsin and Mark performed a cross-dressed, nothing- left- to- the- imagination version of the scene between Kinesias and Myrrhine from Aristophanes' Lysistrata. The company then responded to questions from the audience. Discussion was so lively that eventually 'Time' had to be called and everyone compelled to go home. When introducing the day I had rashly said that I hoped that everyone would discover something unexpected to add to their impressions of Greek drama. At the end a student said 'Now I know just what you meant'.

Silenos

Quite apart from sharing the sense of enjoyment and excitement felt by this particular audience throughout the day, I was left mulling over broader questions about audience response to and involvement with Greek drama. The London Festival of Greek Drama's outline programme for the 12th Festival next February and March promises a fascinating mix of talks and workshops as well as performance. The Cambridge staging of Trojan Women this autumn (directed by Jane Montgomery) offered a programme of participative workshops. These kinds of activity raise important questions about the types of audiences which it is intended to attract and/ or to 'educate', while from a slightly different perspective the OU project on the Reception of Greek texts and Images in late twentieth century drama and poetry intends to research both the dynamics of performance creation and also the processes of audience response to and interpretation of performance. All this is part of the continuing dialogue between ancient and modern. I confidently predict that the upsurge of interest in Greek drama will prove not to be merely a late twentieth century phenomenon but will continue well past the Millenium.

Lorna Hardwick