The E-Seminar
About the E-Seminar

2009-2010
Conference ESeminar
Introduction
Session 1
Session 1 Responses
Session 2
Session 2 Responses
Session 3
Session 3 Responses

The Seminar Archive
1998 Index
     February
     March
     April
     May
1999 Index
     February
     March
     April
     May
2000 Index
     February
     March
     May
2001 Index
    February
    April
    May
2002 Index
     February
     March
     May
2003 Index
     February
     March
     April
2004 Index
     February
     March
     April
2005 Index
     February
     March
     April
     May
2006 Index
     February
     March
     April
2007/8 Index
     November
     December
     January
     March
     May

Copyright Notice

 

 

FEBRUARY 1998

Many thanks to all who sent contributions. These are included below and cover a broad range of issues.

In summary, practical problems raised include that of access to tapes and videos; the difficulty of setting up and maintaining information networks, especially with contacts in Africa and Asia (suggestions please!).

Issues which are both practical and theoretical include:-

• Capturing the theatrical moment
• The kinds of documentation which Reception research should aim at
• Ways of tackling the Chorus
• Nature of the relationships between ancient and modern (parallels? correspondences? dialogue?)
• Aesthetic and cultural status of performance conventions
• Verbal and aural aspects of theatrical space and action and implications for the audience
• 'Ritual'

---

CONTRIBUTIONS:

Lowell Edmunds, Rutgers University, USA

I have recently read David Wiles' Tragedy in Athens (1997). One of its themes is familiar in much interpretation of tragedy (both as text for reading and as script for performance) in the last quarter century: ritual. Wiles holds that the governing spatial paradigm of tragedy is the ritual circle of community around a surrogate altar (210). Another approach to tragedy is metatheatricality. Wiles only glances in this direction (208-209). One of the ways in which tragedy signals its status as dramatic performance is the redoubling of action in words. In Theatrical Space and Historical Place in Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.,1996), I wrote about what I call "Honzl's Law" (now I am capitalizing it), which holds that significant action on stage can only be realized by verbal reference to it (29-30). I argued that this verbal reference is not a matter of embedded stage directions. Lately, I have been thinking about a related phenomenon, which perhaps has to do mainly with sound. (At the moment, I have only a few examples.) In his note on Aesch. Sept. 320 oxugoois, Hutchinson speaks of "double perspective." The chorus refer to the wailing prayers that they have been uttering. This self-reference no doubt reinforces their prayers for safety, and thus remains within the fiction represented on the stage. But it includes the audience's perspective, because it states what the audience has been seeing and hearing. H. compares Eu. 365 axiomison (the Erinyes of themselves), where, I would add, the chorus' use of the demonstrative tode underlines their momentary adoption of an external perspective. H. also cites Pers. 635f. and Suppl. 69, both, like Sept. 320, passages in which the chorus refer to their vocal performance. The first is difficult. It is possible that the chorus refer to paralinguistic expressions (groans, etc.) heard by the audience but not in the text. At Suppl. 69, the chorus refer to the "Ionian strains" in which they are singing. Should one think of such metatheatrical devices as irreconcilable with "ritual" ("ritual" is obviously shorthand for a large set of issues) and does "ritual" then need some fundamental rethinking? Or is there a view (a spectator's or a reader's) in which they somehow coalesce?

Lorna Hardwick, The Open University, UK

My current research is mainly concerned with the Reception of Greek texts and images in late 20th century drama and poetry in English (although I also do some work on 19th century reception). The project has two aspects:

(1) Case studies (mainly on Homer and on Tragedy).These examine the formal, discursive and contextual relationships between specific Greek and modern texts and performances.

(2) Development of a data base documenting late 20th century examples.

Working with the data base has shown that there is still quite a wide gap between on the one hand the (now) conventional wisdom that performance has equal status with text and on the other hand the practicalities of integrating performance studies into research. The difficulties partly relate to the availability and reliability of information which is often by its nature ephemeral (for example, details of staging, design, lighting, choreography, types of audience and their assumptions and reactions). In addition, there are methodological issues. If each performance is seen as equivalent to a text, how do we access that text? As it was performed? (This is easier said than done. There is a difference between a live performance and a sound or video recording which, even if available, sets its own perspectives, directs our ears and gaze etc.)

As it was reviewed? (Which raises questions about the ambivalent status of the Review as both narrative/descriptive document and as critique.)

As it was archived (if at all).

As it has been remembered/imagined as an influence in the history of performance?

Or all of these?

Accompanying these problems is the question of the processes involved in the creation of performance, the roles of director, translator, players, sponsors. These are all involved in decisions about the extent to which the conventions of tragedy are to be represented or transplanted into other forms. By conventions I mean Chorus, dance, singing, masks, rhesis, agon, stichomythia, lament etc., to say nothing of the competitive ethos of the Greek festivals and their physical location. The way in which these conventions are or are not presented seems to me to be an important indicator of the nature and direction of 'cultural shift'.

I would be interested in seminar participants' views about the extent to which it is possible and desirable to set up an analysis of performance elements which is comparable in rigour to that expected for textual studies, without falling into the trap of using a template of ancient conventions as a closed system for evaluating modern theatre.

Greg McCart, University of Southern Queensland, Australia

My work in recent years has been focussed on the translation of ancient Greek tragedy (and, to a lesser extent, comedy) for contemporary performance. The methodology adopted has been 'experiential' in that various hypotheses about ancient performance have been tested in actual performance. The fact that they might 'work' for modern spectators is of course no guarantee that the hypotheses are accurate. At the same time, examination of the conventions of tragic composition and the adoption of ancient performance conventions (which have general acceptance among scholars) while in no way leading to a re-creation of an 'authentic' production, do in fact raise a number of serious questions at the heart of revivals of tragedy.

The surviving tragedies are fair game for innovative directors and there have been many superb re-inventions of particular tragedies in performance. Dogged as I am, however, by an urge to respect what was fundamental to ancient performance, productions which I have directed over the past few years have tried to respect the known (or at least fairly well known) conventions of performance. The most critical of these of course is the use of the tragic mask. Another critical convention is outdoor performance. Both these conventions of performance significantly alter spectator reception.

I have had the opportunity to rehearse and produce and to compare and contrast response to masked and unmasked productions and workshops of Oidipous the King, Medea, Oidipous at Kolonos and Thesmophoriazusai and it is my observation that the combination of the use of mask and outdoor performance significantly affects the style of acting and spectator response. And one of the most critical consequences is that spectator focus shifts from the psychologies of characters to the story being told. That in itself is a major move away from the predominant styles of contemporary dramatic writing and production.

How far this sort of exploration can go I do not know. Perhaps I will by the time this innovative series of seminars is over.

In 1996, the Sydney Theatre Company premiered my translation of Medea. In November of that year, I workshopped a production with students of acting at USQ. Both productions shared a number of performance conventions. The significant difference was the use of mask in the USQ workshop. Given the space available here, I will concentrate my observations on the first encounter between Medea and Jason in the play (lines 446 -626).

The STC performances by the actors playing Medea and Jason in this scene were extremely powerful and highly emotive with intense inter-activity between the characters on stage. The spectators were voyeurs. Medea's agony and disempowerment were enhanced by casting a mature woman in the role, dressing her in conservative costume (relative to other characters) and having her stature reduced by the absence of footwear. Casting a tall, muscular, youthful actor with shaven-head and tatts, on the other hand, enhanced Jason’s arrogance and power. These production decisions deliberately threw focus on the nature of the two principal characters and this scene (and others) became a contest between two passionate human beings whose exasperation was often expressed through physical contact, abuse and containment. The final sequence in the scene had all the elements of a volatile domestic argument. The effect of the scene on this spectator was one of feeling emotionally drained by the raw passion of the performances.

During rehearsal, a major problem emerged: given the intensity of the emotional exchanges, how can an actor who must remain silent while the other actor delivers a very lengthy speech maintain the emotive intensity? It was difficult for the actors to do so but they succeeded through the use of gesture, blocking, non-verbal response and physical reaction. The problem itself however did not arise in the masked workshop and the reason for this is that the performative signs in such a production require an entirely different performance by the actors and leads to an entirely different reception by spectators.

Though naturally unable to match the highly developed acting skills of the professional actors, the student actors were able to use the mask effectively in presenting a very different interpretation of the scene.

For a start, the mask conceals the actor's most effective weapon: the face. And it forces the spectator to 'read' the entire body of the actor in performance. In working with masks (which incidentally were based on illustrations on ancient Greek vases), the actors soon learned that they placed extraordinary demands on the actor's body, requiring athletic, muscular performance. Gestures and postures were exaggerated far beyond anything acceptable in naturalistic, bare-faced acting. The actor embodied the text, even danced the text. Lines were delivered in a more declamatory style and emotional interchanges demonstrated rather than apparently felt. The consequence of this was to force the spectator to read the mask and the body in performance and this foregrounded the story rather than the psychologies of the characters. And surely that is at the heart of Greek tragedy.

Marianne McDonald, University of California, San Diego, USA    

1. The key issues and problems in reception research are many and varied. We need access to primary materials (tapes and videos of productions). It is good that Oxford is establishing a data bank. I hope that scholars will be able to have easy access to the material, and that possibly copies could be made so that research will not have to be done on-site (in situ?). One also needs to have access to productions done throughout the world, not simply Europe, e.g., the rich resources of Japan, China, Africa and India.

Didaskalia (www.csv.warwick.ac.uk/didaskalia/ NB new address from 2003 : www.didaskalia.open.ac.uk) is a useful tool for finding out about productions, but it needs more contributing editors from non-European countries.

2. I translate, and have found myself directing. It is difficult bringing Greek tragedies into modern times if one is overly attached to being literal. I think they must be translated into modern language and idiom, and they should address modern issues. It is important to try a translation out in staged readings and in rehearsal. The sound is important. I think the chorus poses special problems. I'm for simplifying by dividing the lines, NOT recitation in unison, a lost art, and mainly deadly dull. It is guaranteed to reduce comprehension. Now singing is another matter. I think choruses should sing and dance. I also think that one can use one individual as a chorus (I can hear the screams)...in my Antigone, which I am doing with Athol Fugard, I use flute/clarinet with drums as background for the single choral figure who will draw on Irish and African folk music (if I can convince Athol).

3. As an academic I think we should present our research in many ways to reach both classicists and modernists. We should expose our students to ancient and modern parallels so that we can shape a future generation. I regularly teach the classics via film. This year's choices are somewhat due to visiting speakers: Athol Fugard, Peter Fonda, Prof. Francesca Albini and Prof. Michael Walton. Obviously these questions are broad and we could write books:

Peter Fonda's Ulee's Gold (1997). Euripides' Iphigenia at Aulis. "Fathers and Daughters"
Athol Fugard's Blood Knot (1964). Euripides' Phoenissae. "Brotherly Hate" Jim Sheridan's In the Name of the Father (1993). Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound: "Trials and Justice"
Carol Reed's Odd Man Out (1947). Sophocles' Ajax. "The Hero"
Joseph Mankiewicz's Cleopatra (1963). Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra,
Plutarch's Lives (Antony). "Antony and Cleopatra in Film, Theatre and Text"
Lee Breuer's The Gospel at Colonus (1983). Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus "Christ and Oedipus"
Ridley Scott's Thelma and Louise (1991). Euripides' Medea: "Women Fight Back"
Kon Ichikawa's The Burmese Harp (1956). Sophocles' Antigone: "Ethics and Politics"
Terry George's Some Mother's Son (1996). Euripides' Trojan Women: "Mothers and War"
Jamie Uys' The Gods Must be Crazy (1990). Aristophanes' Acharnians: "War and Comedy"

Michael Walton, University of Hull, UK

The question of reception has long been an issue in Theatre Studies because of the gulf between a written manuscript and a piece in performance: but also because of the manner in which individuals recall a stage moment whose significance may so often be guaranteed - Brecht included - by distraction rather than analysis.

A single distortion can multiply in any use of the secondary source. So, a graduate student of mine referred to 'the huge townhall clock which dominated the set' in Komisarjevsky's Comedy of Errors in 1938. Photographs of the set show the clock to be in proportion to the rest of the features of the setting. One critic he had read had seen it as more than that in the theatre because of the emphasis on the passage of time which dominated the production. So the clock grew.

The absence of the eyewitness account in any consideration of the first performances of Greek plays may, consequently, be a partial blessing. What it does do is leave any re-creation to some extent in the hands of 'director's instinct', though, as we all know from Hollywood, the Director's cut may not always accord with that of the official Editor. Hence, perhaps, the suspicion that still characterises approaches to classic plays that attempt to stress performance priorities at the expense of socio/cultural or literary values of an ancient and, perhaps, alien culture.

There is clearly a risk attached to any declaration of a universal stage language which renders a piece of theatre comprehensible, even divorced from its culture and period, simply because it is a piece of theatre. Peter Brook's search for such a language has been written off by many as a romantic gesture. Perhaps any search for common ground between the Greeks and ourselves is similarly a romantic affectation.

And yet there are indications that the Greeks did subscribe to a theatrical language that is transferable. Much of the debate in Frogs comes down to recognisable issues of modern criticism - exposition, speech, music, the theatrical gesture. Discussion within Frogs of the silent figure in Aeschylus legitimises the search for the visual moment and the rhythm of production. The other visual arts give evidence enough of an awareness of the possibilities of people and objects in space. And, when the chips are down, as with Shakespeare, most Greek plays are not that difficult to direct (all evidence to the contrary) because A, S, E et al were, it seems to me, playmakers who happened to be poets, rather than the other way round.

If any of this is so, issues of reception of the Greeks, and especially the notion that the audience creates the show it sees, don't evaporate. They do revert, in part, from the theoretical to the immediate, and become linked to all the central features dictating the reception of any stage production - occasion, location, contemporary sensibilities, staging, casting, seat-prices, parking problems. Greek drama in performance is no less a social issue than is any other kind of theatre.

Translation is another matter.

---

RESPONSES

David Wiles, University of London, UK

Some brief responses: first to Lowell Edmunds.

'Metatheatrical' strikes me as a rather loaded term for the phenomena you describe. Mightn't we rather say that the emphasis shifts from the enounced to the enunciation? I'm not convinced that you can go down this route in order to separate theatre from ritual. Is not Honzl's law equally applicable to 'This is the body of Christ...' and the wafer/text relationship. When we pray: 'We humbly beseech thee, O lord...' doesn't the 'humbly' both gloss the act of beseeching and become part of the act in just the way you are describing in Aeschylus?

And then to Michael Walton.

I'd like to try and unpack your claim 'that the Greeks did subscribe to a theatrical language that is transferable. Not because I disagree - I wouldn't be in this academic field if I did. But the formulation raises questions in my mind to which I have no clear answers, and would be glad to know if others do. (1) There is a premise that visual phenomena can be explicated in terms of the master paradigm of language. I have often found it expedient to talk about a language of theatre, but the right side of my brain is becoming increasingly uncomfortable with this strategy. (2) If we are uncovering a 'language' of Greek theatrical performance, how far is it universal, and how far is it like ancient Greek, loaded with cultural baggage in such a way that no translation can ever be definitive? (3) Just how reassuring is The Frogs? Certain familiar signifiers are there, like the silent figure, but the whole mode of analysis conflates the aesthetic and the political in a way that I find disorientating. (This is nothing to do with the genre of comedy, because Plato thinks in the same way.)

Following on from these questions, a thought prompted by Greg McCart. We can demonstrate today that masks depsychologise and throw the emphasis upon narrative. But if the C5th Greeks did not have our notions of psychological interiority, can we say that the function was the same?

And how do we put the ritual dimension of the mask back into the equation?

Michael Walton, University of Hull, UK

Thanks to colleagues for interesting responses, in particular to Greg McCart discussing his work on masks. I agree with him that this is an area in which you cannot theorise until you have worked with masks, a tradition with which the Greeks were familiar and for which they were writing. The lip service that has been paid to masked acting in some recent productions has done no service to this tradition.

Two things I would emphasise above all others.

1        Masked acting is more than a one-way process. There is as much a language of listening in a mask as there is a language of speaking - hence my long-held belief that the wearing of a mask was never something simply to make the actor more visible: rather, a part of a stage language which makes him more audible, because of the whole-stage picture that proper masked-acting dictates. Language backs up pattern, and vice-versa.

2        I don't know if this was Greg's experience, or that of others - Peter Meineck, perhaps - but if you work with masks as the starting point for a production, I have always found a point at which the actors cease to use their features under the mask because they have become familiar with expression through physicality. How do you know? Because when you reach this point you can actually rehearse without a mask with the actor playing as though still wearing it, i.e. physically and no longer concentrating the emotion in the face. The effect with a chorus can be electrifying, but principals too. I have never had the nerve to get that far and leave the masks off in front of an audience.

It does of course all tie in with the significance of physical contact with other people or with objects to which the texts draw such abundant attention.