Overview

Lorna Hardwick, The Open University, U.K.

As well as the main strands which have emerged so far, there are some underlying ones which colleagues might like to address such as:

• the desirability of more experimental performance work (of what kind?).
• the relationship between researching the ‘factual’ aspects of Reception and the attempt to develop hypotheses about interpretation and formal relationships between ancient and modern.
• the practicalities of making unpublished primary sources including photo, tapes and videos more widely available to researchers.
• what is or might be the role in Reception studies of textual criticism (interpreted in its widest sense)?
• how to develop and educate audiences and disseminate the results of research?

The feedback I've received so far suggests that a number of people would like to develop our seminar concept next year and several new members are interested in joining. I'd be glad to have your views on how we might best proceed. If we reconvene next spring (for instance), would it be useful to set up an 'agenda' in advance for a short series of discussions in which each month would focus on a single topic? Each topic would be introduced by a different member of the seminar with the resulting discussion circulated to all. Comments and suggestions for alternative models will be very welcome.

---

CONTRIBUTIONS

Greg McCart, University of Southern Queensland, Australia 

There were a few matters raised in the March contributions that prompt a response. One was Peter Meineck's concerns about the 'information gap" which seems to exist between scholars working in the classical/theatrical world and that of the general public in the US and the UK.  The same is true in Australia and is due to a large degree, I am sure, to the removal of classical studies, apart perhaps from Ancient History, from most schools' curricula.  People today are simply not aware of the magnificent stories on which the Greek dramatists drew and which they enhanced.  That's good in a way because it means that there is a rich field for endeavour in re-telling these stories into the next century.  But it will take effort. If I may be so bold as to refer once more to the Sydney Theatre Company's production of my translation of Medea in 1996, I would like to offer brief comment on the critical reception.  I have analysed six reviews, which appeared in major national or metropolitan newspapers, and nine reviews published in regional or suburban newspapers.  All were agreed on one thing only: Sandy Gore was magnificent as Medea.  On all other issues, the critics were divided about particular aspects of the production.  Some felt the translation contained too much contemporary idiom while others felt that it was forceful, fresh and dynamic.  Some found that the gesticulatory dance (based on the principle of mimesis) was entrancing while others considered it distracting and silly.  Some admired the vestiges of the ancient Greek theatre space while one thought that it was a 'self-parody'. And so on.

Two things emerge from analysis of the critical reception. 

Firstly, some of the critics were all at sea in trying to review a theatrical production which incorporated histrionic acting, a significant component of dance, music and, in the choruses, heightened delivery - a bit different from your weekly theatrical fare.  And secondly, there seemed to be a presumption among some of those who take themselves a bit seriously that they knew what Greek theatre ought to be.  And it ought to be grand and formal and poetic with no place for contemporary idiom, for the laughter of recognition or for energetic, gesticulatory dance. The presumption seems to be that there was, and still should be, a 'house style' as if the plays of Aischylos, Sophokles and Euripides could be bundled up under the name Thespis or Hellenos and nobody would know any different.

Yet it is the very difference among these highly competitive playwrights which can provide fertile ground for inventive and diverse theatrical production.  I think that this is a case of 'more is less': the more production of Greek tragedy we have, the less ignorance is likely to cloud reception.  It wasn't so long ago that Shakespeare was considered unpopular and certainly not cinematic.

A quick comment on Michael Walton's observation that actors accomplished in masked acting cease to use their features behind the mask.  I have not worked with a single group of actors long enough to make this observation but it is my own experience in playing Oidipous and in taking many classes and workshops in mask that familiarity with the mask does allow the actor to use it consciously as a tool.  When this happens, there is no attempt to 'identify' with the character but to 'present' the character.  The need for 'facial performance' thus disappears.

Lorna Hardwick, The Open University, U.K.

Several people have raised the problem of 'educating ' audiences. One way of approaching this is via a project in which plays are performed in the original or in translation over a short season by various companies, amateur and professional, accompanied by pre-performance talks, workshops, exhibitions and public lectures. This is the format which has been developed by the London Festival of Greek Drama over the last eleven years. This year's plays included O.T., Prometheus, Antigone, Trackers. Most of the performances were sell-outs; the lectures (free at the British Museum) attracted attendances of over 100 and it appears that the audience constituency is getting wider and including not just university and senior school students and 'old' classicists but also members of the public with theatre interests. Over the years, the cumulative effects of this Festival are likely to be considerable. It also provides an opportunity to feature rarely performed plays and to stage reconstructions (e.g. the Chloe Productions Andromeda). Russell Shone, at the Institute of Classical Studies in London, has more details  (and for information about next year's Festival e mail rshone@sas.ac.uk) although so far he has been too modest to contribute his thoughts on the subject to this seminar...

However, I think there is also a broader issue concerning the expectations and assumptions with which critics and reviewers as well as audiences approach ancient theatre and its reception. For example, this surely underlies some of the recent controversy about the role of Greek tragedy in modern Irish culture, especially in the context of the North of Ireland. I'm thinking, inter alia, of Shaun Richards' suggestion that using Greek models to inform understanding of current politics is harmful because tragedy (he thinks) presupposes a culture dominated by notions of Fate and inevitability, which by implication remove the concept of responsibility for one's own actions and by extension reduce hope for the future (Shaun Richards 'In the Border Country: Greek Tragedy and Contemporary Irish Drama' in (eds.) C.C.Barfoot and R van den Doel, Ritual Remembering: History, Myth and Politics in Anglo-Irish Drama, Rodopi, 1995, pp 191-200). In a different vein, the problem of attempting to read too precise a relationship between ancient plays and modern versions has been noticed by Terry Eagleton in his discussion of Heaney's The Cure at Troy (Unionism and Utopia, in News from Nowhere 9 (1991), pp 93-5). Richards' analysis seems to be derived from a partial reading of Aristotle rather than from analysis of Greek tragedy but both he and Eagleton raise substantial questions in my mind about how to communicate the dynamics and performance conventions of the ancient plays to modern audiences (including both academics and general theatregoers). This is clearly necessary, both as a counter to prejudice and as an illumination of the processes of appropriation/invention which take place in modern adaptations and versions (and in modern stagings of the 'originals' as well?).Serious development work/action research in this area would need the input of theatre practitioners and of specialists in the receiving culture as well as the ancient. Is there a need for this sort of work and if so, how might it be achieved?