April 2005

Dionysus Strikes Back: Politics in Greek Tragedy
Marianne McDonald, University of California at San Diego

Is Greek tragedy political? Poetry? 'Poetry makes nothing happen,' W.H. Auden said, and Seamus Heaney chimed in, 'Poetry, like the writing, is arbitrary and marks time in every possible sense of that phrase. It does not say to the accusing crowd or to the helpless accused, 'Now a solution will take place'; it does not propose to be instrumental or effective'. Boris Pasternak had an even starker definition of poetry, 'Colorless black ink on white paper'. Obviously, we won't debate whether Greek tragedy is poetry. It is. Some translations aren't. I also claim that poetry HAS aimed at being effective, and I think of the Marseillaise and other poems used in revolutions, AND I think of Greek tragedy.

Particularly in the twentieth century, Greek tragedy has been staged to express the concerns of oppressed people who are seeking either redress, or, at least, catharsis. Sophocles' Antigone and Euripides' Trojan Women and Medea have often been used in this capacity.

Hegel considered Sophocles' Antigone 'Among all the fine creations of the ancient and the modern world … the most excellent and satisfying work of art' because ' The public law of the State and the instinctive family-love and duty towards a brother are here set in conflict'.[1] It is obvious that private family right and public law should be integrated in a well functioning state. The rights of the individual should be protected just as well as the rights of the state to regulate individuals for the general good. The Greeks would add respect for the gods as a necessary component not only for a personal life well lived, but in all the affairs of government.

The tragedy in Sophocles' play comes from the fact that, although both Antigone, who wants to bury her dead brother's body, and Creon, her uncle and king of Thebes who has forbidden the burial, represent valid principles, but they both go too far in defending their own single, monolithic position, when they should, in fact, accommodate each other.

Antigone is a heroine who has been used throughout the world as an icon for political protest. In Nazi-occupied Paris , Jean Anouilh's Antigone protested the Nazi occupation in a way that cleverly got his version past the German censors. In 1973, South African Playwright Athol Fugard's The Island was first staged at Cape Town 's Space Theatre in full view of Robben Island , the notorious prison where Nelson Mandela and other opponents of apartheid (a system that discriminated ruthlessly against people of color) were held. In Fugard's play, two prisoners stage a scene from Antigone , both to indict their audience of guards and entertain their fellow prisoners who understood the irony only too well. Mandela (elected the first president of South Africa in 1994, after the fall of apartheid) staged Antigone when he was in prison and took the role of Creon.

In addition to The Island as political protest against apartheid, Fugard's version of Euripides' Orestes added the war between the sexes to the political mixture. This version emphasized Clytemnestra's agony and anger after her husband Agamemnon, 'sacrifices' their daughter Iphigenia, and she takes her revenge by killing him. Yvonne Bryceland, the South African actress who played Clytemnestra in the first production in 1971 in Cape Town , conveyed the birth of Iphigenia by breaking down her name into animal noises, grunts, and groans, and then reassembling them in a clear articulation of 'Iphigenia'. In a later moving enactment of her loss, she called to Iphigenia: first as a child in the next room, next as if she were playing in a garden, then as if she were further away— shouted for her, screamed for her … finally whispers, and silence.

Underlying all this is the idea that the name is life determining. Clytemnestra gives birth to Iphigenia by calling her name, and she acknowledges her death through silence. And is not silencing the oppressed one of the worst abuses?

In this production, a chair stands in for Agamemnon. Fugard told Bryceland to get to know the chair. 'Love it. And as you love it, look for its flaw, its imperfection, its one fatal weakness'.[2] So, each night, Bryceland would find the weak parts of the chair, smash it to bits, and drained by her own violence, collapse to the floor. Fugard described this, 'Every performance … Clytemnestra destroyed one unique, irreplaceable chair representing Agamemnon. It was an awesome and chilling spectacle. You cannot destroy without being destroyed. As she went through the experience, Bryceland wrecked her soul'. What happens to a person's soul when he or she destroys another person was what happened to South Africa itself. One violent death led inevitably to another—the karma of violent action that still haunts many countries.

In 1984 Ireland saw four versions of Antigone : three plays (by Brendan Kennelly, Tom Paulin, and Aidan Carl Mathews) and one film (by Pat Murphy: Anne Devlin , that featured an Antigone figure).[3] The Irish used Greek tragedy to protest the occupation of their country and abuse under the colonial legacy left by the British.

In 1999, the South African playwright Athol Fugard directed my translation of this play in Cork and Listowel, both in Southern Ireland, starring Patricia Logue, an actress from Belfast , Northern Ireland . [4] My translation will be performed again this year in San Diego , to express many Americans' concern with the political abuses and human rights violations perpetrated by their own country.

Clearly Antigone speaks to a variety of audiences, but particularly the many women who have had the courage to defend what they believe. For example, women have been very prominent in the peace efforts in Ireland . Bernadette Devlin springs readily to mind, as do the many women who spent time in prison because they fought in their own way for Ireland 's independence.

Euripides' Medea , however, provides the unrivaled model for successful female vengeance. In the original, Medea, the princess of Colchis , saves Jason and secures for him the Golden Fleece at the cost of killing her own brother and becoming responsible for the death of Pelias, the unlawful ruler of Iolchus who sent Jason on his quest. Medea and Jason escape to Corinth , but, several years and two sons later, he abandons her for Glauce, the princess of Corinth . In the payback that follows, Medea kills not only Creon, the king of Corinth , and Glauce, but also kills her own two children before escaping safely to Athens .

Medea is every philandering husband's nightmare: The 'bride' who kills her 'Bill'.[5] By killing both his new bride and his own children, she destroys his present and his future, and leaves him to a living death. Medea has been staged in modern times to protest colonial occupation, racism, and as a feminist protest.

The version by the Italian Nobelist Dario Fo and his wife Franca Rame (1977) turn the act of filicide into a symbolic act of female liberation. Brendan Kennelly wrote his version of Medea in 1988 after spending time listening to women, who along with him were hospitalized for alcoholism. He said. 'Many of them had one thing in common. Rage. Rage mainly against men'.[6] Another Irish version, playwright Marina Carr's By the Bog of Cats… (1999, and currently running in London until the end of February) also shows the abuse of women.

Another South African playwright Guy Butler used the classics to show the consequences of racism in his Demea (1990) with white adventurer Jonas Barker abandoning his Tembu princess Demea. The opera Marie-Christine by the New York composer and lyricist Michael John LaChiusa (1999) tells another version of Medea's story that deals with issues of race.

In 2003, My Medea, Queen of Colchester protested colonial abuses in South Africa and featured Medea as a coloured transvestite from Colchester, a location just outside of Cape Town . She was betrayed by a white colonial drug dealer, after they moved to Las Vegas . I am co-editing with American playwright and professor of theatre at the University of Southern California, Velina Hasu Houston, an anthology consisting only of versions of Medea by women: The Wife Strikes Back: Women Playwrights Liberate Medea. These plays are political and deal with both feminist and colonial issues.

In 1991, Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis used his own translation into Modern Greek of Euripides' complete text in his opera Medea to represent the joys and sorrows of the modern Greek nation.[7] His opera shows sympathy for both Jason and Medea, as they sing mournful arias reminiscent of rebetika, songs that lament the tragedy of the expulsion of Greeks from Asia Minor in 1922.

Euripides' Trojan Women , often called the greatest anti-war play ever written, has inspired numerous authors who wished to lodge their own protests against war, including German novelist Fritz Werfel (1915, World War I); French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre (1965, World War II and the Algerian Wars); Japanese director and theorist Tadashi Suzuki (1974, Hiroshima and WW II); English playwright Edward Bond (1978, war in general); and Brendan Kennelly (1993, indirectly protesting the British occupation of Ireland and their treatment of the Irish, in addition to men's treatment of women in general).

Also, Greek-Cypriot director Cacoyannis' films of the Trojan Women (1971) and also Iphigenia at Aulis (1977) particularly protested abuses that occurred from 1967 to 1974 when a military junta ruled Greece.[8] As he himself said, he was protesting the oppression of man by man.

In 2000, I created my own version to usher the Millennium with a plea for peace.[9] In that version, I had Hecuba speak about the abuse of prisoners. At that time, I based her speeches on reports of British abuse of IRA prisoners, but they now also apply to prisoner abuses in Guantanamo Bay and Iraq . My translation of Euripides' Iphigenia at Aulis was performed last year by Voices of Women (VOW) at the University of San Diego 's Joan Kroc Center for Peace and Justice, as a protest against the invasion of Iraq . [10]

I have three versions of Greek tragedy that have been performed in San Diego , all of which have political themes, two of which were mentioned above. The third, The Ally Way , is based on Euripides' Alcestis and shows a disillusioned Secretary of State who turns his back on Washington hypocrisy after surviving an assassination attempt (his wife stands in the way of the bullet intended for him, but a brain surgeon, a Heracles stand-in, saves her life). [11] This play also tackles misogyny over the centuries.

My Ally Way was an anti-Bush play staged just before the 2004 election, whose immediate results probably on the face of it prove that 'Poetry makes nothing happen'. Still, at the very least, we must continue to protest and refuse to be silenced. These plays let us realize that others have suffered in a comparable way, and thus offer some solace. Most of all, the words of Greek tragedy, steeped as they are in the ethics conveyed by 'the unwritten word of god,' can enter the hearts and minds of the audience. We can all hope that these ancient words will do more than just offer balm to the oppressed, but that they will also lead to needed change.

Notes

[1] Hegel on Tragedy . Anne and Henry Paolucci, eds., int. and trans. Westport , Connecticut : Greenwood Press, 1978, pp. 74 and 78.

[2] Athol Fugard 1990: 117-130. Reprint of 'Orestes Reconstructed: A Letter to an American Friend,' Theatre Quarterly , 8.32 (1979):5 and the next, 123.

[3] See Amid Our Troubles: Irish Versions of Greek Tragedy, eds. Marianne McDonald and Michael Walton ( London : Methuen , 2002).

[4] Sophocles' Antigone, trans. Marianne McDonald ( London : Nick Hern Books, 2000).

[5] Reference to two Quentin Tarentino films from 2003-4: Kill Bill I and Kill Bill II.

[6] Preface to Kennelly 1988, rpt. 1991: 7. Discussions of and full citations for all these versions can be found in McDonald 2003.

[7] See Marianne McDonald, Sing Sorrow: Classics, History and Heroines in Opera ( Westport , Connecticut : Greenwood , 2001).

[8] See my Euripides in Cinema: The Heart Made Visible (Philadelphia: Centrum, 1983).

[9] Staged at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego , and directed by Seret Scott. For chapters on Suzuki see Marianne McDonald, Ancient Sun, Modern Light: Greek Drama on the Modern Stage (New York, Columbia University Press, 1992), p. 21-57.

[10] In 2004 at the University of San Diego's Joan Kroc Center for Peace and Justice by Voices of Women (VOW founded by Jenni Prisk, head of Prisk Communications).

[11] Performed in 2004 at Sixth at Penn Theatre, and directed by Robert Salerno.

RESPONSES

Anastasia Bakogianni
Institute of Classical Studies, London, UK

I read with great interest Professor Marianne McDonald's 'Dionysus Strikes Back'. As a student of reception I researched the influence of ancient Greek Drama throughout the centuries. It is a cause for celebration that its power and appeal has appealed to so many down the centuries and that it continues to do so even today. As a matter of fact it seems that there is always another new production or adaptation of a Greek play. This is cause for celebration. It shows that Greek tragedy transcends time and cultural barriers and speaks to modern audiences around the world.

My interest in the tragic heroine Electra made me think of another great example of a powerful play about the importance of law and justice: Aeschylus' Oresteia . Perhaps we should send a copy to all world leaders to remind them that vengeance is not justice. It only perpetuates the cycle of violence. Only true dike can bring resolution.

In these difficult times it is comforting to know that the ancients Greeks also struggled with this very human problem. In continuing to engage with the Greek classics we are perpetuating a debate they started and this is one of the best arguments I know for why the Classics is still very important even in today's world where people are bombarded with mountains of information. The Classics deal with crucial human problems that we are still grappling with, so their continuing dissemination is cause for hope.

Robert Davis, Royal Holloway, University of London

Professor McDonald builds an impressive catalog of twentieth and twenty-first century examples of moments when Greek drama has been used to protest, agitate, or voice a need for change. Tragedy, it seems, lives close to political conflict. Many of the world-wide productions McDonald discusses sound like thrilling examples of politics and art, and ones which all envision a liberal, democratic world. It is one thing for a play to be relevant; it is quite another thing for that play to be part of a political movement or debate. McDonald's essay clearly demonstrates that tragedy frequently occupies the latter position in society, or at least it frequently can. This is an encouraging observation, especially in a world where power is rapidly centralising and shutting out opposing voices.

McDonald does not appear to draw a distinction between adaptation and what might be called straight translation. This is a line that deserves a little more attention. The productions that McDonald discusses in depth are adaptations of original texts. They have been significantly altered beyond the customary changes that occur through transmission into a receiving language. My question concerns the potential of what we might call a 'straight' translation to engage in social dialogue. Does Professor McDonald feel that we need to adapt Greek drama in order to connect our politics to the material? Do the Greeks need our help to be part of our political discussions? What emphasis does the presence of a tragedy have by just being on stage or radio and film?

Lorna Hardwick, The Open University, UK

Thank you for this persuasive discussion about the capacity of Greek plays to make vigorous political statements that address not only the ancient dilemmas but also contribute to debates in the contexts in which they are staged and received. My question is about how overt these political statements are and the extent to which overtness and effectiveness are linked (or not). Is there a point at which specificity in (for example) setting, costume, language and idiom leaves spectators little room for interpretative response or even descends into propaganda? Conversely, is such specificity a help in jolting supposedly liberal societies out of complacency?

I have in mind especially the very different critical receptions given to two recent London productions of Euripides' Hecuba. Both productions were, it seems to me, extremely strong in their critique of present wars and perversions of 'democratic' decision-making. However, the production at the Donmar Warehouse (Frank McGuiness' version, directed by Jonathan Kent) emphasised the emotional aspects of Hecuba's revenge. This received critical acclaim and an acting award for Clare Higgins. The Royal Sheakespeare Company production at the Albery (directed by Laurence Boswell and starring Vanessa Redgrave as a thoughtful and somewhat low-key Hecuba) was in a new translation by Tony Harrison and has been savaged by critics for its 'political' approach. Yet this translation actually stays quite close to Euripides and reflects the political dynamics of the Greek text. Both Tony Harrison and Vanessa Redgrave have left -wing associations (of different kinds). I wonder whether we should also be looking at the cultural politics of theatre criticism and at the relationship between aesthetic and political judgements on translation and its staging?

Bianca Summons, University of Exeter , UK

To directly quote Professor McDonald, 'Greek tragedy has been staged to express the concerns of oppressed people who are seeking either redress, or, at least, catharsis'. In the next sentence, Sophocles' Antigone is one of the texts alluded to, and is a text in which I take a particular interest. It is evident that Antigone wishes the full death and burial rites to be carried out at least partly as a result of her intense feelings of grief and that injustice has been done. These sentiments, and the actions that she subsequently takes, seem to me to be extremely cathartic and thus (for the most part) unreasoned and spontaneous. However, in directly challenging Creon and refusing to rest until her purpose has been fulfilled, Antigone assumes a didactic role in deliberately wanting all to see that the state and family loyalties should be compromised in order to achieve thewell-functioning state that Ms. McDonald describes. It is clear that it is not only the state and the personal that are diametrically opposed, but also that catharsis and didacticism are in a condition of opposition. It would be interesting to hear Professor McDonald's views regarding the extent of Antigone's didacticism in the eponymous work (or, alternatively, to hear if my ideas regarding the co-existence in the play of these two states are unfounded!).

George Theodoridis, Australia
(for Translations by George Theodoridis please see http://www.tonykline.co.uk/Browsepages/Greek/Greekhome.htm)

Of course, Tragedy is political. Aristotle said so: 'man is a political being' and thus (we may extrapolate) everything he does is political. He is a member of a polis and therefore, everything he does affects that polis - and everything the polis does affects him. Euelpides and Peistheteros, in Aristophanes' Birds, set out to found another polis, far different to the one they left behind: Athens , arguably the most civilised polis at the time. The new city , Cloudcuckooland, becomes another polis and one is to assume that while our two main characters (now also turned into birds) might have the upper hand, there will be an equal number of dissatisfied subjects here as there were back in Athens . Already, some of the birds have been turned into BBQ morsels because they resisted the revolution -towards Democracy! Nothing has changed. Within a polis even Birds are political.

Politics then, is evident not only in the Tragedies but in every field of behaviour and thinking: Comedy, discourse, law, oratory and poetry.

Much has been made about the subliminal messages given by the tragedians and almost all of their plays have been allocated a political cause of some sort as if their authors put 'pen-to-paper' with a political agenda fervently gurgling in their heart, rather than to simply write a play well, any play, knowing that all utterances made by man are, in any case, political in nature.

And Poetical. The word 'poetry' did not simply mean fancy turns of phrase or lofty thoughts expressed in clever and arcane words. Just like the word 'Opera' which comes from the Latin, 'opus' and simply means a 'work' so does 'poetry' which comes from the Greek 'poeesis' simply means 'creation;' and this is the reason why Christians call their God 'The Poet' (of the Universe.)

So, yes, if we are to take the word poetry to mean simply 'creating' then just as man is a political being so are all his acts, acts of poetry.

I've become a little gruff, as my years rolled on, about placing such frothy eminence upon such simple words as 'politics' and 'poetry', as well as 'drama' and 'tragedy'.

Tragedy, the 'goat-song', tells only that the life of all mortals, is tied up by certain higher laws from which, importantly, one cannot escape, just like that of the goat about to be sacrificed before the plays begin. None of the protagonists in these tragedies can escape his/her fate because that Fate is ordained by divinities, (either of the upper or the lower world but mostly the lower.) 'Vengeance' is one word used to explain this phenomenon; others are Retribution, Nemesis, 'karma of violent action' and 'payback' to use Professor McDonald's words.

Drama is the same word as 'cinema' which is a word invented at the same time as the moving pictures were invented or later. Drama is the Ancient equivalent of cinema and it took place upon the stage. Movement, either physical (as in comedy) or mental, moral, psychological (as in tragedy) being what was presented on the stage, in the same way as kinesis (of pictures) is presented inside a cinema.

In Plato's Republic, (Simile of the cave) we see Socrates struggling to present a modern-day cinema in an ancient (peripatetic) theatre.

Final response from Topic Leader Marianne McDonald

I appreciate Anastasia Bakogianni's thoughtful response, and I agree totally with her suggestion of sending the Oresteia to world leaders! BUT the translation should be carefully chosen. If it is not too hybristic on my part, I would like us to wait until Professor Michael Walton and I have finished a translation which will make the Oresteia more accessible than most of the translations now available, while still retaining some of the poetic quality.

I appreciate also Robert Davis' informed response. I also agree there should be a distinction made between adaptation and translation, but where the line should be drawn would involve a whole book (I think Michael Walton is in the process of writing just that). Every translation involves interpretation. But there are obviously many free versions which stray far from the original mandate (some of which are actually called translations).

I also appreciate Lorna Hardwick's good response. I am not for eliminating ambiguity by costuming that tells an audience what to think in most cases. However, this raises a very interesting issue. When is the original intent well served by modern dress, and when does it become something that can offend audiences more than elucidating a text. Last night in a talkback for my translation of Antigone, now being performed in San Diego both at 6 th at Penn theatre AND at the university (UCSD), someone commented on how they appreciated the modern costumes. I frankly can go either way, since determining the “authentic” classical dress can also end up being interpretation. I take Lorna's point though that sometimes this doesn't work. Last night it did because it reminded people of Bush and left room for both catharsis and thought (would that we could also have a POLITICAL catharsis and someone in power who did not believe in unjustly invading foreign countries and initiating more terrorism by theoretically fighting it). I had a successful run for my translation of Hecuba which will soon be published (Nick Hern Books) but I really liked translation. I felt McGuinness allowed the audience to think for themselves, and I applaud that.

I also appreciate Bianca Summons dealing with catharsis and didacticism: I see both catharsis and didacticism operating on the audience: they go through an emotionally draining experience that is beneficial for them, and they hear “lessons” proposed by both Antigone and Creon to persuade them of the validity of their respective positions. I think more moderns are persuaded by Antigone, and more of the ancient audience by Creon, although some might have a grudging admiration for Antigone (after all Tiresias vindicated her, and her curse came true). BUT I think ancients were more in favor of following the law and enjoying the security from a state without the civil disobedience that Antigone represented.

I really appreciated George Thedoridis' thoughtful response and elucidating remarks. He brought us back to the Greeks with their language, literature, and their first democratic polis, the fountainhead of western culture.