Contemporary Adaptations of Greek Tragedy: Auteurship and Directorial Visions

Description

Auteurship and Directorial Visions provides a wide-ranging analysis of the role of the director in shaping adaptations for the stage today. Through its focus on a wide range of international productions by Katie Mitchell, Theodoros Terzopoulos, Peter Sellars, Jan Fabre, Ariane Mnouchkine, Tadashi Suzuki, Yukio Ninagawa, Andrei Serban, Nikos Charalambous, Bryan Doerries and Richard Schechner, among others, it offers readers a detailed study of the ways directors have responded to the original texts, refashioning them for different audiences, contexts and purposes. As such the volume will appeal to readers of theatre and performance studies, classics and adaptation studies, directors and theatre practitioners, and anyone who has ever wondered 'why they did it like that' when watching a stage production of an ancient Greek play. The volume Contemporary Adaptations of Greek Tragedy is divided in three sections: the first section - Global Perspectives - considers the work of a range of major directors from around the world who have provided new readings of Greek Tragedy: Peter Sellars and Athol Fugard in the US, Katie Mitchell in the UK, Theodoros Terzopoulos in Greece and Tadashi Suzuki and Yukio Ninagawa in Japan. Their work on a wide range of plays is analysed, including Electra, Oedipus the King, The Persians, Iphigenia at Aulis, and Ajax. Parts Two and Three – Directing as Dialogue with the Community and Directorial Re-Visions - focus on a range of productions of key plays from the repertoire, including Prometheus Landscape II, Les Atrides, The Trojan Women, The Bacchae, Antigone and The Suppliants, among others. In each, the varying approaches of different directors are analysed, together with a detailed investigation of the mise-en-scene. In considering each stage production, the authors raise issues of authenticity, contemporary resonances, translation, directorial control/auteurship and adaptation. FC Half title Related titles from Bloomsbury Methuen Drama Title Copyright Contents List of figures Acknowledgements Contributors Introduction: The contemporary director in Greek tragedy George Rodosthenous Part One Global Perspectives 1 American directorial perspectives: Independence Day meets Greek tragedy Marianne McDonald 2 Greek contemporary approaches to tragedy: Terzopoulos’ revisions of Aeschylus Avra Sidiropoulou 3 British auteurship and the Greeks: Katie Mitchell Andrew Haydon 4 Tadashi Suzuki and Yukio Ninagawa: Reinventing the Greek classics; reinventing Japanese identity after Hiroshima Penelope Chatzidimitriou Part Two Directing as Dialogue with the Community 5 Directing Greek tragedy as a ritual: Mystagogy, religion and ecstasy Magdalena Zira 6 La MaMa’s Trojan Women: Forty-two years of suffering rhythms from New York to Guatemala Adam Strickson 7 Theater of War: Ancient Greek drama as a forum for modern military dialogue Sophie Klein Part Three Directorial Re-Visions 8 Jan Fabre’s Prometheus Landscape II: [De]territorialization of the tragic and transgressive acts of arson Demetris Zavros 9 Dionysus the destroyer of traditions: The Bacchae on stage George Sampatakakis 10 Ariane Mnouchkine’s Les Atrides: Uncovering a classic Dominic Glynn 11 Re-imagining Antigone: Contemporary resonances in the directorial revisioning of character, chorus and staging Sue Hamstead Exodus, Ἔξοδος: In search of a contemporary catharsis
George Rodosthenous Notes Index