Monday, March 18, 2019
These Plays Are 2,500 Years Old. But They Speak to Us Now.
The New York Times: When it comes to misery, the families in Greek tragedies really take the cake.
The unhappy offspring of the houses of Atreus and Thebes are some of the oldest protagonists of world drama: They have relived their traumas onstage continually since the fifth century B.C., both in the original plays and in adaptations that draw psychological insights and contemporary relevance from the ancient texts. Throughout Germany this season, ambitious modern reinventions of plays by Sophocles and Aeschylus argue for the universality and timelessness of these works.
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2 comments:
The classic Greek tragedies are often the first subject approached in a theatre history class. When I was first introduced to them in middle school, and again formally in 9th grade, I found them to be long and outdated. The plays were presented very literally, and we even watched classic versions of Sophocles’ masterpieces in a historical adaptation. I appreciate the fact that the Residenztheatre in Munich is approaching these classic stories in innovative ways. While these dramatic tragedies filled with darkness and revenge may seem far from today’s world, they are essentially about the same issues we face today; they touch on the aspects that create the human experience. The modern, minimalist set seems to provide just enough to establish the environment, while maintaining the clean, futuristic aesthetic. The fact that the theatre is usually sold out really speaks to how successfully they have presented the relevance of the play.
Personally, I hate greek tragedies. I think that they bore the audience, and that the language is usually too outdated to try keep anybody interested. Plot wise, I think that they could be interesting, however, I also believe that they have far too much baggage to ever really be done effectively. Some times, I think that theatre in general has too much baggage. We cling too much to Aristotelian rules, and then we cling too closely to breaking all the rules. But nobody ever stops to ask if the rules should have mattered in the first place. And if they did, why did we even break them? I think that theatre, and much of our society needs to try and find a way to reinvent itself, without constantly defining itself based on the past. This is something that I imagine many different people and industries struggle with, but theatre more than many.
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