Why do we care about the Greeks? I often ask myself this when reading through stilted translations whose language is self-consciously old fashioned. These plays were written within a socio-historical context so radically different than ours it becomes almost impossible to try and relate the two. The only real similarities are that we read some of the same authors. I guess we have a similar political system since power is vested only in the hands of wealthy land owning white males. But even there the differences arise as the Greeks were up front about this while we mask it in language of universal suffrage. But I digress.
I am currently in the process of working on two greek texts, Antigone and Ajax. The Antigone is a new translation of the Anhouilh adaptation while the Ajax is an as yet unfinished adaptation of the Greek into Rumanian. These two productions are as different as can be and yet they both pull from some common source, some need to look back.
It always amazes me that these texts hold such strong relevance for a modern audience. But in a way it is not a looking back so much as it is a locating of ones foundation or grounding. For these texts never are the final product, rather they are the jumping off point for an exploration of our contemporary condition. The text becomes contained within a larger experiential context, the production. By using these old texts we immediately find ourselves in the world of metaphor. We know we are talking about the contemporary world, but it is through the veil of history. We are instantly looking at parallels between then and now, us and them. This creates a situation whereby notions of time and identity are at once compressed and expanded. We live and operate beyond the linear qualities of time that daily life presents us with.
One of the reasons I feel that places like New York or Chicago or London or Berlin have such strong artistic and theatrical communities is that daily life is confronted with these very issues. The simple fact of living in a heterogenous cosmopolitan environment lends a vital force to the simple repetition of daily life that one does not get outside of these places. When I worked on Medea this vitality was inherent to the process. Everyone involved was either a full time or part time New Yorker, but all non-native to New York. At the same time everyone except for me was a native of Puerto Rico. We were handling a Greek text translated into English and then adapted and retranslated into Spanish.
The work was performed in a space that had never before seen a performance. But more interestingly, the space was a cross roads. We performed in the open area between the cannon batteries and the kitchen of a 16th Century Spanish fortress. The physical space itself embodied the very psycho-emotional tensions created from these culturally layered situations.
Ajax will be performed in Europe after a workshop production in New York. In this way a further mix of old and new world will come out in the setting and performance. But I find more importantly that this explodes the idea of locality and community. Sure there are communities that are geographically determined, but these are quickly becoming, if not obsolete, at least secondary to the regular functioning of human life. The rise of new and evolving technologies show that we must reconceive the very notion of community. After all, my community is New York. But it is also the San Francisco Bay Area. But it is also the theatre, dance and opera worlds which spans the globe. My community is also the theatre blogosphere which again is not geographically determined but rather determined by thought and ideas. The global underground of rave communities further places me in a community that is bounded by philosophy rather than geography.
To say that theatre must be local because it must be oriented towards community fails to address the very nature of community in the 21st century and risks causing us to stand still at the threshold of possibility. Rather we must take a more expansive stance and see that we live in a world of radical cross-polination. We live in a world that demands of us to look beyond the simple geographical boundaries that have limited human thought for millennia. Theatre allows us to live simultaneously in ancient Greece, 16th century Colonial Spain, contemporary New York and Puerto Rico. But this possibility exists only if we lift ourselves out of the geographical determinism of the past and fully embrace the borderless potential of contemporary existence.
Tags: ajax, antigone, global consciousness, greek drama, medea, theory
MattJ
great post. And there’s lots to say. But I agree with your statement wholeheartedly, though the actual act of reading the post convinced me, I wasn’t necessarily already there, so great stuff.
NPR is going through a similar struggle and has taken a strong direction that way, as Scott has pointed us to. It’s interesting he shares this and says we have something to learn but then still wants to focus on geographical localization… response Scott?
Anyway. Local NPR affiliates are screaming and yelling about satellite radio and podcasting because it takes the local spin away from the public radio experience. To an extent, it is hard for that notion to ever fear true extermination, as I think it will always find a way to resurface, but they scream and they yell. NPR, technologically savvy as always, desiced not to make a meager appearance onto the technological scene, but rather, burst onto it and is the #1 podcasting company in the US (i think).
There is something to learn. But it is not in notions of geographical community, it’s not looking back in order to look forward. It’s a ideology shift.
You are really making me want to pick up that Sophocles Anthology….
The Concept of Community
Lucas and MattJ — Thanks for the prompt, Matt. You may be surprised that I agree with you that we are all part of a global community, that the global is local and the local is global. This is becoming increasingly true as the world becomes flatter and flatter, and the communication revolution eliminates the concept of distance. It would be foolish to deny that this is true.
That said, the global community is not buying a ticket to your play, specific people from a specific place are. And while that community may be more diverse in NYC, where the combination of immigration and tourism creates a circulation of nationalities and ethnicities and localities, it is nevertheless defined by geography: the people who are close enough to your theatre to see a performamce that night (nobody in, say, Beijing is hopping a plane to catch your latest production of “Hamlet” tonight, most likely).
So the phrase “act locally, think globally” has great applicability to theatre. The world is not defined by the geographical bounds of your town, but the majority of the people with whom you are conversing through your art are likely to be drawn from within a reasonable distance of your theatre. Those are the people who are sitting in your seats, and those are the people with whom you are communicating. This is very different from a mass media such as movies, which simultaneously addresses with identical artistic experiences (one print is the same as another) a geographically dispersed audience. That requires a different mindset than theatre.
You can define your community however you wish — you can create theatre that addresses the gay community, the immigrant community, the senior citizen, the children, the poor, the tired and hungry — but in the final instance, you are talking to a specific group of people who have brought their bodies, minds, and spirit into your unique theatre at that particular moment in time. One might like to think that one is addressing the global community, but unless you are working in a mass media, it simply isn’t true.
Re: MattJ
I think the important thing to begin understanding is that the global community is the local community. Community is nothing so one dimensional as being only bounded by geography or ideology, but is rather a complex matrix, or network of discrete social entities.
Seeing this expansive view is necessary to even begin understanding where we are in the world today. Otherwise we might as well be back in the middle ages.
Re: MattJ
More than an ideology shift, it’s a cultural shift.
We need a shift that doesn’t make people wonder : “what is *her*story”?” the minute we have an actress on stage who doesn’t have an american accent for example…
He’s a good writer. Be sure you find a good translation or it gets boring rather fast.
Can you recommend one?
Re: MattJ
I agree with you. But even though the performance, sometimes behind a fourth wall and sometimes not, can be interdisciplinary and inclusive, what conclusions can we draw about the ramifications of that communcal moment of human beings being locked in a theatre together. We’re certainly not less afraid of each other, and we’re probably more hyper aware of ourselves in relation to other human bodies than before. Isn’t there an inherent localization in practice while in ideology it is impossible to escape? I’m wondering about the connections with these poles…
Re: MattJ
Yes. And I think too that the local community is the global community. There is something qualitatively different about interactions in person and the live theatrical event is a unique experience.
The communal moment of a group being locked in a theatre is a kind of temporary community. This does not make it invalid. Far from it. In fact the uniqueness comes from its temporary nature. But this must be recognized within the context of a larger understanding of community and the overlapping collage like qualities that exist therein. Rather than being discreet entities, these are interwoven aspects of the social self.
Further, the community formed within a theatre is necessarily geographically determined by the theatre walls. Yet, they may well come from many different geographic locations. The theatrical event creates a geographical community as well as an intellectual and philosophical community. We share experiences on these many levels simultaneously and that is a large part in why it is so great a medium.
Re: MattJ
Yeah. Culturally blind casting along with color blind casting. I do find this to be less of an issue in New York and similar places. Is it really a big issue in Seattle? I would guess so from your post, but it surprises me.
Re: MattJ
Well it’s not an issue , it’s just not done.
Heh.
But racism is also not an issue in Seattle, since there are so few black people.
Ahem.
Re: MattJ
Well then, you have your purpose there, no?
Ted Hughes has done some great translations of the Greeks, not sure if he has tackled Sophocles. I think the Fagles translations are OK. Its really a matter of personal taste.
Re: MattJ
Ha ha.
It’s funny because when I wrote that comment, i thought to myself, shit, i should start a company with blind casting. there is one company called React that kind of does that but they are very focused on men roles for the most part.
Re: MattJ
It’s so much more common with ‘gender’ than it is with race or culture. Too bad, I would love to see work that ignores all that nonsense and just gets down to the story telling.
I was lucky enough to play Creon in Sophocles’ Antigone as a Junior at boarding school, with a new translation done by two young teachers, from the English and Classics Departments, who were determined to create an accurate performance translation, and certainly seemed to — I’ve never read a more human, speakable, performable version of any of the Greeks. I’m glad I still have it on my shelf. I wish it were available elsewhere . . .
One thing that seems to go a lot in translations is Sophocles’ use of sentence fragments, which are usually “cleaned up” and made more “readable.” Creon’s speech over his dead son at the end works a lot better when it keeps in all of the false starts and fragments he’s saying, stumbling in his grief. Same with the chorus sections.
Also, Creon’s horrible cries of grief (“Io,” “Aiai,” and “Oimoi”), do NOT accurately translate to “Oh!” — as I see in far too many translations — and play perfectly well on stage (well, except for “oimoi,” we had to cut that one in fear of getting unwanted laughs from Creon seeming to say “Oy, moy!”).
Actually, we weren’t on a stage, per se, but outdoors in a natural amphitheater in front of a stagnant pond, getting eaten by mosquitoes, but well worth it, as the bullfrogs in the water always knew their cue to start croaking en masse was when the lights came up on Tiresias. Can’t plan an effect like that.
Re: The Concept of Community
I actually do know a number of people who hop around the globe to see shows but I get your point. Yet, just because everyone in the audience is sitting in the same room does not make it a local community. Broadway shows do not stay open because of New YOrk audiences, but from national and international audiences.
There are companies like the San Francisco Opera, or Munich Opera or the Brooklyn Acadamy of Music that produce work for a global community. The cast, production team and so forth is international, and the shows themselves travel to international audiences. The same is true of most dance compainies, like William Forsythe or Bill T. Jones. These truly are international companies creating work for an international audience. Each night the people sitting inthe house may be primarily from a certian geographical region, but the work is created for and presented to international viewers.
Re: The Concept of Community – Tom Loughlin
Lucas, I would be interested in knowing what level of education or income you perceive this global community as having. Your ideas are expansive and interesting, but I suspect that if I produced such works as you mentioned above and played them for an audience culled from a community of 10,000 people in Kansas, or placed it in the rural areas of Rwanda, audience members there would have no such consciousness for completely different reasons.
I sometimes wonder if we among us who use technology and see its potential promise and possible future sometimes attach to it ideas which cannot possibly be imagined by people whose villages don’t have running water or electricity, or who have gangs of marauders destroying their homes on a monthly basis. -Tom Loughlin
Re: The Concept of Community
But these are exceptions that prove the rule. Of course, there are international companies, but the vast majority of regional theatres (which is really my focus) draw an audience from within driving distance. Why don’t you want to talk to them?
Re: The Concept of Community – Tom Loughlin
I somewhat agree. Josh Ellis makes that point quite well. But one can only make works from within the worldview we inhabit. A very select few are able to transcend that, and even then it is more a synthesis with its opposite.
I think of what Picasso did with D’Amoiselles d’avignon. He took modernity and its opposite and smashed the two together. The interesting thing is that we have within our contemporary world these opposing forces. At that point it becomes incumbent upon those of us making the work to address that inherent duality in contemporary culture.
What I disagree with is that a culture that is not operating at the level of the advanced industrial nations would have no consciousness of the work created. One need only look at voodoo religions or West African tribal religions to see the ability of the so called primitive mind to adapt and incorporate new technologies into its preexisting cultural framework. There are certainly degree us understanding, but a powerful work will remain a powerful work.
Re: The Concept of Community
When did I say I did not want to talk to them? I have been arguing that there is no reason to unduly limit the activity of a producing agent to a geographic community.
Besides, the ‘vast maority’ of regional theatres employ co-productions with companies across the United States. Much of the work that is being done regionally is being produced on a national scale that understands that the connections between geographic communities are as strong as the connections within them. Most of these companies rely on coproduction and regional transfers as part of their yearly operation. All I am saying is that is a good thing.
Further, if internationally minded companies are the exception, my point is that is an unfortunate reality. That companies from the US that are not based in NY, Chicago or San Francisco SHOULD be getting international exposure and vice versa. We should be working towards MORE cross polination rather than isolationist tribalism. Not that you are anyone I know is arguing for that, but it is a risk.