I Revision of Euripides' Tragedies by Contemporary Women Playwrights
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Revision of Euripides’ Tragedies by Contemporary Women Playwrights DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Mina Choi, M.A. Graduate Program in Theatre The Ohio State University 2013 Dissertation Committee: Lesley Ferris, Adviser Joy Reilly Beth Kattelman i Copyright by Mina Choi 2013 ii Abstract The issues addressed by the writers of fifth-century B.C. Athens continue to have great relevance for the contemporary world. This research focuses on the gender dynamics of the plays and how contemporary revisions by women offer new ways of considering these classic texts. Greek drama is known for its strong and vibrant female characters. I use Euripides’ three Greek tragedies--Medea, The Trojan Women, and The Bacchae--as the source texts for new versions of the plays by women writers. I draw on Lynda Hart’s triad of dramaturgical sites that define a feminist dramaturgy: women’s bodies, language, and theatrical space. Chapter two focuses on four revisions of Medea: Franca Rame’s Medea (1981), Jackie Crossland’s Collateral Damage (1991), Deborah Porter’s No More Medea (1990), and Marina Carr’s By the Bog of the Cats (1998). Unlike the character of Medea in Euripides’ play, who discusses Greek honor with heroic language, Rame’s Medea uses a dialect of central Italy, and Carr’s Hester, a stand-in for Medea, uses an Irish dialect illustrating that Medea is not an icon of monstrous motherhood but a particular woman suffering in the patriarchal world. These versions of Medea enter the stage to tell their side of the mythic story of maternal infanticide. Instead of a conventional deus ex machina saving Medea from her miserable circumstance through divine intervention, these contemporary Medeas show the potency of female action and declare their own destiny. ii In chapter three I consider three works all written and produced in this century based on The Trojan Women: Christine Evans’ Trojan Barbie (2010), Caroline Bird’s Trojan Women: After Euripides (2012) and Kaite O’Reilly’s Peeling (2002). These works symbolically stage women’s bodies as imprisoned and wounded by war, using various props and settings: broken dolls’ bodies and a confined wild tiger in Trojan Barbie, a single pregnant woman tied to her hospital bed as the Chorus in Trojan Women: After Euripides, and disabled actresses trapped in their multi-layered costumes and confined to an unlit backstage in Peeling. All three playwrights suggest a similar message: if babies cannot be protected and if powerless mothers are expected to take responsibility for these vulnerable children against the violence of male-initiated and maintained conflict, tragedy is the only possibility. I examine three works by British writers in chapter four who use The Bacchae as their source material: Maureen Duffy’s Rites (1969), Caryl Churchill and David Lan’s Mouthful of Bird (1986), and Bryony Lavery’s Kitchen Matters (1991). These playwrights are interested in issues related to possession and madness as a means for empowerment under social oppression. In these plays the writers utilize the theatrical space in diverse ways: the female characters in Rites experience divine possession as a group in an isolated place, the women’s lavatory; in A Mouthful of Birds each character goes through transformative madness within a two-level set composed of small box-like rooms; Kitchen Matters is at once a domestic kitchen and at the same time the literal stage of Gay Sweatshop during a funding crisis, ending this work with an analysis of the role of mothers in many of the plays. iii Dedication This dissertation is dedicated to my family, my husband, daughter Christine, and especially my brave and strong mother. iv Vita 1996................................................................B.A. Creative Writing, Chung-Ang University 2001................................................................M.A. Theatre, Dong Guk University 2006................................................................M.A. Theatre, Binghamton University, State University of New York. 2008 to present ..............................................Graduate Teaching Associate, Graduate Associate, Department of Theatre, The Ohio State University Fields of Study Major Field: Theatre v Table of Contents Abstract .................................................................................................................................. ii Dedication ............................................................................................................................. vi Vita ...................................................................................................................................... v Chapter 1: Introduction .......................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 2: Medea ................................................................................................................. 21 Chapter 3: The Trojan Women ............................................................................................... 71 Chapter 4: The Bacchae ..................................................................................................... 113 Chapter 5: Conclusion…………………………………………………………………..156 Appendix A: Playwrights..…….………………………………………………………...163 Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 167 vi Chapter 1: Introduction She is providing words, emotions, and an imaginative structure for others to inhabit and create anew onstage. A playwright—in this theoretical sense---thus makes other people speak and act---. .No wonder, then, that even the woman playwright with the mildest of messages is bound to be seen as an anomaly, if not an actual threat. Who knows what she will say once she gives voice? ---Michelene Wandor, Carry On, Understudies: Theatre and Sexual Politics (1986, qtd. in Hart) Inspired by the Greek tragedy the Women’s Experimental Theatre (WET) staged Electra Speaks, written by Clare Coss, Roberta Sklar, and Sondra Segal, between 1977 to 1980. The heartbreaking myth of Agamemnon’s selfish demand for the sacrifice of his own daughter Iphigenia and her subsequent death was deconstructed and rebuilt into “a series of transforming physical and vocal images” (Malnig 207). WET used the unequivocal image of Electra’s moving lips and the repeated sounds of her voice on the stage to suggest Electra’s refusal of the conventional methods of portraying her own story. Electra, who recovers her own voice by realizing her subjectivity, actively declares her personhood as a political statement: I am a separate person This is my body 1 These are my thoughts This is my mouth My voice These are my words I speak for myself. (qtd. in Malnig 201) This revolutionary piece, the culmination of the trilogy The Daughters Cycle, was meaningful not only because the classic story was reinterpreted for a contemporary audience, but also because it used a “woman-identified perspective” to explore the themes, forms, and language of the original Greek drama (Sklar 317). WET’s Electra Speaks was influenced by the women’s movement of the 1970s, which was in turn spearheaded by the sexual liberation of the 1960s, and it reflects its specific theatrical, cultural, and historical milieu. Similarly, since the 1970s, many influential directors have created memorable adaptations of classical Greek dramas, which soon became part of a popular repertoire. Richard Schechner’s sensational version of the Bacchae, titled Dionysus in 69 (1968), provided inspiration and created controversy for both the audience and theatre practitioners and is today considered a landmark of American experimental theatre. Andrei Serban, working with Elizabeth Swados as composer, conceived and directed Medea, Trojan Women, and Electra under the title Fragments of a Greek Trilogy at La MaMa in 1974. In the 1985, Lee Breuer’s award-winning The Gospel at Colonus, based on Oedipus at Colonus, transformed this lesser known play by Sophocles, into an African American gospel experience and was performed on commercial stages worldwide. In 1986, Peter Sellers directed his 2 controversial version of Sophocles’ Ajax, set in a post-Vietnam military trial, to great acclaim. Later Sellers adapted Aeschylus’ The Persians (1993) using the setting of the Gulf War, evoking a heated debate and applause at the same time. For several decades, Greek dramas became favorite works for both theatre artists and audience. Marvin Carlson argues that in theatre, artists cannot free themselves from the memory of their predecessors and their works. He states that actors who play historical characters have to confront the past: the “ghostly reappearance of historical, and legendary, figures on the stage has been throughout history an essential part of the theatre experience” (Carlson 7). Charles Mee, who has written plays using classic texts says, “There is no such thing as an original play” (Mee 9). Using Mee’s concept, even ancient Greek dramas and early modern theatre such as the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries cannot be defined as “original” when they all draw on stories and myths in their particular culture; such narratives dwell in people’s lives as a part of cultural and historical memories. The ability of an audience to enjoy familiar stories and characters has become a theatrical tradition affording spectators the added