!1 Staging the Archive: APGRD Podcast: Episode 8: Transcript University Classical Plays a podcast with guest presenter David Bullen interviewing: Lewis Bentley, Elena Bashkova, Zoë De Barros, Marcus Bell, and Alison Middleton introduced by Giovanna Di Martino Recorded December 2020 Giovanna Di Martino Hello, everybody. Welcome back to this holiday special. Today we are focusing on the university classical play tradition. So we have here with us the creative teams of both UCL and Oxford. I'm very pleased that to lead the conversation will be David Bullen. So David is a writer, director and dramaturg and he's currently a teaching fellow in the department of Drama, Theatre and Dance at Royal Holloway. In 2011, he co founded By Jove Theatre Company, a socialist feminist collective, that retells old stories new ways for contemporary Britain. His adaptations of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes have been performed in the UK and in the US. He is currently working on a book on Greek tragedy in 21st century British theatre for Liverpool University Press and he's a visiting research associate at King's. So David, over to you. David Bullen Thanks, Giovanna. Thanks so much. I'm really I'm delighted to be here. This is great. This is fun, what a festive treat to be here after this crazy pandemic inflicted term, It's so lovely to hear to be talking about theatre of all things, one of the things we've really lost in the last couple of months. But actually, that loss is sort of our subject today, because some the things we may have lost but other things we have gained. I work on the King's College London Greek Play - and this hasn't been publicly announced yet - but we are doing a really exciting project this year, where we're not just staging Antigone or Oedipus the King or whatever Greek play you'd like, in the original Greek or in !2 Staging the Archive: APGRD Podcast: Episode 8: Transcript translation, the students are working together to generate their own new adaptation of a play. Which is really exciting. And - not to advertise King’s - but I think that actually is really a good context, because both of the other UCL and the Oxford teams are doing really exciting new things with the Greek play projects that have been fairly traditional for the last couple of decades, or maybe even pushing to centuries for some of us. So can I just ask the UCL team - hi, everyone, hi - can you tell us a little bit about what you're doing this year and what what's changed? Lewis Bentley Hi. I'm Lewis, the director of the UCL Classical play and we're doing Homer's Odyssey this year, we've adapted a translation from Emily Wilson's fantastic text. It's very, very exciting, I think, the fact that this is so different from what one would expect from a Classical Group play or Classical play. But it's very exciting. I guess I should pass on to my team as well - so to Ellie. Elena Bashkova Yeah. Hi, I'm Ellie and I'm the producer of the Odyssey. As Lewis said, we are doing Odyssey by Emily Wilson. I think the reason why we decided to go with the Odyssey is just because it hasn't been done before at UCL, or any other university that I've heard of and we saw that, particularly this year, it might be nice to do something a bit more exciting than usually has been produced. Zoë De Barros Yeah, hi, I'm Zoë, the assistant director. I think the Odyssey has definitely presented challenges in terms of reimagining so much land, so much territory and so much space that it takes place in. But I think we've gone with a really physical theatre approach, trying to include multimedia techniques. So it's just been really wonderful to try reimagine the setting in a really new way, I suppose. It's been great. David Bullen !3 Staging the Archive: APGRD Podcast: Episode 8: Transcript How fantastic. I know that at the APGRD there’s been a project looking at performances of epic for the last couple of years. I’m sure Fiona and Justine, who wrote a wonderful book recently, are going to be kicking themselves that they missed this out, that they weren’t able to include this, because this is so interesting! And interesting that the UCL Greek Play tradition, as you say, has been doing some interesting things in translation for the last couple of decades. You’re now, in some ways, going back in time - Greek time - to before the invention of tragedy, to epic, to staging that - and I think that’s so interesting, to bring that to audiences. Because, of course, the Athenians would have been very familiar with performances of the Odyssey. What a great translation to be adapting, to be working from, as well. So, now, can I also ask the Oxford team to tell us a little bit about it? I know that your project is shrouded in mystery, so tell us what you can. Mysteries are appropriate for a Classics podcast, are they not? Without giving away any of your divine secrets, could you just please induct us into what you can? Marcus Bell Hi, I'm Marcus. I'm doing a PhD on choreographing tragedy, and I'm one of the directors of the Oxford Greek Play, which is now a series of Eleusinian Mysteries instead of an actual tragedy. So we’re doing Orestes. Originally, we were planning to do this, I believe, in early November of this year and so it's kind of like we're marking the month after which the play was going to have been performed, it's now going to be pushed back. We’re looking to have something go out - in a very virtual way - in the summer term, or around the summer term, of 2021. But yeah, we're really excited about how this process has been developing because it's given us space and time to to work with some really exciting translators, which I think we're going to get to talk about a bit. Alison Middleton Hi, I'm Alison, I'm the other director of the Oxford Greek Play, there's only two of us. We're doing Euripides’ Orestes - we’re really excited to be doing a play that isn't performed so much. It’s a bit weird - it came kind of right at the end !4 Staging the Archive: APGRD Podcast: Episode 8: Transcript of your Euripides’ writing career, right towards the end of the Athenian Empire, Athenian democracy and it's just a super chaotic play. I'm doing a PhD on laughter and tragedy and this is a play that is pure chaos, humour and quite an apocalyptic play, which feels very fitting for 2020. I should probably mention that the project was originally called Orestes 2020, but sadly, now, it's been postponed to 2021. David Bullen Like so much of life that has been postponed to 2021 as a result of this year. That’s so interesting. Again, different to UCL in the sense that UCL are bringing back the Odyssey - as if the Odyssey ever went away, but, you know, they're staging something that's different from the usual plays they're staged. In the last couple of years there's been a lot of pressure on university Greek plays, that are increasingly focused towards schools, to stage the big name tragedies, like Antigone and Frogs - okay, that's a comedy, but you know what I mean. Last year, UCL and King’s had our ‘Frogs Off’, both doing Frogs in the same year. But you know, we've been staging the same kind of plays. It’s so great to have the Odyssey being saved, but one of these underperformed plays - actually one of my favourite of Euripides’ plays, such a bitter play and so appropriate for for this year. So I guess we’ve already begun to discuss this, but the pandemic has clearly shaped to these projects in major ways in the sense that we wouldn't be doing what we’re doing, if it wasn't for the pandemic - which is not to say we're grateful for the pandemic. But I just wondered if the teams could reflect a little bit about, perhaps how and why some of these decisions came about? And what particular pressures did the pandemic put on? What did it reveal or expose about your existing projects that might have led to you going, “Okay, do you know what we're gonna try something different this year?” Does someone from the UCL team want to take this first? Lewis Bentley Yes, I think the main thing was, both mine and Zoë’s background was in physical theatre. So a lot of that had to be drawn back, so to say, because of !5 Staging the Archive: APGRD Podcast: Episode 8: Transcript the social distancing that had to be in place, but in the same way it enabled us to really go into different medias. So we were able to use film a lot more and we were able to create our own sort of physical theatre in effect, rather than using complicité or anything like that, we're able to create our own physical theatre techniques and think about how they can be socially distanced, in their sense.