Athenian Tragedy in Performance

Athenian Tragedy in Performance PDF Author: Melinda Powers
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
ISBN: 1609382315
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 211

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Book Description
Foregrounding critical questions about the tension between the study of drama as literature versus the study of performance, Melinda Powers investigates the methodological problems that arise in some of the latest research on ancient Greek theatre. She examines key issues and debates about the fifth-century theatrical space, audience, chorus, performance style, costuming, properties, gesture, and mask, but instead of presenting a new argument on these topics, Powers aims to understand her subject better by exploring the shared historical problems that all scholars confront as they interpret and explain Athenian tragedy. A case study of Euripides’s Bacchae, which provides more information about performance than any other extant tragedy, demonstrates possible methods for reconstructing the play’s historical performance and also the inevitable challenges inherent in that task, from the limited sources and the difficulty of interpreting visual material, to the risks of conflating actor with character and extrapolating backward from contemporary theatrical experience. As an inquiry into the study of theatre and performance, an introduction to historical writing, a reference for further reading, and a clarification of several general misconceptions about Athenian tragedy and its performance, this historiographical analysis will be useful to specialists, practitioners, and students alike.

Athenian Tragedy in Performance

Athenian Tragedy in Performance PDF Author: Melinda Powers
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
ISBN: 1609382315
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 211

Get Book Here

Book Description
Foregrounding critical questions about the tension between the study of drama as literature versus the study of performance, Melinda Powers investigates the methodological problems that arise in some of the latest research on ancient Greek theatre. She examines key issues and debates about the fifth-century theatrical space, audience, chorus, performance style, costuming, properties, gesture, and mask, but instead of presenting a new argument on these topics, Powers aims to understand her subject better by exploring the shared historical problems that all scholars confront as they interpret and explain Athenian tragedy. A case study of Euripides’s Bacchae, which provides more information about performance than any other extant tragedy, demonstrates possible methods for reconstructing the play’s historical performance and also the inevitable challenges inherent in that task, from the limited sources and the difficulty of interpreting visual material, to the risks of conflating actor with character and extrapolating backward from contemporary theatrical experience. As an inquiry into the study of theatre and performance, an introduction to historical writing, a reference for further reading, and a clarification of several general misconceptions about Athenian tragedy and its performance, this historiographical analysis will be useful to specialists, practitioners, and students alike.

Tragedy in Athens

Tragedy in Athens PDF Author: David Wiles
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521666152
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
This book examines the performance of Greek tragedy in the classical Athenian theatre. David Wiles explores the performance of tragedy as a spatial practice specific to Athenian culture, at once religious and political. After reviewing controversies and archaeological data regarding the fifth-century performance space, Wiles turns to the chorus and shows how dance mapped out the space for the purposes of any given play. The book shows how performance as a whole was organised and, through informative diagrams and accessible analyses, Wiles brings the theatre of Greek tragedy to life.

Objects as Actors

Objects as Actors PDF Author: Melissa Mueller
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022631295X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 283

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Book Description
'Objects as Actors' charts a new approach to Greek tragedy based on an obvious, yet often overlooked, fact: Greek tragedy was meant to be performed. As plays, the works were incomplete without physical items - theatrical props. The author shows the importance of objects in the staging and reception of Athenian tragedy.

Theater outside Athens

Theater outside Athens PDF Author: Kathryn Bosher
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139510339
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 493

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Book Description
This volume brings together archeologists, art historians, philologists, literary scholars, political scientists, and historians to articulate the ways in which western Greek theater was distinct from that of the Greek mainland and, at the same time, to investigate how the two traditions interacted. The chapters intersect and build on each other in their pursuit of a number of shared questions and themes: the place of theater in the cultural life of Sicilian and South Italian 'colonial cities;' theater as a method of cultural self-identification; shared mythological themes in performance texts and theatrical vase-painting; and the reflection and analysis of Sicilian and South Italian theater in the work of Athenian philosophers and playwrights. Together, the essays explore central problems in the study of western Greek theater. By gathering a number of different perspectives and methods, this volume offers the first wide-ranging examination of this hitherto neglected history.

The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy

The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy PDF Author: P. E. Easterling
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521423519
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 414

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Book Description
As a creative medium, ancient Greek tragedy has had an extraordinarily wide influence: many of the surviving plays are still part of the theatrical repertoire, and texts like Agamemnon, Antigone, and Medea have had a profound effect on Western culture. This Companion is not a conventional introductory textbook but an attempt, by seven distinguished scholars, to present the familiar corpus in the context of modern reading, criticism, and performance of Greek tragedy. There are three main emphases: on tragedy as an institution in the civic life of ancient Athens, on a range of different critical interpretations arising from fresh readings of the texts, and on changing patterns of reception, adaptation, and performance from antiquity to the present. Each chapter can be read independently, but each is linked with the others, and most examples are drawn from the same selection of plays.

Greek Tragedies as Plays for Performance

Greek Tragedies as Plays for Performance PDF Author: David Raeburn
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119089859
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 229

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Book Description
This is a unique introduction to Greek tragedy that explores the plays as dramatic artifacts intended for performance and pays special attention to construction, design, staging, and musical composition. Written by a scholar who combines his academic understanding of Greek tragedy with his singular theatrical experience of producing these ancient dramas for the modern stage Discusses the masters of the genre—Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides—including similarities, differences, the hybrid nature of Greek tragedy, the significance that each poet attaches to familiar myths and his distinctive approach as a dramatic artist Examines 10 plays in detail, focusing on performances by the chorus and the 3 actors, the need to captivate audiences attending a major civic and religious festival, and the importance of the lyric sections for emotional effect Provides extended dramatic analysis of important Greek tragedies at an appropriate level for introductory students Contains a companion website, available upon publication at www.wiley.com/go/raeburn, with 136 audio recordings of Greek tragedy that illustrate the beauty of the Greek language and the powerful rhythms of the songs

Performance in Greek and Roman Theatre

Performance in Greek and Roman Theatre PDF Author: George Harrison
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004245456
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 601

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Book Description
Drawing on insights from various disciplines (philology, archaeology, art) as well as from performance and reception studies, this volume shows how a heightened awareness of performance can enhance our appreciation of Greek and Roman theatre.

Mask and Performance in Greek Tragedy

Mask and Performance in Greek Tragedy PDF Author: David Wiles
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521865220
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 25

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Book Description
A 2007 study of the mask in Greek tragedy, covering both ancient and modern performances.

Theorising Performance

Theorising Performance PDF Author: Edith Hall
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 0715638262
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Constitutes the first analysis of the modern performance of ancient Greek drama from a theoretical perspective.

Greek Tragedy After the Fifth Century

Greek Tragedy After the Fifth Century PDF Author: Vayos Liapis
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107038553
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 431

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Book Description
What happened to Greek tragedy after the death of Euripides? This book provides some answers, and a broad historical overview.