This book explores the emergence of Greek tragedy on the American stage from the nineteenth century to the present. Despite the gap separating the world of classical Greece from our own, Greek tragedy has provided a fertile source for some of the most innovative American theater. Helene P. Foley shows how plays like Oedipus Rex and Medea have resonated deeply with contemporary concerns and controversies—over war, slavery, race, the status of women, religion, identity, and immigration. Although Greek tragedy was often initially embraced for its melodramatic possibilities, by the twentieth century it became a vehicle not only for major developments in the history of American theater and dance but also for exploring critical tensions in American cultural and political life. Drawing on a wide range of sources—archival, video, interviews, and reviews—Reimagining Greek Tragedy on the American Stage provides the most comprehensive treatment of the subject available.

Brill’s Companion to Euripides, as well as presenting a comprehensive and authoritative guide to understanding Euripides and his masterworks, provides scholars and students with compelling fresh perspectives upon a broad range of issues in the field of Euripidean studies.

In its long history of performance and reception, Greek drama has been interpreted and adapted in countless ways and forms in response to and as a reflection of the preoccupations and tensions of particular historical moments. This volume continues this tradition by investigating a cross-section of theatrical productions on the contemporary American stage that have reimagined Greek tragedy in order to address the political and social concerns of minority communities. Studying performance and its role in creating and reflecting social, cultural, and historical identity in contemporary America, it draws on cutting-edge research in the field to move discussion away from the interpretation of dramatic texts in isolation from their performance context, and towards an analysis of the dynamic experience of live theatre. The discussion focuses particularly on the ability of engaged performances to pose critical challenges to the long-standing stereotypes that have contributed to the misrepresentation and marginalization of minority cultures. However, in the process it also uncovers the ways in which such performances can inadvertently reinforce the very stereotypes they aim to execute, demonstrating that ancient drama can be a powerful and dangerous tool in the search for social justice.

The Oxford Handbook of Greek Drama in the Americas is the first edited collection to discuss the performance of Greek drama across the continents and archipelagos of the Americas from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the present. The study and interpretation of the classics have never been restricted by geographical or linguistic boundaries but, in the case of the Americas, long colonial histories have often imposed such boundaries arbitrarily. This volume tracks networks across continents and oceans and uncovers the ways in which the shared histories and practices in the performance arts in the Americas have routinely defied national boundaries. With contributions from classicists, Latin American specialists, theatre and performance theorists, and historians, the Handbook also includes interviews with key writers, including Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott, Charles Mee, and Anne Carson, and leading theatre directors such as Peter Sellars, Carey Perloff, H?ctor Daniel-Levy, and Heron Coelho. This richly illustrated volume seeks to define the complex contours of the reception of Greek drama in the Americas, and to articulate how these different engagements - at local, national, or trans-continental levels, as well as across borders - have been distinct both from each other, and from those of Europe and Asia.

Shows how contemporary adaptations, on the stage and on the page, can breathe new life into Greek tragedy.

Contemporary Adaptations of Greek Tragedy: Auteurship and Directorial Visions provides a wide-ranging analysis of the role of the director in shaping adaptations for the stage today. Through its focus on a wide range of international productions by Katie Mitchell, Theodoros Terzopoulos, Peter Sellars, Jan Fabre, Ariane Mnouchkine, Tadashi Suzuki, Yukio Ninagawa, Andrei Serban, Nikos Charalambous, Bryan Doerries and Richard Schechner, among others, it offers readers a detailed study of the ways directors have responded to the original texts, refashioning them for different audiences, contexts and purposes. As such the volume will appeal to readers of theatre and performance studies, classics and adaptation studies, directors and theatre practitioners, and anyone who has ever wondered 'why they did it like that' when watching a stage production of an ancient Greek play. The volume Contemporary Adaptations of Greek Tragedy is divided in three sections: the first section - Global Perspectives - considers the work of a range of major directors from around the world who have provided new readings of Greek Tragedy: Peter Sellars and Athol Fugard in the US, Katie Mitchell in the UK, Theodoros Terzopoulos in Greece and Tadashi Suzuki and Yukio Ninagawa in Japan. Their work on a wide range of plays is analysed, including Electra, Oedipus the King, The Persians, Iphigenia at Aulis, and Ajax. Parts Two and Three – Directing as Dialogue with the Community and Directorial Re-Visions - focus on a range of productions of key plays from the repertoire, including Prometheus Landscape II, Les Atrides, The Trojan Women, The Bacchae, Antigone and The Suppliants, among others. In each, the varying approaches of different directors are analysed, together with a detailed investigation of the mise-en-scene. In considering each stage production, the authors raise issues of authenticity, contemporary resonances, translation, directorial control/auteurship and adaptation.

Across two volumes, Mike Vanden Heuvel and a strong roster of contributors present the history, processes, and achievements of American theatre companies renowned for their use of collective and/or ensemble-based techniques to generate new work. This first study considers theatre companies that were working between 1970 and 1995: it traces the rise and eventual diversification of activist-based companies that emerged to serve particular constituencies from the countercultural politics of the 1960s, and examines the shift in the 1980s that gave rise to the next generation of company-based work, rooted in a new interest in form and the more mediated and dispersed forms of politics. Ensembles examined are Mabou Mines, Theatre X, Goat Island, Lookingglass, Elevator Repair Service, and SITI Company. Preliminary chapters provide a sweeping overview of ensemble-based creation within the general historical and cultural contexts of the period, followed by a detailed study of the evolution of ensemble-based work. The case studies consider factors such as influence, funding, production, and legacies, as well as the forms of collective devising and creation, while surveying the continuing work of significant long-running companies. Contributors provide detailed case studies of the 6 companies from the period and cover: * A chronicle of development and methods * Key productions and projects * Critical reception and legacy * A chronological overview of significant productions From the long history of collective theatre creation, with its sources in social crises, urgent aesthetic experimentation and utopian dreaming, American ensemble-based theatre has emerged at several key points in history to challenge the primacy of author-based and director-produced theatre. As the volume demonstrates, US ensemble companies have collectively revolutionized the form and content of contemporary performance, influencing experimental, as well as mainstream practice.