Adapting Greek Tragedy
Contemporary Contexts for Ancient Texts

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

Vayos Liapis (Edited by), Avra Sidiropoulou (Edited by)

9781316609408, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 30 March 2023

446 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.3 cm, 0.643 kg

'… this is a volume that is broad in its aims and encompasses vast swathes of intellectual enquiry, political event, and theatrical activity. It will be especially useful for teachers of Greek tragic reception, and of interest to wider audiences too.' Lucy Jackson, Bryn Mawr Classical Review

Adaptations of Greek tragedy are increasingly claiming our attention as a dynamic way of engaging with a dramatic genre that flourished in Greece some twenty-five centuries ago but remains as vital as ever. In this volume, fifteen leading scholars and practitioners of the theatre systematically discuss contemporary adaptations of Greek tragedy and explore the challenges and rewards involved therein. Adopting a variety of methodologies, viewpoints and approaches, the volume offers surveys of recent developments in the field, engages with challenging theoretical issues, and shows how adapting Greek tragedy can throw new light on a range of contemporary issues — from our relation to the classical past and our shifting perceptions of ethnic and cultural identities to the place, function and market-value of Greek drama in today's cultural industries. The volume will be welcomed by students and scholars in Classics, Theatre, Drama and Performance Studies, as well as by theatre practitioners.

Introduction
Prelude: Adapting Greek Tragedy: A Historical Perspective Vayos Liapis
Part I: Adapting Greek Tragedy: Definitions, Conceptual Foundations, Ethics: 1. Definitions: Adaptation and Related Modalities Katja Krebs
2. Forsaking the Fidelity Discourse: The Application of Adaptation Peter Meineck
3. Translation and/as Adaptation Lorna Hardwick
4. Adaptation as a Love Affair: The Ethics of Directing the Greeks Avra Sidiropoulou
Part II: Adaptation on the Page and on the Stage: Re-inscribing the Greek Classics: 5. Interlude: Speaking Up: Theatre Practitioners on Adapting the Classics
6. The View from the Archive: Performances of Ancient Tragedy at the National Theatre, 1963–1973 Adam Lecznar
7. Compromise, Contingency, and Gendered Adaptation: The Case of the Malthouse's Antigone Jane Montgomery Griffiths
8. Technology, Media and Intermediality in Contemporary Adaptations of Greek Tragedy Peter Campbell
9. Violence in Adaptations of Greek Tragedy Simon Perris
10. Adaptations of Greek Tragedies in non-Western Performance Cultures Erika Fischer-Lichte
11. Cultural Identities: Appropriations of Greek Tragedy in Post-colonial Discourse Elke Steinmeyer
12. Trapped between Fidelity and Adaptation? On the Reception of Ancient Greek Tragedy in Modern Greece Anastasia Bakogianni
13. Adaptation and the Transtextual Palimpsest: Anne Carson's Antigonick as a Textual/Visual Hybrid Vayos Liapis.

Subject Areas: Literature & literary studies [D], Theatre studies [AN], History of art: ancient & classical art,BCE to c 500 CE [ACG]