Essays on Documenting and Researching.docVIP

Essays on Documenting and Researching Modern Productions of Greek Drama: The Sources Essay 2: Greek Drama at the end of the Twentieth century: Cultural Renaissance or Performative outrage? Lorna Hardwick (2000, revised 2007) This article is based on a lecture given to the annual meeting of the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies in London in June 2000. It is offered here as a position paper to highlight aspects of current debate on performance and reception issues. I am grateful to the Council of the Society for their invitation and to members of the audience for comments and discussion, both on the day and subsequently. Classics are simply residues, maps left over from earlier cultures; they invite you to make some sort of imaginative movement’: Jonathan Miller (1968), commenting on his work directing Robert Lowell’s Prometheus. My purpose in this lecture is to identify some of the imaginative movements which are taking place and to consider how they are being received and what kinds of cultural shift may be involved. Introduction The virtual explosion of performances of Greek plays, translations of Greek plays and adaptations of Greek plays shows no sign of diminishing. Within the last eighteen months or so in the UK alone we have had (the numbers in brackets refer to the documentation of the productions on the Database which is part of this research project) : The London Festival of Greek Drama, an annual event, which this year had Birds in Greek (DB ref. no. 2519), Oedipus the King in English translation and Peace in English translation (DB ref. no. 877). The triennial production in Greek at Bradfield College, this time a superb Hippolytus, notable both for its choreography for the Chorus based on modern music and dance rhythms and for its formal qualities (DB ref. no. 2520). The Actors of Dionysus tour with the Agamemnon (DB ref. no. 1119) and Grave Gifts (DB ref. no. 1113), the latter a bold decision to present the Choephori on its own. The Oxfo