Acting Greek Tragedy

Graham Ley

Description

Acting Greek Tragedy explores the dynamics of physical interaction and the dramaturgical construction of scenes in ancient Greek tragedy. Ley argues that spatial distinctions between ancient and modern theatres are not significant, as core dramatic energy can be placed successfully in either context.

Guiding commentary on selected passages from Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides illuminates the problems involved with performing monologue, dialogue, scenes requiring three actors, and scenes with properties. A companion website - actinggreektragedy.com - offers recorded illustrations of scenes from the Workshops.

What the book offers is a practical approach to the preparation of Greek scripts for performance. The translations used have all been tested in workshops, with those of Euripides newly composed for this book.

 

The companion website can be found here: www.actinggreektragedy.com

 

 

 

 

Preface

Introduction

First Workshop: Monologues

Second Workshop: Dialogues

Third Workshop: Three-actor Scenes

Fourth Workshop: Properties

Last Thoughts: Looking Back, and Forwards

Thanks

Notes on the Recordings

Index of Greek names and characters

General Index

 

 

Sujets

• Literary Criticism
• Theater
• Theatre
• World War I
• European literature
• General officer
• General
• Drama
• Performance
• Guillaume Apollinaire

Informations

• Publié par: University of Exeter Press
• Date de parution: 26 mars 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780859899871
• Langue: English

Extrait

ACTING GREEK TRAGEDY
“In this book I shall be giving an account of an approach I have been using in the studio over a number of years, and which I have developed through a longer period studying the theatricality of ancient Greek tragedy … The approach I have found to be best is one that draws on an essentially dramaturgical analysis in the actor, and which then applies that understanding in and through performance. So a more accurate title for the book might actually be ‘preparing to act Greek tragedy’, since it concentrates on methods of preparation for a testing realization in a workshop performance in the studio.”
from the author’s Preface
Graham Ley is Professor Emeritus of Drama at the University of Exeter
ACTING GREEK TRAGEDY
Graham Ley
UNIVERSITY of EXETER PRESS
First published in 2014 by
University of Exeter Press
Reed Hall, Streatham Drive
Exeter EX4 4QR
UK
www.exeterpress.co.uk
© 2014 Graham Ley
The right of Graham Ley to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Paperback ISBN 978 0 85989 893 5
Hardback ISBN 978 0 85989 892 8
Cover design by Holly Rose and Stephanie Sarlos
Typeset in Sabon by
Kestrel Data, Exeter
Printed in Great Britain by
Short Run Press Ltd, Exeter
Contents
Preface
Introduction
First Workshop— Monologues
Second Workshop— Dialogues
Third Workshop— Three-actor Scenes
Fourth Workshop— Properties
Last Thoughts— Looking Back, and Forwards
Thanks
Notes on the Recordings
PREFACE WELCOME
In this book I shall be giving an account of an approach I have been using in the studio over a number of years, and which I have developed through a longer period studying the theatricality of ancient Greek tragedy. I would not in the first instance call it a form of actor-training, since it is not primarily concerned with a regime to develop voice and movement skills, nor does it have a hard focus on inhabiting character. The approach I have found to be best is one that draws on an essentially dramaturgical analysis in the actor, and which then applies that understanding in and through performance. So a more accurate title for the book might actually be ‘preparing to act Greek tragedy’, since it concentrates on methods of preparation for a testing realization in a workshop performance in the studio.
There are sound reasons for this, which go beyond the obvious need to prepare well before you enact. These are that modern productions of ancient Greek tragedy must and do show a bewildering variety of different forms, according to the inclinations and inspirations of the practitioners who are taking the initiative to put them on. It is necessary for actors to be open-minded and flexible in their attitude to productions, and to the direction and mise-en-scene that will animate the performances; but it is unreasonable and unwise to expect actors to go into a production process unprepared.
Actors need to be able to develop confidence in their ability to handle any material, and Greek tragedy is a potentially daunting prospect. I would suggest that trust in a director to supply all is inappropriate, since the performance of Greek tragedy may be just as much an unknown to directors as to actors. There is nothing wrong with a path of discovery; but discovery with trained actors is a far more dynamic process than wandering around totally in the dark, searching for the beginning of that path.
So why would thoughtful actors (or directors) be unprepared for Greek tragedy, especially if they have already been through a sound course of training? The answer to that is that ancient Greek tragedy is at risk, despite its distinct appeal over the centuries, of being culturally locked in. This is as true of the beliefs that activate its characters as it is of the form in which it operates, which is unlike anything that we find in theatre today. This combination means that it is not truly accessible to the kind of training in interpretative acting that may prove highly effective with later European drama. Clearly such training will give an actor a fair start, but it is not sufficiently specific to go beyond a certain point, and any performance will contain far too many leaps of faith for comfort.
Some may ask at this point why a contemporary actor would want to bother with Greek tragedy at all, let alone take on the questionable burden of a specific approach to acting it. The answer to that is that it supplies some of the best available classic roles for women as well as outstanding roles for men. The fact that those roles were not originally written for performance by women is not an obstacle: the female characters are no less seriously conceived than the male, and they represent women at all ages of life. It is a remarkable resource, waiting to be exploited and opened out to audiences.
While I would hope that you might work happily as an actor from this book without already knowing much in advance about Greek tragedy or the ancient theatre, I would recommend that you do take a good look at the broader picture. I am going to assume that you will find out elsewhere about the three tragic playwrights, Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, and the relationship between performers and audience expressed in the ancient playing-space, amongst other important information. There are many ways of doing that, but you can find informative guidance in my own A Short Introduction to the Ancient Greek Theater (second edition) which is published by the University of Chicago Press, and is readily available.
I shall not delay the Introduction any further. What I shall be doing there is to outline a concept that will be central to my approach, and illustrate it before adopting and deploying it throughout the rest of the book. That concept is not itself culturally specific, but it serves as a means to unlock the beliefs and the forms of expression used in dramatic texts such as those from antiquity. Once the idea of it is grasped, it can be applied consistently across all four Workshops that form the main substance of this book.
So these opening words serve as a welcome and an invitation to work that—if it is undertaken with commitment and given sufficient time—will undoubtedly change your ability to perform Greek tragic scripts.
INTRODUCTION Food for Thought and First Steps
The key to performing Greek tragedy well is to understand the action. I do not by this mean the plot, taken in the large sense, or indeed the incidents that make up the plot, although they bring us closer to the kinds of action I mean. The plot and the myth very often exercise a strong fascination on us, which is a crucial excitement. But a fascination with myth may lead to a fixation on heroic or mystical qualities in the material, which can result in a particular style of presentation. Such styles may be either imaginatively or badly judged, but they will not in themselves secure firm ground for an actor’s performance, and can often prejudice it, providing at best a kind of tight-rope walk without a net. No performer likes to be exposed, and productions of Greek tragedy can be very exposing and hazardous.
The term I would like to introduce as food for thought is that of ‘transaction’, which is familiar to us from a business context, and may also be familiar from a social or linguistic context as well. The business context reveals very little about the word or the idea it contains, since we think of our most common transactions as cash withdrawals from an ATM, which for most of us prove to be all too frequent an experience for our financial wellbeing. A transaction involves at least two parties, and is in some senses a ‘bit of business’ conducted between them. In this case, I suppose that the use of our card and PIN in an agreed setting (the ATM till, or ‘hole in the wall’) authorizes our bank to release money to us directly: there are two parties involved, ourselves and the bank we have chosen for our deposits.
In the case of the purchase of an item, the release occurs by means of a slightly different machine to another party, the seller, who then becomes a third party in the transaction. In more traditional terms, we might simply hand over cash for an item to the seller, or in still more traditional terms hand over another item in exchange, in what is called barter. Our purchase may be of an item or of a service, which is interesting because it may well entail further transactions in order to be accomplished. So if we book a holiday with a travel agent, our payment is one transaction. But the agent may then conduct a series of transactions with other agencies (the flight or ferry company, the hotel) to implement the first transaction successfully and faithfully for us.
We might think of these relatively familiar and everyday transactions as lacking emotional texture, of being ‘business’ in the sense that we sometimes use the word. While this may be true to some considerable extent, we have only to think of occasions when things go wrong to realize how much hangs on such transactions. If the ATM fails to deliver, it is often only a minor frustration. But if the holiday booking has been made wrongly, then all hell may break loose, with screaming kids, irate partners and rooms that are not available. A very great deal hangs on transactions, and we can see that most clearly when we consider them in the social context.
The simplest examples of social transactions may well be everyday, and not apparently charged with feeling or consequence. Such are our greetings, which in the best if not the normal form do require or expect an acknowledgement. I am sure a human behaviourist would insist that for human society a great deal hangs on greetings, and an anthropologist would insist that it always has done. If we say ‘How are