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Edited by Stratos Constantinidis<\/strong> Reviewed by Amy S. Green<\/strong>*<\/a><\/p>\n In The Reception of Aeschylus\u2019 Plays through Shifting Models and Frontiers<\/em>, editor Stratos Constantinidis assembles essays from editors, translators, adapters, critics and directors, who each bring a distinct disciplinary perspective to the record. An Aeschylean play, Constantinidis asserts, comes down to us as \u201can open signifier with existing and potential meanings that are infinitely malleable\u201d (7) and \u201cattract[s] a group of specialists who \u00a0. . . exert a pull on one another\u201d (5).<\/p>\n Collectively, if unintentionally, these specialists cook up a rich broth of interpretation that infuses later adaptations, both on the page and on the stage. The collection aims to capture both \u201cthe evolving interplay between scholarly erudition and artistic imagination\u201d (8) and the interplay of specialties across time and place. To facilitate dialogue among them, the editor asked his contributors to read drafts of the other entries and revise their own in response. He offers this volume as a virtual meeting space for \u201cspecialists\u201d and invites us to join, or at least eavesdrop on, their conversation.<\/p>\n Thirteen chapters are arranged \u201csystematically,\u201d rather than in geographical or historical order (2), although I detect an implicit chronology from page to stage. Topics range from \u201cAeschylus and His Afterlife in the Classical Period\u201d (Johanna Hanink and Anna S. Huslig); \u201cAeschylus in the Balance: Weighing Corpses and the Problem of Translation\u201d (Rush Rahm); \u201cCognitive Theory and Aeschylus\u201d (Peter Meinick); \u201cAeschylus and Western Opera\u201d (Sarah Brown Ferrario); to \u201cThe Oresteia<\/em> in Kannada: The Indian Context\u201d (Vijaya Guttal). Readers who choose to dip in rather than read straight through are encouraged to check out the chapters immediately before and after.<\/p>\n I took Constantinidis\u2019 advice, zeroed in on Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr.\u2019s \u201cPop Music Adaptations of Aeschylus\u2019 Play,\u201d and, then, perused the preceding and following essays. Wetmore\u2019s four \u201cpop-music mediated\u201d (236) examples draw on homegrown U.S. musical genres to update and \u201cAmericanize\u201d Aeschylean drama (238). The author posits that hip-hop, bluegrass, classic rock, R&B, gospel, punk rock, disco and the songs of ABBA (that most-American Swedish global phenomenon) attempt to create experiential equivalence between ancient and modern theatrical events, and keeps his eye on the tension between relevance and authenticity.<\/p>\n Musical choices set the tone for each of the four productions. Will Powers\u2019 The Seven<\/em> used hip-hop rhythms, sampling and mashups to \u201cfind the black voice\u201d in Aeschylus\u2019 \u201cwhite text,\u201d and connect intra-group violence in Seven against Thebes <\/em>to the \u201clegacies of violence and power\u201d and \u201cdisempowerment in the American Black Community\u201d (240). The chorus was reduced to a female DJ; Oedipus showed up, proclaiming himself \u201cThe Original Mutha Fucka\u201d; and the music evolved through different iterations of the show between 2001 and 2008 to keep current with fluctuations in hip-hop music and culture. Dizzy Miss Lizzie\u2019s Roadside Review 2008 Oresteia<\/em> was set at a 1930s dust bowl carnival-cum-\u201ctraveling rock-concert, with props and instruments pulled from trunks and cases\u201d (243). Athena sang gospel; the Furies sang punk rock. \u201cWho knew an ancient Greek tragedy could be so fun?\u201d asked one critic, while another lamented that \u201cEven with such bloody subject matter, the show is a comedy\u201d (244).<\/p>\n LA\u2019s Troubadour Theatre Company brought a similarly lighthearted touch to Abbamemmnon<\/em> (2014). Director Matt Walker reset the action to Southern California, assumed his audience had no prior knowledge of the play, and inserted \u201cmetatheatrical\u201d devices to orient them: \u201cHelen of Troy is the last name you\u2019ll recognize tonight.\u201d Major speeches were conveyed via ABBA megahits (I wondered whether the audience sang along). Pop references included a description of Clytemnestra as \u201cworse than the Kardashians.\u201d \u201cThe tragedy [did] not run deep,\u201d says Wetmore, \u201cand the tongues of the actors [were] firmly in [their] cheeks\u201d (248).<\/p>\n In contrast, Diane Paulus and her A.R.T. collaborators from the east coast took a very serious approach to Prometheus Bound<\/em>. In a program essay, playwright Steven Sater called Aeschylus\u2019 play, \u201cthe most searing indictment of tyranny ever written\u201d (245). Indeed, Amnesty International was in the lobby recruiting petition signatures, volunteers and donations at every performance. However, according to one critic, \u201cleather-clad performers, techno-inspired lighting, and pounding choral repetition prevented such political commentary from resonating in the dance club atmosphere\u201d (245). Wetmore\u2019s examples raise critical questions about relevance and authenticity: How far is too far in adapting ancient drama if the goal is approximation of the original experience? What if extraordinary measures bring modern audiences to the plays? And, if we agree that the plays\u2019 longevity is undimmed by adaptation, how will history treat these time-, place- and style-bound performances?<\/p>\n The editor\u2019s advice paid off when I looked for resonance in his sequence of essays. Dana L. Munteanu\u2019s \u201cAeschylus\u2019 Cassandra in the Operas of Taneyev and Gnecchi\u201d is Chapter 8 to Wetmore\u2019s Chapter 9; Paul Monaghan\u2019s \u201cAeschylus as Postdramatic Analogue: A Thing Both Cool and Fiery\u201d is Chapter 10. Wetmore had already reminded me that opera was a popular form in the nineteenth century (236). Just as his chapter raised questions of relevance for rock adaptations, Taneyev\u2019s 1895 Oresteia<\/em> and Gnecchi\u2019s 1905 Agamemnon <\/em>shared \u201ca similar fate\u2014i.e. they had successful initial productions; then they were nearly forgotten\u201d until \u201cthe last decades of the 20th<\/sup> century\u201d (214-15).<\/p>\n Rock opera pales in chutzpah when compared to Monaghan\u2019s \u201cpostdramatic\u201d adaptations. He argues that \u201cwhile the assumptions and conventions of \u2018modern\u2019 drama are unsuited to . . . the \u2018comet\u2019s tail\u2019 of uncertainty and resistance to illumination\u201d in Aeschylean tragedy, \u201cthese same \u2018discordant and incommensurable elements\u2019 (Nietzsche) may be surprisingly reanimated by . . . \u2018the aesthetics of undecidability\u2019 that underpins \u2018postdramatic theatre\u2019\u201d (Lehmann 251). For me, these before and after entries underscored two continua, the first a chronological progression from milder to more radical adaptation, the second the underlying critical\/theoretical debate about what, if any, obligation, if any do we owe to Aeschylus\u2019 unrecoverable intent.<\/p>\n Constantinidis describes his collection alternately as \u201cmultidisciplinary\u201d (2), \u201ctransdisciplinary (4), and \u201cinterdisciplinary\u201d (5). But juxtaposing disciplinary chapters does not add up to interdisciplinarity, which would require bringing to bear multiple disciplines within a single essay or methodology.\u00a0 I found myself imagining dialogues or round-table transcripts that would have allowed the various specialists to wrestle with one another directly.<\/a><\/p>\n
\n409 pp. Leiden:\u00a0 Brill Academic<\/strong><\/p>\n
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