FAIRFIELD, CT – A month-long festival of contemporary female scholars and artists responding to Ancient Greek tragedy will take placebeginning October at Fairfield University. 21st Century Women and Ancient Greek Tragedy is a four-part series of performance, scholarship, and discussion at the Quick Center for the Performing Arts at Fairfield University.
“Ancient Greek tragedies involve complex situations that set up a cascade of difficult choices affecting generations to come,” Dr. Katherine Schwab (Fairfield University) told TNH. “On the face of it, we might think that this is outside our realm, but a deeper exploration reveals how ancient events and actions hold an immediacy for us.”
The Festival kicks off on October 3 with Iphigenia: Book of Change, a film of a live performance piece inspired by Euripides. The film explores how Euripides’ mythical character and how contemporary women survive captivity. Schwab will lead a Q&A with the film’s writer and director following its screening. “The experimental filmmaker Elise Kermani found that the story of Iphigenia was a powerful vehicle to explore the tragedy of political imprisonment of a 16-year old girl in Iran,” Schwab told TNH. “The arts invite ways to explore the imagination, to see the world and oneself in new ways, and to communicate what may not be easily expressed.”
Then on October 25-28, Theatre Fairfield and Antigone: Sophocles’ Antigonetakes place. The performance’s director Dr. Martha S. LoMonaco (Fairfield University) told TNH:“I am using Anne Carson’s very feminist, very 21st century translation of Antigone in our production.” Of the misogyny in the play, she said, “The final words of the script, spoken by the Chorus, say it all: ‘You big men with your big words/pay a big price for that/but in the end/you learn wisdom too/even you.’”
A Feminism & Greek Tragedy Roundtable will take place November 2. Feminist scholars Dr. Yurie Hong (Gustavus Adolphus College), Dr. Danielle Layne (Gonzaga University), and Dr. Kalliopi Nikolopoulou (University of Buffalo) will engage in a conversation, moderated by Dr. Sara Brill (Fairfield University), on Ancient Greek texts. Brill told THN: “The sexism and misogyny that we encounter in certain aspects of ancient Greek culture were structural; that is, they were more than simply the attitudes of one or more groups of individuals, but were embedded in the social and political fabric of daily life.” One of the values of studying ancient Greek oppression and resistance, she said, is that “it helps scholars better understand the sexist and misogynist aspects–both personal and structural–of contemporary American and European cultures, which in turn helps one to better recognize both how those aspects are perpetuated and how they might most effectively be resisted.”
The Festival will conclude that evening with a keynote address with Ellen McLaughlin. The playwright, actor, and director will discuss and perform sections from her adaptations of six Greek tragedies. Leading American theatre companies commissioned the works in reaction to political crises throughout the world.
Ancient Greek tragedies remain strikingly relevant to today’s women’s issues. In the tragedies, King Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia while Kreon intended to bury his niece Antigone alive (by the time he had changed his mind, she had already died by suicide). Today, the economic crisis in Greece has led to increased domestic violence and young women turning to prostitution to afford meals. It seems that throughout history, the very men who are supposed to be protecting young women are the ones brutalizing them. “Attitudes toward women do not arise in a vacuum, and the most comprehensive and nuanced studies look at the relation between cultural conceptions of masculinity and femininity, at the ways in which the two undergird and support one another. It would be impossible to understand Sophocles’ Creon, for instance, without understanding not only his attitude toward women but also his conception of his own masculinity and his response to perceived threats to that masculinity,” said Brill. In regard to 21st-century women, Schwab said: “The very painful consequences of the ongoing economic crisis in Greece continue to reverberate and affect so many people. I would like to note that my Greek friends exemplify the extraordinary care and concern for all members of their families. The strength of the Greek family is legendary and with good reason. I see young Greek women focused on very high achievement in academics and carrying an inner confidence. Equally, their families, fully support their efforts and goals.”
21st Century Women and Ancient Greek Tragedy festival speaks to female courage and determination.“When plays are as powerful as Antigone and Iphigenia (in all her versions) for conveying the critical issues of our day, we need to revive them for contemporary production,” LoMonaco told TNH. Brill said: “My colleagues and I are lucky enough to have as interlocutors generations of scholars who have been working on these issues throughout their careers, and, amongst many other things, this festival provides us with a way to honor this rich history of thought.”
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