Performing Greek drama in Oxford and on tour with the Balliol Players

by: Wrigley, A.

Price: 51,97 EURO

(in stock)

Performing Greek Drama in Oxford is an absorbing celebration of the performance and reception of Greek drama in Oxford. Amanda Wrigley traces enduring connections between antiquity and dramatic performance in modern Oxford, and discusses the landmark events from the 16th century to the 1970s.This performance history of classical texts, especially those by the Greek dramatists, illuminates contemporary responses to debates on such matters as the position of women students, the `dangers' perceived to be associated with undergraduate acting, and the position of classics within the curriculum at the University of Oxford. The book consistently engages with the history of theatrical performance of ancient plays beyond Oxford, for example, John Masefield's Boars Hill Players, Penelope Wheeler's Greek plays at the Front, and the link with the London stage through companies touring to Oxford, such as that led by Sybil Thorndike. Many of these engagements with Greek drama were facilitated by the connection with the classical scholar Gilbert Murray, who plays a central part in the history.This performance history of classical texts, especially those by the Greek dramatists, illuminates contemporary responses to debates on such matters as the position of women students, the `dangers' perceived to be associated with undergraduate acting, and the position of classics within the curriculum at the University of Oxford. The book consistently engages with the history of theatrical performance of ancient plays beyond Oxford, for example, John Masefield's Boars Hill Players, Penelope Wheeler's Greek plays at the Front, and the link with the London stage through companies touring to Oxford, such as that led by Sybil Thorndike. Many of these engagements with Greek drama were facilitated by the connection with the classical scholar Gilbert Murray, who plays a central part in the history.

Introduction : Oxford's Greek play 'tradition'
The academic drama in the humanist curriculum and culture of Oxford
'The young men in women's clothes'
Languages of translation : productions in ancient Greek by OUDS, 1887-1914
Women, war and Gilbert Murray
The Oxford Playhouse, inter-war OUDS and connections with BBC Radio
The Balliol Player's social idealism and their performances for Thomas Hardy, 1923-1927
'A first-class excuse for legitimate vagabondage' : the Balliol Players, 1928-1939
The Aristophanic Balliol Players, 1947-1976

xvi, 320 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

"In the mid-nineteenth century, classical burlesques of Greek plays were all the rage until the great London scandal of 'The Young Men in Women's Clothes' which halted student drama for a decade. In 1880 Benjamin Jowett famously nurtured a serious performance of Aeschylus' Agamemnon at Balliol, which led to regular productions of Greek drama in the original language by the all-male Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS) up until 1932. Meanwhile, women students at Oxford enjoyed their own performative engagements with ancient Greece, beginning with Robert Bridges' masque Demeter at Somerville in 1904. Professional female actors such as Sybil Thorndike and Penelope Wheeler had a special connection with Oxford through the classicist Gilbert Murray and poet laureate John Masefield's Boars Hill Players. The final chapters tell the story of the Balliol Players. In the early 1920s this group of students--fired by post-war 'missionary' enthusiasm and supported by the elderly Thomas Hardy--determined to take Greek plays in translation to school and public audiences in the south and west of England in their summer vacations. Born from a socially idealistic impulse, the tradition lasted for over five decades, during which earnest productions of tragedy gave way to satirical and irreverent re-writings of Aristophanes, typical of the spirit of the sixties."

Performing Greek drama in Oxford and on tour with the Balliol Players

by: Wrigley, A.

• ISBN-13: 9780859898447 / 978-0-85989-844-7
• ISBN-03: 085989844X / 0-85989-844-X
• University of Exeter Press, Exeter, 2011

Price: 51,97 EURO

(in stock)