Incest and Incense: A study session at the Nottingham Contemporary

Thea Lawrence on ancient perfume and the myth of Myrrha at Nottingham Contemporary Art Gallery In conjunction with their most recent exhibition, The House of Fame, the Nottingham Contemporary is running a series of (free!) study sessions, grouped under the alluring title of A Darkened Room: On Feminism, Rituals, Death and the Occult. For the …

Medea at the New Theatre

Lynn Fotheringham previews an on-campus Greek tragedy production The New Theatre production of Medea that I mentioned in my last blog-post opens tomorrow. I’ve been lucky enough to get to attend some of the rehearsals over the last fortnight, and to see the performance start coming together. Jazmine Greenaway probably has the most challenging job …

November is Greek Myth Month

Lynn Fotheringham catalogues some upcoming Classics-related drama. There’s a remarkable concentration of Greek-mythology related drama coming up in November, both in Nottingham and elsewhere. I’ll start with the cinema before moving on to various theatrical productions. Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest film, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, is a modern take on the story of Agamemnon’s family …

Contemporary Productions of Greek plays

Text by Lynn Fotheringham For the last two years, almost all my leisure-time has been taken up with running around the country trying to see as many as possible of the productions of Greek tragedy that were being put on. I fitted in three Medeas, three Oresteias, two Antigones, one Bakkhai, one Women of Troy, one …

Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk — or should that be Medea?

Helen Lovatt reflects on intertextuality and a trip to the opera (and continues to see Argonauts everywhere). Last week I experienced the theatrical pounding of Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk in a sensational and vivid production by the ENO. Get a flavour of it on youtube here. I do like a text that puts its …

Coming Soon: Theatre with a Classical Connection…

Lynn Fotheringham has been searching out theatrical productions with a classical connection over the next few months, in Nottingham, nearby cities and London. Sheffield, 13th February only, 13.00: Phaedra’s Love, semi-staged reading as part of a season of the complete works of Sarah Kane, whose reputation for writing plays with lots of on-stage violence suggests …

The Power of (Moving) Pictures

Esther Eidinow reports on the first seminar of the Teaching and Learning Ancient Religion Network (TLAR), and the power of Panoply… Sonya Nevin is working magic. It’s a cold, wet evening, and 15 people, seated around a table in a room in Senate House, London (kindly sponsored by the ICS), are staring up at a …

Enjoying Receptions of Athenian Tragedy

Larissa Ransom, who is studying for an MA in Classical Literature, has recently seen Pilot Theatre’s Antigone, National Theatre Live’s Medea and Broadway Theatre Archive’s Antigone. Here she muses on how this has changed her thinking about Greek tragedy…   It is commonly believed that much of a book is lost when turned into a …

A Herculean Achievement: The Twelve Labours of… Vladimir Putin

Esther Eidinow reports on an intriguing use of ancient Greek myth… Herakles, Hercules, Melqart… Putin: a celebration of the Russian leader’s achievements put Greek myth back on the map last week. An exhibition of pictures, organised by a Facebook group of Putin’s supporters, showed the President engaged in Herakles’ different tasks—each repurposed to represent a …

‘Pitying Oedipus’

In our first Classics research workshop (also a Classical Association Lecture), Professor Patrick Finglass spoke on ‘Pitying Oedipus’; Professor Alan Sommerstein was inspired to offer this response… Professor Patrick Finglass kicked off the new semester on Tuesday 30 September with a talk in his usual sparkling style to the Nottingham branch of the Classical Association …