Oedipus showing at the Lakeside
April 20, 2016
Lynn Fotheringham attends a rehearsal of the Lakeside production of Oedipus and considers the process of fragmentation in modern approaches to tragedy. After the Greek tragedy film season, Lakeside Arts is putting on another Greek tragedy this week: this year’s annual collaboration with the Nottingham New Theatre is Sophocles’ Oedipus (Steven Berkoff’s version) http://www.lakesidearts.org.uk/theatre/event/3172/oedipus.html. The project, which gives New Theatre students the opportunity to …
From Aulis to Game of Thrones
January 22, 2016
Lynn Fotheringham tells us about the story of Iphigenia: I became fascinated with the story of the sacrifice of Iphigenia when I was a little girl. I first saw Cacoyannis’ 1977 film, Iphigenia, when taking a Greek-tragedy-in-translation course at Iowa State in what would now be called my ‘gap year’ in 1986—thanks, David Roochnik and …
Stagestruck: Interviewing Robert Icke
January 6, 2016
Lynn Fotheringham reports on an exclusive interview with Robert Icke: Recently I went down to London to interview Robert Icke of the Almeida Theatre for my forthcoming conference, Sacrificing Iphigenia Through the Ages. His mind-blowing modernisation of Aeschylus’ Oresteia (which he both wrote and directed) wowed London theatre-audiences this summer, first at the Almeida and …
Chorus girls – and boys
November 18, 2015
Lynn Fotheringham tells us about the creative challenges and opportunities of the Chorus. In the Horrible Histories Groovy Greeks[1] theatre-show, a family of supposedly late-arriving theatre-goers are sucked into the action to learn about ancient Greek culture. They are informed that the Greeks had democracy, the Olympics and theatre: that the actors (all male) wore masks, …
Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk — or should that be Medea?
October 19, 2015
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 …
A visit to Ally Pally
February 26, 2015
Lynn Fotheringham gets to stand where Patrick Stewart played Oedipus! Elena Theodorokopoulos, a classics lecturer at the University of Birmingham, has organised two screenings of televised productions of Greek tragedy at the Library of Birmingham this fortnight – two Oedipodes (1972 with Ian Holm; 1977 with Patrick Stewart – second half only) tonight, and a 1979 Agamemnon …
Coming Soon: Theatre with a Classical Connection…
January 7, 2015
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 …
Enjoying Receptions of Athenian Tragedy
November 2, 2014
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 …
Tig, You’re It
October 17, 2014
Lynn Fotheringham, Director of the Centre for Ancient Drama and its Reception (based in the Classics Dept at Nottingham University), reviews Pilot Theatre’s current production of Antigone. Pilot Theatre’s production of Sophocles’ Antigone (in a new version by Roy Williams) came to the Lakeside in the same week that we were covering screen-versions of Greek …
A Herculean Achievement: The Twelve Labours of… Vladimir Putin
October 12, 2014
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 …
Find, follow, join us
