ART's new season promises fantasy, fame, farce Apr 11, 2008
The world premiere of Christine Evans's "Trojan Barbie," March 28 through April 19 at Zero Arrow, is a re-imagining of Euripides' "Trojan Women" with a most unlikely heroine. Carmel O'Reilly, whose well-regarded Sugan Theatre Company stopped putting on shows a couple years back, will direct, the first time she's worked on a major ART production. (Boston Globe)
In 'Smart People,' it's all academic Apr 11, 2008
I worry that when the day comes for her to do "Medea," it'll sound more like Diablo Cody wrote it than Euripides. In "Smart People," there's one funny scene where Lawrence can't bring himself to upgrade Janet's C, and for once his pained snobbery is comical. (Boston Globe)
Local happenings Apr 11, 2008
ECU/Loessin Playhouse will present "Iphigenia in Aulis" by Euripides at 8 p.m. Thursday through April 22 except April 20, when the show will be held at 2 p.m. It's the first sacrifice of the Trojan War. The Greek ships are waiting at Aulis to advance to Troy but the Gods have stopped the winds because Agamemnon, the Greek commander has offended them. (The Daily Reflector)
Fiennes, Neeson headline Beckett salute Mar 25, 2008
Among other theater-related events at Lincoln Center Festival 08 will be a new production of Euripides' The Bacchae, July 2-13, from the National Theatre of Scotland, featuring Alan Cumming as Dionysius. Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. (USA Today -- Life)
IT'S ALL AT CENTER STAGE Mar 25, 2008
IT'S ALL AT CENTER STAGE - New York Post. and Liam Neeson, Alan Cumming as an androgynous god and a live Gorillaz star are a few highlights of this summer's Lincoln Center Festival. (New York Post -- Entertainment)
BERKELEY'S '80S SKA GREATS RETURN Mar 24, 2008
Her new play, "The Trojan Women," inspired by Euripides, is about the end of Trojan civilization after the Greek invasion - as seen by the feminine eye. Robert Hurwitt's interview with McLaughlin - who, incidentally, originated the role of the Angel in Tony Kushner's "Angels in America" - is on Page 14. (San Francisco Chronicle)
Clear-Eyed About War Mar 23, 2008
"What I think this play is doing now is very similar to what it was doing when it was written," Ellen McLaughlin says of her new version of Euripides' 2,422-year-old tragedy, "The Trojan Women." The deeply felt anti-war play first staged in an Athens that had recently invaded and ravaged a small island state, and was on the verge of a larger, ill-fated military adventure, has a great deal to say to an American audience today ... Euripides' depiction of the plight of the women of Troy, awaiting... (San Francisco Chronicle -- Entertainment)
Critics' picks - theater Mar 9, 2008
Euripides meets Joan Crawford in the Gold Dust Orphans' wildly funny, deeply cathartic, wicked smart retelling. Closes March 15 at Machine. (Boston Globe)
The devil's advocate Mar 1, 2008
Milton was living in Aldersgate, working as a schoolmaster, and the sonnet reads like a gently humorous lesson in classical history, as Milton suggests that any army officer would do well to spare the house of a poet, citing the precedents of Alexander the Great, who spared Pindar's house, and the Spartan army, that spared Athens because Euripides lived there. Fortunately, no one attacked Milton's house, because the Earl of Essex and the London trained bands held Turnham Green for parliament and... (Guardian Unlimited -- Arts)
'Medea' revival is a dazzling, campy romp Feb 23, 2008
Case in point: "Medea." Yes, the play by Euripides ... Play by Euripides, freely adapted by Ryan Landry. (Boston Globe)
Immortality can really get old Feb 17, 2008
The gods portrayed in their mythology - and in Euripides - were held in awe for their power, not their virtue. Unlike the monotheistic divinities, they were not exemplars for humanity. (Boston Globe)
Who Says Poetry Doesn't Pay? Feb 15, 2008
Tom Sleigh is a professor of creative writing at New York's Hunter College and the author of seven books of poetry, a book of essays, and a translation of Euripides' Herakles. He is also a frequent Slate contributor. (Slate)
Mirvish goes with musicials for 2008-9 season Feb 5, 2008
The Manitoba Theatre Centre is working with Mirvish on a production of the Greek tragedy Medea by Euripides, a story of betrayal andthe revenge of a woman wronged. Seana McKenna, who played Medea in Winnipeg in 1992 and Stratford in 2000, is to reprise the role in the current production. (CBC.ca)
ALPHA plans two travel programs in May Jan 17, 2008
Participants will visit the ancient theater of Dionysos, birthplace of Greek classical drama and comedy and the place for the productions of the great tragedians: Aeschylos, Sophokles and Euripides. It was in the same historical theater that the famous comedies of Aristophanes were performed in Classical times. (DeKalb Daily Chronicle, IL)
2008 Arts preview Jan 5, 2008
But there are several novel productions as well, including Fuente Ovejuna, by Shakespeare's Spanish contemporary Lope de Vega, The Trojan Women by Euripides, Caesar and Cleopatra, by George Bernard Shaw and the Canadian premiere of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's Emilia Galotti, directed by Germany's Michael Thalheimer. A few hundred kilometres southeast, in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont. (Globe and Mail)
2008 - a year of theatrical milestones Jan 2, 2008
The times we've lived through for the past seven years have called forth numerous revivals of Aeschylus, Sophocles or Euripides' explorations of the tragedies of war, military atrocities, unjust governance and intolerance, not to mention Aristophanes' make-love-not-war comedy "Lysistrata.". Menander is far less overtly satirical or political than Aristophanes, however. (San Francisco Chronicle)
Alexandria, Egypt: A city of legend embarks on a new journey Dec 19, 2007
Built near the site of the original Library of Alexandria perhaps the ancient world's greatest, with an unrivaled collection that included original manuscripts of Euripides, Aeschylus and Sophocles the Bibliotheca seeks to resurrect that lost monument with shelf space for eight million books and a massive granite wall inscribed with what officials say are characters from all the world's written languages. Another sign of the city's resurgence is the sumptuous Four Seasons Hotel Alexandria. (International Herald Tribune)
Public radio Dec 8, 2007
Conductor: Louis Langree; Text in French by Nicolas-Francois Guilliard, based on the play by Guymond de la Touche after Euripides drama. 6:07 p.m. Prairie Home Companion live from the Town Hall, N.Y., with guests are Ann Hampton Callaway, Geoff Muldaur and Howard Levy. (Montana Standard, MT)
Spread the pm's literary love around Dec 7, 2007
Take for example, the plays of Euripides, Aeschylus and Aristophanes. This form of support explicitly recognises that the community expects to receive something in support of their taxes. (ABC Online)
Doomsday futurist hasn't iced ideas Dec 3, 2007
"It's not like I quoted some mythical evangelist like Jimbo Billy Euripides.". He might as well have. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
Obsession Examined Dec 2, 2007
When Academy Award- winning filmmaker Jessica Yu was approached about doing a film about Euripides, she was utterly at a loss ... What struck the Palo Alto-born Yu, though, during a summer of sifting through reference materials, was that Euripides didn't break the mold, he cast it ... "Euripides had a real concern about self-knowledge," Yu said. (San Francisco Chronicle -- Entertainment)
A Dickens of a Christmas Nov 27, 2007
After their slick update of Romeo and Juliet, the enterprising hip-hop troupe Renegade turn their attention to Euripides' The Bacchae. Cage turns the legend of Dionysus's rage at the dishonouring of his cult into the ultimate story of disrespect. (Guardian Unlimited)
James Michie dies, aged 80 Nov 5, 2007
Other translations followed, among them the poems of Catullus, Euripides' Helen, poems from The Greek Anthology, Martial's Epigrams, Ovid's The Art of Love, and Virgil's Eclogues: a formidable tally. In 1973 came a high point of Michie's work as a translator, a selection of La Fontaine's fables. (Guardian Unlimited -- Books)
Clever first choice to kick off run of classics Nov 4, 2007
Dionysus wants to travel to Hades to retrieve the tragic poet Euripides, who has died recently ... He and poor Xanthius submit to torture before, at long last, they meet self-infatuated Euripides, who's arguing with his predecessor in tragedy, Aeschylus ... The competition of the psychologically astute, effeminate Euripides (Michael Nieto) and the lyrically prolix Aeschylus (Fred Harlow) gets absurdly settled by a giant scale into which each speaks his weighted words. (San Diego Union-Tribune)
Sitting pretty with an eye to the future Oct 13, 2007
She will star in The Year of Magical Thinking, based on Joan Didion's celebrated memoir, and in an adaptation of Euripides's The Women of Troy by Barrie Kosky and Tom Wright, the team behind the award-winning The Lost Echo ... The Women of Troy by Euripides, adapted by Barrie Kosky and Tom Wright. (Sydney Morning Herald -- Entertainment)
The Frogs by Aristophanes Oct 7, 2007
The plot of The Frogs involves the god Dionysus descending into the Underworld to bring the famous tragedian Euripides back from the dead which all sounds rather abstract and epic ... When Dionysus finally gets to the underworld (which involves going past a chorus of comedy frogs, hence the play s name), he finds that Euripides is busy ... Before he will be bothered about coming back to save Athens, Euripides wants to establish himself as the heavyweight champion of poetry amongst the dead. (Suite101.com)
Iraq and terrorism figure on screen - but so do bees, Beatles, and multiple Bob Dylans Sep 12, 2007
"Protagonist" Jessicu Yu's avant-documentary uses puppets, interviews, and the works of Euripides to plumb the nature of obsession in four very different men: an ex-terrorist, a "reformed" gay Christian, a martial-arts enthusiast, and a bank robber. "The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising". (Boston Globe -- Living)
Wrinkle in Time author L'Engle dies at 88 Sep 8, 2007
A Wrinkle in Time exposes readers to the words of great thinkers, as its characters quote Shakespeare, the Bible, Euripides, Dante and others. LEngle followed it up with further adventures of the Murry children, including A Wind in the Door, 1973; A Swiftly Tilting Planet, 1978, which won an American Book Award; and Many Waters, 1986. (MSNBC -- News)
Lord of the dance Sep 8, 2007
David Greig, whose new version of The Bacchae swept the Edinburgh festival, explains why we need to listen to the words of Euripides now more than ever ... Throughout The Bacchae, Euripides contrasts the two different ways of experiencing knowledge ... As I worked on Euripides, I came to realise that he was using a very new technology when he wrote for the stage. (Guardian Unlimited)
Way Before Lindsay and Britney, Chaos Swirled Around Iphigenia Aug 28, 2007
0, Charles Mees proudly unfaithful and rather tedious version of Euripides Iphigenia at Aulis, brings a tabloid style to Greek tragedy. Cobbled together with a variety of texts, including blogs and current books, the show specializes in jarring juxtapositions. (New York Times)
Young director Emery finding her way Aug 27, 2007
Her 2004 staging of Euripides' Hecuba for 6th @ Penn Theatre, for example, incorporated Japanese butoh and other dance elements. I often call myself a holistic artist, she says. (San Diego Union-Tribune)
A divine madness seems to have taken hold of the Scottish capital Aug 20, 2007
Performed by the National Theatre of Scotland, David Greig s new version of Euripides s tragedy has, inevitably perhaps, been nicknamed the wacky Bacchae. It s clear why from the off, as Alan Cumming s Dionysus makes his entrance from above, dangling by his ankles in a gold lam; dress. (The Sunday Times)
Edinburgh Festival: Homecoming of the god of parties Aug 11, 2007
As produced by the National Theatre of Scotland, Euripides's The Bacchae boasts a new version by Scotland's hottest writing talent, David Greig, and the first performance on home soil for 16 years by actor, celebrity and legendary party animal Alan Cumming ... Euripides wrote The Bacchae in exile, and it's about Dionysus coming back from exile to where he's supposed to be recognised. (Telegraph.co.uk)
Edinburgh 2007: the 25 best shows Jul 29, 2007
The current darling of Scottish theatre has written no fewer than three plays at Edinburgh this year, including two world premieres: an updating of Euripides' Bacchae at the International Festival, and fresh ruminations on the Middle East in Damascus at the Traverse. Tag Theatre's revival of Yellow Moon makes up the third. (Guardian Unlimited)
Highlights of the London theater season Jul 21, 2007
Alan Cumming as Dionysus in the National Theater of Scotland production of Euripides' tragedy, directed by John Tiffany. Sept. 10: "Nicholas Nickleby," Chichester Festival Theater. (Variety)
What's On: Stage Jul 20, 2007
Clytemnestra Theatre of Change presents the environmental theatre play Written and directed by Arturo Fresolone, it's set during the Trojan War era, drawn from the writings of Aeschylus and Euripides. The audience follows the action, complete with sword fights and giant puppets, through areas of the park. (Toronto Star)
'The House of Chaos' is a visual feast Jul 17, 2007
More famously, Medea: the barbarian from the East, rendered on stage by Euripides and later by the Roman Seneca ... With three new plays this year alone, as well as a 20th-anniversary off-Broadway revival of her best-known work, Tea, the prolific Houston retains the key components of Euripides' tale in her play, equal parts Western realism and various Asian styles. (San Diego Union-Tribune)
VICKERS/A triumvirate of teachers Jul 12, 2007
For the next 30 years, Mrs. Newsome taught hundreds of students who elected to sit at her feet while she taught them not to hate Shakespeare, to understand the glories of ancient Greece and Rome through the works of Homer, Virgil, Euripides, and Aristotle and Plato. There are gray-haired men and women in Philadelphia, Newton, Carthage, Louisville, and Forest and scattered across the South who, to this very day, can quote the opening lines of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and the verses penned by... (Philadelphia Neshoba Democrat, MS)
Weekend Guide Jun 21, 2007
EURIPIDES: THE BACCHAE Fourth River Theatre Ensemble at the New Hazlett Theater, Allegheny Center, North Side. Thurs-Sat. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, PA)
» Theater schedule Jun 14, 2007
Final show is entirely in audience's hands as they vote between three classic plays: Euripides' "The Bacchae," Shakespeare's "King Lear" and Ibsen's "Peer Gynt.". Performances are Wed-Sat, 8 p.m. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. for dinner from Chef Anna Belcher. (CTNow.com)
Sydney Writers' Festival opening night address May 31, 2007
You see it in Euripides and you see it in ; you see it in Stendhal and you see it in Cormac McCarthy. My own country is a place that has often felt itself to be on the outside of things. (Sydney Morning Herald -- Entertainment)
All heaven and hell lie between the covers May 31, 2007
You see it in Euripides; you see it in Stendhal and you see it in Cormac McCarthy. This is a great country and your greatness may always lie in a notion of your inclusiveness. (Sydney Morning Herald -- Opinion)
Diaries, letters reveal a complexRose Kennedy trying to find her way in clan May 13, 2007
"I myself am quite reconciled to the fact that I could not anticipate an ideal successful life. I cannot find in literature or in life many people whose lives we envy. Most of course proceed on a middling course, not many great thrills -- the normal number of deaths and disappointments. Often read Hecuba's 'Lament on the Death of her Grandson,' written by Euripides when she spoke of Fortune -- 'Here now, there now, she springs back again, an idiot's dance,' and what was true in 550 B.C. is so... (Boston Globe)
Bible study in school Mar 27, 2007
But then, so are the works of Classical writers like Sophocles and Euripides. So is the cannon of Greek mythology. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
* Theater without time or national borders Mar 23, 2007
Works that he has adapted to the stage include Euripides' The Trojan Women and Clytemnestra, Sophocles' Electra and Aeschylus' Oresteia ... Dionysus is based on Euripides' Bacchae ... In the original play, Euripides has Dionysus, the god of wine, appear on stage and speak as a character. (Taipei Times, Taiwan -- World)
- Hywel Williams Mar 21, 2007
Histories written by later European liberals are full of doom-laden sighs about the consequences had the Persians won: no democracy ; la Grecque, no philosophy or science, and Euripides might have spent his time composing ditties praising the great king at the Persian court in Persepolis. Snyder's characters mouth George Bush platitudes about "freedom", but Spartans, being the product of a militarised oligarchy, were hardly democratic warriors. (Guardian Unlimited)
Die Agyptische Helena Mar 17, 2007
Inspired by Euripides, Hofmannsthal posits that there was a phantom Helena, who caused all the trouble with Paris, as well as a real Helena, who has been vacationing for a decade or so in Egypt, hence the opera's title. Hofmannsthal considered "Helena" his greatest libretto, but artists often say such things about their latest work, and sure enough, the scribe died only a year after he completed this farrago of styles. (Variety)
Manatee Players win third regional title Mar 11, 2007
Its the fuel in the fire for the imaginative and beautifully stylized production of Euripides' The Bacchae by the FSU/Asolo Conservatory. Theres nothing ancient about the direction by Dmitry Troyanovsky, who gives the show a contemporary feeling while making the story relevant to our times, when religion and beliefs dominate so much of our conversations. (Herald-Tribune)
* Event & Entertainment Mar 9, 2007
Dionysus is the second of two plays written by Japanese director, theorist and ideologue, Tadashi Suzuki, and is adapted from Euripides' ancient Greek tragedy Bacchae. Known for adapting western classical X especially Greek X plays into Japanese, Suzuki uses the plots of the ancient works to ask questions about contemporary society. (Taipei Times, Taiwan -- World)
Redgrave returns to Broadway in Didion adaptation Mar 6, 2007
"I am perhaps more like that tradition that was the only way of conveying a story or a poem for thousands of years I'm the speaker. There are different words for that in different countries, different cultures, but that's how stories and poems were conveyed whether it's Euripides' Hecuba or Joan Didion's magical thinking.". Redgrave likens Didion's writing to "photographs of the mind. Very complex and very simple at the same time.". (The Standard-Times, MA)
Perry too old-school? No way, fans say Feb 26, 2007
Perry's Madea (the name comes from a southern term for "Mother Dear," not from Euripides) is based on his mother and relatives. "I can put that wig on and costume on, man, and say anything and it's OK because it's the character," says Perry. (The Clarion-Ledger)
Stage Review: Sondheim's 'Frogs' is ribeting musical Feb 21, 2007
In Aristophanes, the debate is for primacy in tragedy between Aeschylus and Euripides, with an underlying argument on behalf of comedy. Sondheim, Shevelove and Lane turn it into a debate between G.B. Shaw's intellectual dialectic and William Shakespeare's poetic insight, with an underlying argument on behalf of music. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, PA)
Greek archaeologists discover theater Feb 17, 2007
The works of Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides and Aristophanes were performed in the theater of Dionysos under the Acropolis. Originally a terrace where spectators sat on the bare earth above a circular stage, it was rebuilt in stone during the 4th century B.C. and could sit up to 14,000 people. (Herald Online, SC -- Health)
Wooten: Bulldoze public housing Feb 16, 2007
That was actually Euripides. By time for the truth. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
COLLEGE BRIEFS Feb 4, 2007
n Monday: The University of Scranton s Schemel Forum will begin the first session of an eight-week program on The Oresteia, by Aeschylus and plays by Sophocles and Euripides, presented by Joseph Wilson, Ph. D., professor of foreign languages. (Scranton Times, PA)
- Mary Beard Jan 16, 2007
But if the study of Greek and Latin in this country had been quietly stopped after the first world war (as nearly happened), this is how we would now all be experiencing Greek tragedy, for that was a quote from Gilbert Murray's translation of Euripides's Bacchae, published in 1904 ... In a Greek-less world, that would be about as close to Euripides as we could get ... His translation of Euripides's Trojan Women (a devastating exposure of the after-effects of armed conflict) was performed in... (Guardian Unlimited)
Review: Dancing In The Streets Jan 13, 2007
Ehrenreich quotes a description of their songs as "an extraordinary jumble of Hebrew, English, German, Greek and Italian." On the other side - as Ehrenreich sees it, continuing the voice of Dionysus' antagonist Pentheus, the young king who resists the god in Euripides' "Bacchae" - here is a Nazi directive for Third Reich dance bands, dug up by Michael Golston (presumably not a pseudonym for Mel Brooks): "On no account will Negroid excesses in tempo (so-called hot jazz) or in solo performances... (International Herald Tribune -- Arts)
Schemel Forum fills the gaps in learning Jan 7, 2007
The Oresteia by Aeschylus and plays by Sophocles and Euripides with Dr. Joseph P. Wilson, professor of foreign languages. Eight Mondays, Feb. 5 through March 26, 6 to 7:15 p.m., at St. Thomas Hall, provost s conference room. (Scranton Times, PA)
