Friday 7.16: A Comedy

The thing about tragedy is that it's pretty universal. Betrayal, missed opportunities, spiraling depression; all things most everyone can relate to as being things that are not too great for the human soul. Tragedies play on emotion; anguish is the same in every culture; anger crosses language barriers. And that's why seeing Oedipus last week was so moving, even though I had a cursory understanding of the story and could only understand two words in the whole play. [They were "yes" and "no", if you were wondering]. Comedy, however, is different. Most comedies play on language. Things are punny, or not, and only groan-worthy if you know all the nuances of the language. And sure, it's might be funny seeing a bumbling guy being hit over the head with a can of beans, or also, whatever Mr. Bean does, but intellectual comedy is best done with wordplay.

The story of Lysistrata goes as such:

The city states are fighting and it's taking a toll on the women, who never see their husbands. To stop the war, Lysistrata gathers all the women from all the city states and they make a pact to keep celibate until the men stop the war. When the men come back from war expecting a warm welcome from their wives, they instead find themselves shut out and frustrated, they try to physically control the women. This doesn't work, as the women stand up for themselves and rally against the men. Finally, super sexually frustrated, the men decide to stop the war and begin peace talks and there is a giant party to celebrate the rejoining of man and wife.

It's a comedy, full of puns (on the word hard, for instance) and physical hilarity, but a little bit of the hilarity, which the audience around us seemed to thoroughly enjoy was entirely lost on us. It didn't help that we were super tired from getting to Epidaurus because we had to switch tickets to go to Nafplio (my fault entirely, from misjudging the time it took to get to the bus terminal) then only had 3 minutes to eat our epic hotdogs, suck down some drinks, and hike it to the upper tier.

So the first thing we notice as we walk up into the theater is this:

Now you tell me what a car is doing in the middle of ancient Greece. Obviously, the play was going to be a modern re-imagining, which was alright with me but strikes issue with the purists who like seeing the traditional costumes in the traditional theater space. While I would have loved to see that as well (and it was what I expected), the only real issue for me here was that it was much harder to follow the play, considering what I imagined the staging to be when I first read it a few years ago. I actually love seeing interpretations of well known stories, probably stemming from the Amazonian bird version of Midsummer Night's Dream I saw in middle school and I have long since recognized that there are no new story lines, only new takes on what's already been said. And I'm always up for a new take.

Speaking of Amazonian birds, the costumes here were epically fantastic, full of color and poof, a sort of a 1920s flapper nightdress-esque look. There were men playing women (obviously, a la John Travolta in Hairspray <3), women playing women, but, as far as I could tell, no women playing men. This may have been because the men's costumes consisted of black slacks and a black coat thing, making them all look like shirtless Batmen. Whenever they would do something dramatic, bam! All their capes came off and it was just a bunch of shirtless men [one of which had a giant red attachment on the front of his pants].

There were also segments of interpretive dance, which were really weird for me because I couldn't tell how they worked into the story. It was like So You Think You Can Dance meets...well...Lysistrata. And a black dress-white shirt+black tie couple who came in at the beginning and the end and were arguing about something [she threw her underwear at him and called him "Malaka" (wanker), which I had incidentally just learned from Marj] and then finally reconciled in the end. I suppose they were the token "modern" couple that this story applied to, but I couldn't really tell.

The most important thing I took from this was that while physical comedy is funny, and watching the frustrated men chase around the women did render a "hahahaha" from me, it wasn't as hilarious as it could have been. Exaggerations and caricatures aside, watching comedies for me is really about the language and the wordplay, nuances that I can't get here. It was awesome to have watched both a comedy and a tragedy in Epidaurus and it certainly opened my eyes to a world of modern ancient theater of which I could never have dreamed.

Btw. The dudette in the pink cottonball dress. Totally a dude.

Peace and love,
Angela

Friday 7.9: A Tragedy

So I'm still not sure exactly how this happened, but sometime between the hours I was at the Rome Fuimicino Airport and I got home, Liz, Shivani and I decided to go watch Oedipus Rex at the ancient theater in Epidaurus. And somehow, while I was still recovering from the epicness that was Rome, Liz organized, got all the tickets and transportation sorted, and before I knew what was going on, I just....went to Epidaurus.

Background on Epidaurus: The huge ancient theater has pretty much perfect acoustics and you can hear a match being struck from anywhere in the audience. The soft limestone muffles the audiences' murmurings while amplifying the actors' voices, so no one has to be miked. The epic mountains behind the theater is the backdrop for whatever play is being put on, so there is no need for a curtain or painted scenery, and even now, despite the light pollution from the lights at night, the stars are still bright and twinkling in the night sky.

To get to Epidaurus theater, there are special bus tickets that you can purchase for 10 Euro that take you straight to the theater. The last bus left from Terminal A at 5:15 and because I was a little bit late in getting out of the house, I had to really book it to Terminal A. I finally decided I would try to get a taxi, but 5 taxi drivers passed me by because they didn't know where the terminal was. This was a mystery to me because it's one of the two long distance bus terminals in Athens, and if you're a taxi driver, you should probably know where it is because lots of people take that bus out of the city. I even had the address and the name of the terminal written down for them and one of them told me to speak English when talking to him. Excuse me? I wasn't trying to speak Greek. *huff*

But I finally got a taxi driver who was totally sweet and drove fast to get me there as fast as possible. We cut it really close but I got there at around 5:12, three minutes before the bus was to leave. The important thing was that I got on the bus, and, from the night before, I conked out almost right away and awoke in the mountains of Epidaurus.

The occasion for the play was that it was part of the Hellenic Festival going on in Greece right now, full of art, music, and culture. So, there were a lot of people there to see the play. First, before anything, we ate these epic hot dogs, where they punch a hole in a baguette (with a machine like this). If you can't really tell, they stick the baguettes on these stake things, with the approximate diameter of a hot dog. This machine simultaneously toasts the buns and when they come off, ketchup and mustard are squeezed directly into the hole; then, the dog is dropped in. It was a super efficient way of preparing what were giant hot dogs, probably the most efficient thing I've seen in Greece all summer. In addition, there was none of the awkward extra bun situation, where the hot dog is just slightly short of the bun and you're left with that little bit of extra bun that you don't really want to eat but also don't really want to waste. This was the perfect fit of hot dog, bun, and condiments. The only drawback is that you couldn't control the number, kinds, or amount of condiments that went into your dog, but it was worth it. Also, this guy's windbreaker totally made our wait in line worth it.

After consuming our delicious hot dogs, we made our way up to the theater. The most amazing thing about this theater is that it's mostly stayed intact since the 4th century. And it doesn't look like it's been refurbished much. The 15,000 seats have been cleaned, for sure, and in some places, where the limestone had broken away too much, it had been replaced for continuity of the theater, but otherwise, it looked much like the one we had seen in Delphi. And it was full of people.

Because we had bought our tickets a little late in the week, we sat in the Upper Tier, in General Seating. This means, first come, first serve the best seats, and I'll just say that we got some pretty great seats. Here's the view of the stage

And the theater

And the three of us!

We made some British friends, one of whom geeked out with Liz about Classics. I think she missed having someone to geek out to Classics about since none of us are Classics majors, and being in Greece, didn't have anyone to really share her excitement with her. Most of the people on our trip are history majors, but focused on Western Europe in the post medieval period, so it's not really the same. And then you have me, who doesn't really like history to begin with (though this trip has changed a lot of my appreciation for it) and doesn't know anything about ancient Greece. She's constantly having to explain things to me and I am so grateful that I have her to do so. 

I think I would feel as she does if I went with a bunch of CogSci majors to explore CERN or something. Sure, they're nominally science majors so they can appreciate the amazingness of the LHC, but they don't have the same physical science background that you need to truly get what an advancement in particle physics technology this is. Being a chemistry major, particle physics was always my favorite part of physics (the only part I actually liked, in fact), so the LHC is just mindblowing to me, but I can see how if you didn't know the physics behind it [and I still don't completely know], something would get lost in translation. But I digress. I was just really happy that Liz found someone to squee with for a little while.

Before we knew it, the sky had darkened and the lights came out. The cast entered wearing these weird translucent robes, and at once, I knew this was going to be a more modern version of the play. And it was. If you can tell, the stage was made of these white blocks, and during the performance, the chorus would move these blocks to create a stage with holes in it, to give the play a more dramatic effect. Certainly an interesting interpretation. Although I'm not as familiar with Oedipus as some of the compadres, I was able to follow the story generally with Liz prompting me in my ear [the play was in the original Greek] and when Oedipus came out with his eyes gouged out, that was possibly one of the most epic and gross moments of the play. Even sitting from so high up, I was a more than a little grossed out; even now, thinking about it, I'm getting a little queasy but that may just be from the gigantic coffee I had this morning. 

The most amazing thing, though, was seeing everyone come out and start talking and singing. Without microphones. And being able to hear them. Let me explain: In the spring of 2010, Kelsey and Max decided to put on Man of La Mancha, a play/musical, and somehow I got roped into being in it and doing costumes. Because we basically had no budget and all of us were super busy, (me with Phoenix and Danceworks and the AACC and schoolwork), we did the whole thing with no sound system except the live orchestra, no light system except those that came with the venue, and no stage (the part of Stiles Dining Hall that we used was on the same level as the audience). And because we had an orchestra full of brass and woodwinds and percussion and no microphones, it was really hard to sing/talk over them. There were a lot of moments during rehearsal where, sitting in the front row, I couldn't hear anyone singing straight at me. Much of this was due to the acoustics of the dining hall, which really doesn't need acoustics anyway because it's a dining hall, and the loudness of the orchestra, and as a result, the lack of microphones hurt us a little bit. But don't get me wrong; the final product was AWESOME almost solely because of the energy of the cast. But I digress again. This was the reason I was so appreciative of the acoustics of the theater was that I was sitting super far up and yet, I could hear everything be said. Now if only I could understand it...

Let me just mention how gorgeous Jocasta's dress is. For reference, Oedipus is on her left.

The ride back to Athens was a little nervewracking if only because it took us a while to find the right bus. People were rushing everywhere and no one was particularly helpful, but at last, we got on a bus and made it. The time back to the apartment: 2 AM. Time to leave for Rhodes: 3 AM. Get ready...