Diversifying Greek Tragedy on the Contemporary US Stage by Melinda Powers

Abstract

Reviewed by: Diversifying Greek Tragedy on the Contemporary US Stage by Melinda Powers Karelisa Hartigan (bio) Melinda Powers. Diversifying Greek Tragedy on the Contemporary US Stage. (Classical Presences) New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2018. Pp. x + 230. $81.79. Greek drama on the American stage: a good thing. The ancient classics speaking to the contemporary world: another good thing. An author who bases her discussion on productions of Greek-based plays that she has seen: a third good thing. I looked forward to reading Melinda Powers' recent book. But as I began, I realized I should have looked more closely at the first word in her title, diversifying. The plays, their writers, and their production companies were indeed truly diverse, and their scripts far removed in meaning and message from the Greek originals. Powers has done a masterful job in collecting evidence for these plays: her research has been extensive. Every page is filled with quotations and the bottom margins full of notes. She writes that these theatre artists use the ancient texts to "develop a new syncretic, mythological mix that reflects the needs, concerns, and anxieties of a democracy in the present" (2). Powers follows the leads these new "adaptations" of ancient dramas offer, stating, "I work as a critic and historian of contemporary, live performance and its role in creating and reflecting social, cultural, and historical contexts, while articulating questions related to US identities" (12). The book comprises an introduction and five chapters, each addressing a different contemporary social issue. Chapter 1 examines the relationship between ancient Greek drama and African American communities using plays produced by two Harlem-based theater companies, TWAS and CHT. In each discussion, Powers chooses a lens through which to view the shows; here she views them as illustrations of "the black body," the strategies used by the companies to negotiate cultural ideas about standard views of Greek drama and those of "the black body." In this allotted space, I cannot summarize the plots of the updated scripts (Trojan Women and two versions of Medea), but to illustrate how changes are made, I note that the Classical Theatre of Harlem's Trojan Women relocates the action to civil war in Sierra Leone and uses the tragedy "as a framework to explore the violence of war and its repercussions for the global community" (42). But the set, an urban station, serves to implicate western views on black identity. In her discussion of these plays, Powers accepts the agenda the black productions assert. Chapter 2 addresses the use of Greek drama in urban Latinxs communities. Powers writes that, unlike the African American theater, Latinxs "do not have an extensive historical relationship with the genre" (51). She focuses on three plays by Luis Alfaro, who adapted Sophocles' Electra and Oedipus Tyrannus and Euripides' Medea as modern Latino dramas. As Alfaro's versions range far from their ancient originals, an audience unfamiliar with them might not easily follow the changes. One oddity Powers repeats throughout: she gives in her notes a plot summary [End Page 535] of the Greek plays but does not offer a similar review of the new versions. Like most readers of this book, I know the Greek texts but was unaware of the story line of the Electricidad, Oedipus El Rey or Mojada. The several illustrations within each chapter do allow the reader to see how the companies produced the plays. Powers' lens here, taken from Alfaro's teaching, was "executing stereotypes." Although she devoted about 31 pages to this issue, I found it hard to understand if "executing" was to be understood as destroying or performing. But throughout, Powers/Alfaro illustrate how the characters in the Greek dramas play into the Latinxs stereotypes held by mainstream America. The vendetta justice of Sophocles' Electra is well repeated in Alfaro's Electricidad, where the characters believe in the "cholx code of gang violence" (60). Powers connects the issues in Alfaro's plays with contemporary events: mistrust of the police, the poverty of cholx neighborhoods, the abuse and drug addiction found there. In Oedipus El Rey, social conditions replace the ancient oracles in predetermining the destiny of members of the Latinx communities. Alfaro's...