Ten Plays Page 2

  Listen, for instance, to the late eminent scholar Moses Hadas (for whom I have enormous respect) falling into exactly this mistake in his translation of the Antigone.

  Sister Ismene, my own dear sister, do you know

  Of any ill of those bequeathed by Oedipus

  That Zeus does not fulfill for us two while we live?

  There is nothing painful, nothing fraught with ruin,

  No shame and no dishonor that I have not seen

  In your woes and mine.

  And now what is this new

  Edict of which men speak our captain has just published

  To all the Thebes? Have you any knowledge of it? . . .

  Alas, this is not the only way of slowing down the Greek. Here is Agamemnon replying to Clytemnestra’s fraudulent welcome in the Oresteia on his return from Troy.

  Off-spring of Leda, of my household warder,

  Suitably to my absence hast thou spoken.

  For long the speech thou dids’t outstretch! But aptly

  To praise—from others ought to go this favour.

  And for the rest—not me, in woman’s fashion,

  Mollify, nor—as mode of barbarous man is—

  To me gape forth a groundward-falling clamour!

  Nor, strewing it with garments, make my passage

  Envied, for a mortal on these varied beauties

  To walk—to me, indeed, is nowise fear-free.

  I say—as man, not god, to me do homage.

  Believe it or not, this is the great Robert Browning, one of my favorite poets. He has supposed that the best way to be faithful to Aeschylus is to reproduce Greek word order and syntax. The result is a translation that needs a translation.

  My own principle of faithful re-creation (for re-creation it must be if it is to live) is that one language best translates another when it is least like it and most true to its own genius. One language cannot take a photograph of another.

  This does not mean that they cannot share parallel qualities of sound. Indeed, they must if they are to engender the same emotions—even to the illusion, where possible, of a common rhythm. Greek and English, though etymologically so different, both love many of the same things. There is a preoccupation with cadence, which shows itself in a predilection for alliteration and assonance and the associative power of similar sound; there is attention to the well-timed pause and the break in the middle of a line; a love of antithesis of both sound and sense; there is a feeling for the symmetrical phrase as well as the asymmetrical as a means of emphasis; the use of repetition and parallelisms of speech for pointing up a phrase or creating pathos; there is joy in twists of expression, telling paradoxes, oxymora, litotes, and a whole host of figures of speech that put salt on the tongue and blood in the veins. And finally, Greek and English both insist on economy and clarity. (I have heard it said that in Greek drama there is no rhyme. This is not true. There is end rhyme and internal rhyme. However, in polysyllabic words rhyme often goes undetected.)

  One last and fundamental point: though Greek drama depended for its effect on an amalgam of the arts—spectacle, music, poetry, song, and dance—the most important element of all was speech. And it is through the ear ultimately that these great plays enter the psyche.

  The Choruses

  Though the choruses in Euripides are far less integral to the action of the drama (except in The Bacchae) than they are in Aeschylus and Sophocles, they are nonetheless important and a production that fails to make them effective will be irretrievably marred.

  Unfortunately some directors seem to find them an embarrassment to be got rid of as soon as possible. The key to success is to realize that the function of the chorus, psychologically, is to relieve the audience of dramatic tension after each episode and introduce a new tension, a lyric tension—one that hits below the belt.

  To accomplish this it is no more necessary that the words should be understood than it is, say, for us to understand a poem of Mallarmè, or Hopkins, or Dylan Thomas the first time we hear it; remembering always that poetry begins to communicate long before, or at least beyond the point at which, it is understood. I would even hazard a guess that the Greeks themselves understood very little of a chorus the first time they heard it. Which is not to say that it did not bowl them over.

  That is what a chorus must do. Though commenting on, recording, and condensing the action of the play,2 the chorus must transcend it, lift it to a new plane of experience. This it can only do if it is poetically different from the realism of each episode. The chorus should be emotionally convincing and sweep the audience off its feet in the way that music, dance, and mime can do.

  My own instinct is to turn the choruses into ballet. One has only to experience Martha Graham’s Oresteia to see how overwhelming that can be. The difficulty is, how does one train dancers to speak the lines superbly as they dance? The Greeks would not have dreamed of undertaking such a task without six months’ or a year’s training—and they were dealing with people who had sucked in poetry and dance with their mothers’ milk. I hardly think it possible.

  SOME SUGGESTIONS 1. Make the size of the chorus as large as is compatible with the size of the stage, remembering that twelve people are generally more impressive than three.

  2. The chorus must be trained in mime and dance.

  3. Rarely allow the chorus to speak directly (except of course when it takes part in the dialogue).

  4. Though there may indeed be occasions when voice-in-unison can be attempted, recitation in unison is difficult to bring off convincingly without being self-conscious and “arty.” The danger of splitting the chorus into different voices is that this too easily degenerates into mere dialogue, thus jeopardizing the incantatory power of the words.

  5. I favor having the words come “voice-over” the mime and dance, live or recorded, magnified and impeccably delivered.

  6. Choral dialogue, that is, lyric dialogue, must not be confused with the chorus used as dialogue. In choral dialogue the verbal orchestration of the words must function as verse given its full prosodic value.

  7. The verses of the chorus should be beaten out rhythmically with little attempt to make them sound “natural.” The design of the poetry must not be turned into prose. The design must be allowed to appear.

  8. All sorts of sonic experiments in the speaking or chanting of the choruses are not only permissible but to be encouraged. For instance, after a first straight hearing, the words can be fragmented into various patterns of repetition, cross-cutting, overlapping, truncation and so on. They can echo liturgical prayers and litanies, the English perhaps played off against the Greek, or conversely, turned into wounded animal sounds. Remember always that the aim is to make the chorus—both in sound and sight—breathtaking.

  9. The choice of music is crucial. There should be music throughout the drama: introducing scenes, repeating themes, coming in and out of both dialogue and choruses. Care must be taken, however, that whenever the words are pitted against the music, the words be given first place. The audience must not have to strain to catch the words above the music. As to instruments, I favor drum, flute, and lute, or guitar and harp, as coming nearest to the Greek timbal, flageolet, and lyre. (I once made a successful recording of the Antigone with the music of Moon Dog from the streets of New York with flute and drum; also a powerful performance of Oedipus Rex against the strident music of Varesi.)

  10. In general, let the director have enough faith and courage to cut himself off from being merely rational. The choruses must exhibit the beauty and surprise of their own design. They must be aesthetically irresistible.

  ALCESTIS

  ΑΛΚΕΣΤIΣ

  For Erica Lindgren and Raffaella Smith

  When Alcestis was performed in 438 B.C., Euripides was already an experienced poet and playwright with seventeen years of writing behind him. He placed the play, as if it were a comedy or satyr play, after the usual three preceding tragedies. Certainly he has tongue in cheek throughout, even though
the question he asks strikes at the roots of male and female assumptions in fifth-century-B. C. Athens. Can a man, a provenly decent man, let his wife die for him? To us, Admetus’ bland assumption that he can seems astonishing chauvinism, but among the Athenians watching the play for the first time and untouched by feminist enlightenment, the behavior of Admetus would have met with a certain sympathy. Euripides, however, has layered the action with so much pathos and irony that even they, surely, would have come away with questions.

  CHARACTERS

  APOLLO

  DEATH

  CHORUS, elders of Pherae

  MAIDSERVANT

  ALCESTIS, wife of Admetus

  ADMETUS, king of Pherae

  EUMELUS, son of Admetus and Alcestis

  SISTER OF EUMELUS

  HERACLES

  PHERES, father of Admetus

  BUTLER TO ADMETUS

  ATTENDANTS, guards, servants, citizens of Pherae

  TIME AND SETTING

  The past: The god Apollo in punishment for a misdemeanor was once constrained by his father, Zeus, to tend the cattle of Admetus in the plains of Thessaly. To reward Admetus for being a kind and just master he extracted from the Fates the promise that they would let Admetus off death when his time came provided someone else died for him. The only one willing to do this was his own wife, Alcestis.

  The present: The fatal day for Admetus’ death has come. As arranged, Alcestis is dying in his stead. People ask, “Is there no hope?” Apollo arrives to plead with Death for the queen’s life. Splendidly dressed as an archer, with bow and quiver, he steps into the city square of Pherae outside the palace.

  PROLOGUE

  APOLLO: Ah! house of Admetus where I was a lowly servant

  once,

  yes, I a god, and all because

  Zeus slew my son Asclepius,

  hurled lightning through his heart,

  and I in my rage slaughtered his one-eyed giants,

  the Cyclopes who forge his thunderbolts.

  For my punishment

  the Father made me flunky to a mortal man.

  So here I came, my host’s cattleman

  and staunch supporter of his house until this day.

  An upright man myself, I found an upright man,

  and by tricking the Fates I saved him from his time of death.

  Those ladies made this bargain with me:

  “We’ll let Admetus off his dying, for now,

  if he’ll exchange one body for another down below.”

  Well, he importuned and canvassed all his near and dear,

  including father and old gray-haired mother,

  and found absolutely no one

  to give up the light for him and die:

  no one, that is, except his wife.

  She’s limp in his arms this moment in the house,

  gasping out her last.

  Today’s the day she has to die and flit from life.

  But I’ve come outside the house, these friendly halls,

  I don’t want death’s contagion smeared all over me in there.

  [He sees DEATH emerge, drably and mournfully dressed with a drawn sword]

  Ah! no less than Death himself, the great undertaker,

  itching to take her down to the house of Hades . . .

  Right on time too!

  He’s been watching for this day—the day she dies.

  [DEATH lumbers forward with a snarl]

  FIRST EPISODE

  DEATH: Ha! You, Apollo!

  What are you doing here,

  prowling about outside the palace?

  Up to no good again, eh?

  Purloining the privileges of the powers below

  and canceling their privileges?

  Weren’t you satisfied with undoing Admetus’ death—

  tricking the Fates with a lowdown trick?

  Now you come armed with a bow

  to protect this woman, this daughter of Pelias,

  when it was all agreed with her husband

  that she should lose her life to save his.

  APOLLO: Say what you like, I’ve got my reasons—fair ones too.

  DEATH: Fair ones? With bow and arrow?

  APOLLO: You know I always carry these.

  DEATH: Just as you always cheat and help this house.

  APOLLO: No—just as I’m always sad to see a friend of mine in

  trouble.

  DEATH: So you do mean to cheat me of this second body too?

  APOLLO: I never forced you to give up the first.

  DEATH: Then why is he on earth, not under sods?

  APOLLO: Because he swapped life with the woman for whom

  you’ve come.

  DEATH: Exactly so, and soon I’ll drag her down below.

  APOLLO: Take her, then, and go . . . I doubt I can dissuade you.

  DEATH: Dissuade me from killing? Why, that’s my work.

  APOLLO: You should restrict it to carrying off the ripe.

  DEATH: I see what you’re leading up to with such warmth.

  APOLLO: Yes. Is there no way Alcestis can reach old age?

  DEATH: Certainly not. I enjoy some rights as well, you know.

  APOLLO: It’s only one single life you’re carrying off.

  DEATH: Ah, but young lives are more valuable.

  APOLLO: But think of the gorgeous funeral if she died old.

  DEATH: Tut tut, Apollo! Legislating for the rich!

  APOLLO: What, you a sophist too? I’d never have thought it.

  DEATH: Who would not buy Death off until old age?

  APOLLO: So you won’t oblige me with this little favor?

  DEATH: Of course not. You know my principles.

  APOLLO: I do indeed: loathsome both to men and gods.

  DEATH: You can’t just suit yourself in everything, you know.

  APOLLO: And you, ruthless though you are, you shall be stopped.

  A man is coming to the house of Pherae,

  sent by Eurystheus to fetch a team of horses

  from the wintry plains of Thrace.

  He’ll be a welcome guest in the palace of Admetus,

  and he’ll wrest that woman from you by sheer force.

  You’ll have no thanks from me in this, just my dislike,

  and yet you’ll do it.

  [APOLLO strides off as DEATH shouts after him]

  DEATH: Rant away. It’ll do no good.

  This woman shall go down to Hades.

  I’m on my way. My sword is ready.

  Every head of hair this blade has shorn

  Is dedicated to the nether gods forlorn.

  [DEATH slinks away as the old men of Pherae, the CHORUS, march slowly in. They divide into groups, chanting back and forth to each other]

  PARADOS OR ENTRY SONG

  [In a mood of consternation and bewilderment the old men ask one another if there is any hope of saving ALCESTIS]

  STROPHE I

  1: What is this hush inside the palace?

  Why is Admetus’ house so quiet?

  2: There is no friend at hand to tell us

  Whether we ought to weep for our queen

  As dead, or whether our lady yet

  Lives and looks upon the light:

  Alcestis, child of Pelias,

  Who seems to me and all of us

  The best of wives a man could get.

  3: Can you hear a keening note—

  Beating of hands inside the home?

  Or solemn wail of requiem?

  4: No one stands outside the gate.

  5: O come, Apollo through the foam

  Of seething woe and fate.

  ANTISTROPHE I

  1: They’d not be silent if she’d passed.

  2: She’s dead and cold.

  3: No cortege yet has left the house.

  4: How do you know? I wish I had your hope.

  1: Would Admetus have denied

  His noble bride

  The proper pomp?

  3: Nor do I see o
utside

  The vase of water from a spring,

  The lustral offering

  Put beside

  The portals of the dead;

  Or the clipped tresses in the hall

  Which mourners should make fall,

  Or the beating hands of girls.

  STROPHE II

  2: Yet this is the fatal day . . .

  3: Can you be sure?

  2: On which it is decreed for her

  To pass down below, to pass away.

  3: You break my heart, you bruise my soul.

  1: When the best of us so fade

  We who are loyal to the core

  Mourn for her shade.

  2: Nowhere on earth could one sail,

  Lycia or the vale

  Of rainless Ammon, where

  We could retrieve the soul

  Of this dying girl.

  3: The cliff of doom is sheer;

  What altars shall I near

  Or sacrifice prepare,

  ANTISTROPHE II

  What god could hear my prayer?

  4: Asclepius alone

  Were he alive again

  Could make her leave the gloom

  And portals of the night

  To come into the light.

  1: Yes, he could raise the dead

  Even if lightning sped

  From Zeus and struck him down.

  But now what hope is left

  For a life so bereft?

  2: Admetus has performed

  All the rites he can.

  All the altars fume

  With sacrifice and none

  Can bring the slightest balm.

  [A MAIDSERVANT has come out of the palace]