Performing Greek Drama In Oxford : And the Balliol Players on Tour
By: Wrigley, Amanda (Author).
University of Exeter Press. Published: 31/01/2010. Audience Guide: Tertiary Education (US: College), Professional & Vocational.
Hardback. Sourced from U.S.A.
"Performing Greek Drama in Oxford" is an absorbing celebration of the performance and reception of Greek drama in Oxford. Amanda Wrigley traces enduring connections between antiquity and dramatic performance in modern Oxford, and discusses the landmark events from the 16th century to the 1970s. This performance history of classical texts, especially those by the Greek dramatists, illuminates contemporary responses to debates on such matters as the position of women students, the 'dangers' perceived to be associated with undergraduate acting, and the position of classics within the curriculum at the University of Oxford. The book consistently engages with the history of theatrical performance of ancient plays beyond Oxford, for example, John Masefield's "Boars Hill Players", Penelope Wheeler's Greek plays at the Front, and the link with the London stage through companies touring to Oxford, such as that led by Sybil Thorndike. Many of these engagements with Greek drama were facilitated by the connection with the classical scholar Gilbert Murray, who plays a central part in the history. In a substantial section of her book, Amanda Wrigley looks beyond the walls of the University.
In the early 1920s a group of Balliol College students, fired by missionary enthusiasm, determined to take Greek plays in translation around the south and west of England in their summer vacation. This tradition lasted for over five decades, during which earnest productions of Greek tragedy (performed publicly for large, rowdy audiences in outdoor settings, and privately for figures such as Thomas Hardy) soon gave way to satirical and irreverent Aristophanic re-writings which were typical of the late 1960s. Item Details
ISBN10/13: 085989844X/9780859898447
TITLE: Performing Greek Drama in Oxford
CONTRIBUTORS: Wrigley, Amanda (Author)
IMPRINT: University of Exeter Press
PUBLISHER: University of Exeter Press
FORMAT: Hardback
PUBLICATION DATE: 31/01/2010
SUBJECT: History, Literature, Performing Arts, General History, Plays & Playwrights, Theatre & Drama
DIMENSIONS (Width x Height): 150mm x 230mm
PAGES: 320
AUDIENCE GUIDE: Tertiary Education (US: College), Professional & Vocational
ILLUSTRATIONS: illustrated
CONTENTS: List of Illustrations; Abbreviations; 1. Introduction: performing antiquity in Oxford, 1500s-2000s; 2 The academic drama in the humanist curriculum and culture of Oxford; 2.1 William Gager's defence of acting; 2.2 Catalogue of plays in the 16th and 17th centuries; 3. 'The Young Men in Women's Clothes': from the classical burlesques of the 1860s to the 1880 Agamemnon; 3.1 Classical burlesques in Oxford and the great London scandal; 3.2 The 1880 Agamemnon and Jowett's sanction of drama; 4. Productions in ancient Greek by OUDS, 1887-1914; 4.1 Alcestis in 1887: melodrama in the New Theatre!; 4.2 Aristophanes revitalized: music and 'stage business' in the 1892 Frogs; 4.3 The importance of Hubert Parry's music in OUDS' Aristophanic tradition, 1897-1914; 5. Women, war and Gilbert Murray; 5.1 Robert Bridges' Demeter at Somerville College, 1904; 5.2 Penelope Wheeler, Greek plays at the Front, and the Boars Hill Players; 5.3 Sybil Thorndike and post-WWI productions of Murray's translations; 6. OUDS, college and Playhouse productions, 1920s-1960s; 7. The Balliol Players, 1923-1927: social idealism and performances for Thomas Hardy; 8. Balliol Players, 1928-1939: 'a first-class excuse for legitimate vagabondage'; 8.1 The end of one era, and the beginning of another; 8.2 The film of the 1934 Ajax; 8.3 Towards the Second World War; 9. The Aristophanic Balliol Players, 1947-1977; Bibliography; Appendix 1. Production chronology; Appendix 2. Prosopography; Appendix 3. Note on archival material in Balliol College, APGRD, and the Bodleian; Index.
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