Books like The Greek Tragic Theatre — picked by fans

Choosing five books that might be the most useful for anyone contemplating a revival of plays that were created for a single performance nearly two and a half thousand years ago is a daunting task, one I could have undertaken many times over.

While no practitioner would be recommended to try to recreate the original production, all would be advised not to ignore the circumstances which have contributed to the plays’ survival as living dramas.

Peter Arnott was rare among classicists in that his approach was primarily from a performance perspective.

He was himself a director of note, but also a puppeteer whose solo productions of Greek tragedies and comedies were a good introduction to the reality of masked performance to players and audiences in the huge performance spaces where the Athenian festivals were celebrated and where the playwrights explored the potential of their new medium.

While the first two links are a good introduction to classical drama and theatre for the uninitiated, this third choice is different, a vast and unparalleled compendium covering productions of the whole corpus of direct and marginal translations of Greek tragedy on the English stage over some 250 years.

It is a work of reference rather than a ‘good read’, but it is a book into which I hope everyone would find reason to dip who believes in research as an essential feature of creative preparation for the new production of a ‘classic’.

The book is written by two of the most prominent and inspirational contemporary classical scholars whose prolific output in kindred areas of the classics and of theatre history has little rival.

Issues such as stage censorship, social and political change and translation bias show how the classical repertoire from Aeschylus through to Seneca has made it possible,… show more.

Despite a somewhat daunting front cover, this is a most engaging book.

It can be misleading to divorce an understanding of Greek comedy from that of tragedy. Both were performed on specific occasions and engaged their audiences through complementary approaches to dramatic performance.

Kenneth Dover, knighted in 1977 for ‘services to scholarship’, was a most inspiring of teachers and a writer on all aspects of the ancient world, never more so than this book on Aristophanes.

Here he confronts all aspects of Old Comedy from a playwright who, through a mixture of farce and fantasy, created an unparalleled portrait of daily life in ancient Athens, but whose works remained fully untranslated and unperformed in English right up to the later years of the 20th Century.

Dover shirks neither political impetus, nor the ribaldry, blatant sexism, and often wildly obscene behaviour of the characters.

This may seem a rather strange nomination as it is the catalogue for a remarkable exhibition, curated by Mary Hart at the J. Paul Getty Museum in 2010.

The main justification is that this was probably the greatest collection of illustrations of dramatic performances in the classical world ever displayed together, in pots, paintings, and artefacts. Though hardly a reliable guide to how Greek comedies and tragedies were originally staged, the various artworks are given contexts and explanations in accompanying commentaries.

Above all, what the book validates is the belief that the earliest Greek theatre emerged as a visual art form, never initially to be preserved in print. Today, we do have some 46 more or less complete playtexts, including a couple from New Comedy, which there is no space to champion here, but which also features strongly throughout the catalogue.

Thrilling portraits of violent women in Greek tragedy—for example, Clytemnestra, Electra, and Medea—seem like an anomaly in a society that expected women to get married, bear children, be quiet, and stay at home. In this accessible introduction to the subject Rabinowitz examines tragedy in its original theatrical and social contexts. Her analyses of selected plays are grounded in psychoanalytic and feminist theory, and include vivid accounts of some modern performances. Whatever is happening in the world, there is always a Greek tragedy that speaks to it. 

In the wake of Knutson’s work, a number of seminal studies of individual playing companies from Shakespeare’s London have appeared, but I particularly value Manley and MacLean’s for the prominence they give to the role of lost plays in the repertory of Lord Strange’s Men. This book normalised the understanding that if one is to study a company—its patron, its players, its performance venues (including touring), and its style—then one cannot do so without attending to the plays once performed by the company but which have since been lost.

I loved this story and how Suzy was willing to go the extra mile to make Christmas special for her friends. Suzy is a caring goose who would do anything to make the outside Christmas tree aglow with the brightest star in the sky. When she flies off hilltops and wanders far away from her friends, she doesn’t stay lost very long as her friend's onomatopoeia calls lead her back home, and Suzy discovers a special surprise on the tree. The book shows miracles do happen.

Today concerns over madness and disability are very much with us, especially if they connect with issues of power and masculinity. This was also true in the age of Shakespeare. Christina Gutierrez-Dennehy’s collection of essays on the topic of mad kings on the Renaissance stage is very readable and interesting, and tie in with contemporary issues. The book is divided into three sections: distracted kingship, fractured masculinity, and performed madness. The plays under discussion include Shakespeare’s King Lear, Hamlet, Macbeth, Richard III, Henry VI, and All’s Well That Ends Well. Gutierrez-Dennehy brilliantly and explicitly brings the topics raised in the collection into the twenty-first century. 

Ugh, this book! When Max’s mom dies of cancer, he imagines the tumor has taken up residence in his own brain as his way of dealing with his grief and anger.

As his anger grows, he is sent to this alternative school where he meets the colorful and off-beat Fish, a girl with pink hair and a past, and The Monk, a boy with a strange collection and secrets of his own. The thing I love most about this book is how Pixley brings in Kafka’s Metamorphosis and Shakespeare’s Hamlet to help Max process how he feels about his mother’s death.

Ahh, I’m crying again just thinking about it!

This book is an absolutely to-die-for rivals-to-lovers tale, sparked when Natalie is forced to team up with her long-time enemy on a musical in order to secure funding for the arts at their high school. Natalie’s evolving relationships with her family and friends are complex and brilliant, and I felt all the feelings about the interplay between art and ambition while reading.