The National Theatre of Greece has scored a coup by streaming Aeschylus’s Persians directly from the Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus. This the first time that this has been done and the laudable production deserves to be followed with more opportunities for people around the world to see ancient and modern Greek drama.
Persians has many aspects that are unique to the play and it presents almost
insurmountable obstacles for a modern director and actors as well as for the
audience. It is the earliest extant play from the handful of works of Ancient
Greek drama that have survived. It was produced in 472 B.C. and deals with a
historical event, the defeat of the Persians at the battle of Salamis in 480
B.C., a battle in which Aeschylus took part. Most other plays dealt with
mythical subjects.
At its simplest,
the plot deals with Persian elders (the Chorus) and Queen Atossa, the wife of
the dead King Darius, learning from a Messenger of the colossal defeat of their
great army. Xerxes had amassed a colossal force to subjugate the Greek city
states and Athens in particular. It was a commensurately colossal defeat for
the Persians and a victory for civilization.
Lydia Koniordou as Atossa. Photo: Marialena Anastasiadou
The Ghost of
Darius also appears in the play as well as the dishevelled and desperately
defeated Xerxes.
Dimitris
Lignadis, the Artistic Director of the National Theatre of Greece, directs the
production and is the one who must find a way of presenting a play to a modern
audience even though we know very little about how it was done twenty-five
hundred years ago.
The Chorus plays
a key part in the play and it is the hardest aspect to deal with. We know that in Ancient
Greece they spoke (through the Chorus Leader or in unison), chanted, sang and
danced. In Lignadis’s production, they do all of those things to some extent. They
wear white shirts with Greek writing on them (I could not figure out what) and
skirts. They used long sticks resembling spears for some of their movements.
Choreographer Konstantinos Rigos has created simple but effective movements for
them with music by Giorgos Poulios.
Aeschylus used
various meters for the Chorus which are impossible to reproduce for us and it
is one of the losses that we must accept. We are treated to the recitation of a
few lines in the original Greek which resonated with the modern audience and
evoked applause.
The Chorus. Photo: Marialena Anastasiadou
Queen Atossa is
the main person in the play as the grand widow of Darius. Lydia Koniordou,
dressed in a black gown, evokes shock, grief and fundamental tragedy as she
realizes the extent of the Persian defeat and its meaning as the end of an empire
and her world. A bravura performance by a great classical actress.
The Ghost of
Darius comes from the underworld to witness the effect of hubris and the
resulting Persian catastrophe. He (Aeschylus, of course) warns against
overweening arrogance and cautions the victorious Athenians as much as he mourns
the fate of his empire. A superb performance by Nikos Karathanos.
Argyris
Pandazaras has the tough and thankless job of the Messenger who must disclose
in great detail the awful result of the great expedition.
Argyris Xafis
gives a fine performance as the blood-spattered and utterly humiliated Xerxes
who appears at the end of the play.
As I said it is
a laudable production, but it was not without glitches. There were problems
with the audio which was interrupted a number of times. I am not certain, but
it looked as if the actors’ spoken lines were pre-recorded and it was
impossible to synchronize the lip-movements with what we heard. These are
technical problems that may well be fixed if there will be futures
transmissions.
Transmission of
theatre and opera performances from numerous venues have become the norm. Let’s
hope that Greece will pick up the habit and make Greek drama, both ancient and
modern, more familiar to all of us.
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Persians by Aeschylus in a translation by Theodoros Stephanopoulos was performed
on July 24, 25 and 26, 2020 at the Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus, Greece. It was streamed live on July 26, 2020 and is now
touring around Greece. For more information visit: www.greekfestival.gr
James Karas is the Senior Editor - Culture of The Greek Press.
This review will appear in the newspaper.
