Classics Events
Oedipus, Actors of Dionysus, RGS Guildford Thursday 16th November 2006
Someone who knows the play may be surprised by some of the decisions made by the director. One of the unusual decisions was to depict Oedipus’s descent into madness with flashing red lights during the choruses. A more thought-provoking decision was the way Oedipus was shown at the beginning of the play to be violent and aggressive towards his subjects whereas I have usually viewed him as a kind and benevolent leader to start with. The director did however managed to stay close to the classical theatre techniques with rarely more then three actors on stage at once and each actor playing multiple parts. There was a lack of the chorus but this was overcome by two or three of the actors speaking the chorus parts together. All in all it was an interesting production of the play that was not afraid to experiment with the source material. (Nick Miller, L)
Classics Society Friday 20th October 2006
Mr Freeman, Head of Classics, delivered a wide-ranging seminar discussing the literary antecedents of the story told in Virgil’s Aeneid of Dido, Queen of Carthage. Using a variety of sources from Homer’s Odyssey and Apollonius Rhodius’s Argonautica he showed how Book 1 of the Aeneid, in which Aeneas reaches Carthage and is welcomed by Dido, is influenced more by Greek epic whereas Book 4, in which Dido finally commits suicide after Aeneas’s departure for Italy, is more influenced by Greek tragedy: examples were cited from a number of plays, including Sophocles Antigone and Ajax , Euripides Hippolytus, Bacchae and Medea. It was shown how Virgil adapted previous literature to create one of the most exotic and memorable tragic heroines in Western literature. The seminar appealed to those studying Latin, Greek and Classical Civilisation and was ideal preparation too for those about to leave on the Tunisia trip including a visit to Carthage reputedly founded by Phoenician Dido.
The poet Virgil flanked by the Muses of history and tragedy (Bardo Museum, Carthage)
David Raeburn seminar on Ovid’s Metamorphoses Thursday 12th October 2006
David Raeburn, OC, ex-headmaster of Whitgift School and still teaching undergraduates at New College Oxford came to give a seminar on Ovid to our Latin Specialists. After a brief introduction to the Metamorphoses as a whole comparing it to Virgil’s earlier epic The Aeneid he focussed on the story of Echo and Narcissus, Echo the nymph who fell in love with Narcissus but wasted away into a mere voice when rejected by him and Narcissus the beautiful youth who falls in love with his own reflection in a pool of water and eventually turns into a narcissus flower. Punctuated by readings from his own verse translation of Ovid’s work and the original Latin David Raeburn showed how Ovid combines verbal dexterity, sound and rhythm to create humour and pathos alternately in his version of this well-known Greek myth. David Raeburn, well known as the producer of many Greek plays in the original, is currently working upon a new translation of four of Sophocles’ plays.
Inaugural meeting of the Classics Society Friday 6th October 2006
Miss Welch introduced the topic of Hadrian’s Wall backed up by slides taken during the summer holidays when she walked the whole length of the wall from Carlisle to Newcastle.
The pupils were invited to consider the evidence that the wall itself provides for why it was built beyond the statement that it was built ‘to separate Romans from barbarians’. Forts, milecastles, tombstones and other finds now in museums were all considered to build up a picture of the purpose of the wall and what life was like for those stationed there.
‘Orestes' at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre September 20th 2006
Report by Giles Gibson, 2nd Year
A group of Carthusian classicists made the short trip to the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford to see a production of ‘Orestes’, loosely based on Euripides’ ‘Oresteia’ trilogy. The plot centred on the days following Orestes’ murder of his mother Clytemnestra. The set was simply but richly decorated, with an enormous golden door the most striking aspect of it. The director cleverly suggested the play’s classical roots with a circular stage hinting at the ancient orchestra and a group of dimly-light figures only slightly visible in the background, perhaps a reference to the presence of the chorus in the original play. The acting was as tortured and dramatic as one might imagine the original being, with the actor playing Orestes showing a guilt-ridden angst, torn between loyalty towards his murdered father and filial devotion towards his mother. The play ended on a spectacular note with the golden door becoming a roof from which Orestes fell to his death with flames rising around the stage. The play, if not completely accurate to the original text, was certainly thought-provoking and spectacular.