Art Like a Wheel
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FROM LEFT Travis Preston, dean of the CalArts School of Theater and director of Prometheus Bound. Climbing the “mountain” to join Prometheus, the daughters of Okeanos are transformed from princesses to revolutionaries. A matinee performance at the amphitheater at the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades. Mirjana Jokovic as Io: “devastated, caught up in an alien body…”
Laurel Kishi Almost always in the evolution of these productions, the sticking point for directors is that they can’t find adequate translations or adaptations. Joel Agee’s translation is very true. He took the play to the next level; it’s written from a poetic perspective. Joel Agee Translator I aspired from the outset to a fidelity, thought for thought and image for image, as complete as was possible without sacrificing imagination and vigor in my use of English. At the same time, wherever the original form could not be gracefully adopted, as was the case with the choral Odes, I needed to invent metric patterns of my own. There was also another challenge that could not be met by any technical means or aesthetic cunning. It was a sound, or perhaps more precisely, a tone—the noble, passionate resonance of a great tragic poem, speaking and sometimes chanting through superhuman personae, mortal and divine, in a register that would not be reduced to the cadences of realistic speech. And yet these same characters express emotions that are nothing if not human: pride, pity, fear, love, and that essentially democratic passion, hatred of arbitrary authority. Holding such competing tensions in balance is a normal and always satisfying part of a literary translator’s job. When one has the good fortune of engaging with a sublime work, there are less common rewards.
Gradually my own mind became the stage on which the revolt of Prometheus, the agony of Io, and the pity of the daughters of Okeanos were played out with ringing voices, and that in turn gave me an awed sense of participation in what must have been, at the time of the play’s first performance, a sacred event.
Norman Frisch Scholars believe that the Greek drama developed gradually out of religious ceremonies in which hymns were offered by a single priest or singer at festivals honoring one or another of the Gods. As these narrative hymns developed into “plays” (as we know them today), a second singer-speaker was added, creating the opportunity for dramatic dialogue, counterpoint and conflict—and a specially trained singing-dancing Chorus could interact with the two “characters” onstage, creating often a pattern of “call and response.” Ellen Reid Choral Composer and Music Director. CalArts alumna: Music mfa 11 I scored the sung moments with the women of the Chorus. We tried different approaches and decided that the most simple and elegant sound worked best–the music reflects the simplicity of the wheel.
Our top priority was the legibility of the text and for the shape of the sung line to come directly from the shape of the spoken line. The women first spoke the text, then I took the shape of their spoken line and turned it into a melody, almost like inflating and extending the text with the breath of song. The play required a lot of flexibility from the performers because things changed all the time throughout rehearsals. They had to quickly learn to move and sing at the same time, to blend and sing well together—but also to express themselves individually. I love narrative extended to music and this piece explored the space between speaking and singing in a very intensive and effective way. Amanda Washko Cast member, Chorus. CalArts alumna: Theater mfa 13 This was a once in a lifetime experience for us. Working chorally, we learned to feel the space and to hear each other, to interact and to concentrate in very different ways. We became one entity– always speaking and moving together, knowing exactly when everyone else was going to take a breath, but within that structure