Theatre Review: Classics in the Quad Angus Johnston (former FYP Director and Inglis Professor

from past and future generations, your ancestors and your descendants. Who you are includes other members of your family, and of your political community; it includes forces in the natural world. And it includes the will of the divine. Only by the end of the section do we start getting a sense of the human individual as existing already prior to these relations, but when this thought emerges – in ancient comedy, in sophistry, it appears not as a brute fact, but as a problem.

Encountering this idea right from the beginning of the programme is a wonderful important decentering act. With all the criticisms of the modern self which emerge towards the end of the programme, it is important to meet these ancient texts which do not seem to assume an independent self at all. They are not rejecting the idea of the self, since they have not even entertained it as a possibility yet. Exposing FYP students to thoughts this alien is one of the wonderful things about teaching in the programme.❧

RUTH BALLARD AS THE CRIERESS. PHOTOS BY ALEXANDRA BUFFY SWENY.

THESMOPHORIAZUSAE BY ARISTOPHANES REVIEWED BY ANGUS JOHNSTON

PHOTO FROM THE RECORD, 1986 COURTESY JANET HATHAWAY.

THEATRE REVIEW: CLASSICS IN THE QUAD

“…a revelation of ‘admirable talent’ – a shocking development…”

As someone who seldom visits King’s in retirement, I was so encouraged to see that the thirty year tradition lives on, in which students, many of them first year, scramble together, in the first weeks of the year (when they have little to do), a Greek play for ‘Classics in the Quad’. The Aristophanes play this year achieved the crucial end of these dramas: the recognition by both audience and players that one has to lose any form of self-respect and dignity if one is to learn what King’s has to teach us. That said, and it is meant as the highest praise, the production failed in a number of ways.

Firstly the night was far too warm and comfortable. It is the tradition at King’s that ‘Classics in the Quad’ is the form in which the bone-chilling side of Fall in Nova Scotia reveals itself. The drama starts in the late afternoon when there is still just enough sun to lull students into the sense that sitting on the grass, often in shorts, will be just fine. Then as the drama moves to its climax the audience, beginning to suffer the early stages of hypothermia, enjoys the play all the more for the euphoria verging on hallucination which results, and catches their death of something. (Thanksgiving break is often timed precisely to allow recovery from ‘Classics in the Quad’.) If the play this year taught us anything it is that seemingly objective things like the weather are really the work of imagination, context and narrative. In this respect then the production was a disappointment.

ABOVE : THE MUSICIANS AND CAST OF THESMOPHORIAZUSAE, DIRECTED BY VICKY COO.

And then there was the acting, the diction, the music, the perfect costumes and the dancing! An old friend, unconnected to King’s but who had attended many former productions, complained (at least that is how I took it) that, unlike many earlier stagings, he could hear clearly what the actors were actually saying. Traditionally, despite truly fine performances, because of wind, street noise and the general problems of open-air acoustics, part of the fun of being the audience was that you had frequently to guess at what exactly Oedipus, or whoever, had actually said. But now the major players , especially the women, spoke so well and projected so beautifully that this key aspect of the enjoyment of the play was denied to us. The direction and performance of the music and the dancing, the timing and unity of the choruses made me suspicious that they had been secretly rehearsing all summer in preparation. Virtually all the actors, and I mention especially Robbie Dryer as Mnesilochus, were in danger of turning that crucial loss of self-respect and foolishness I stressed at the beginning into a revelation of ‘admirable talent’ – a shocking development which should be discouraged. Despite the fact that they were undeniably hilarious.

But the greatest flaw was that the production was so irrelevant to our times. For this I blame ‘Classics in the Quad’ itself, the director, Vicky Coo, and, of course, Eli Diamond, who has inflicted Aristophanes on Foundation Year, and who must have rejoiced at seeing some of the speakers of Plato’s Symposium actually appear on stage.

But how can a play in which serious issues are constantly and cunningly being turned into questions of mythical nationalism, personal self-created heroic narratives, and into matters of gender and sexual histrionics speak to us?❧

Cast (all first-years):

Mnesilochus - Robbie Dryer Euripides - Maximilian Makarov

Agathon - Daniel Halpern Servant - Ebi Helmke

Cleisthenes - Levi Clarkson

Policeman - Samuel Owen

Dancing-girl - Lucia Helder

Crieress - Ruth Ballard

Chorus - Ella MacDonald, Riel Clark, Gill Gawron, Ellen Zagar, Frances Grace Fyfe, Maddy Hanzlik-Meech, Iloe Ariss, Dominique Amit

Several FYP students were involved in the crew as well.

Sophie Winer played flute and Olivia Malley played harp. Chelo Gonzalez designed the poster, and Morgen Grandy, Dylan Leiper, and Sophie Vaisman helped make costumes.

PHOTO BY ANGUS JOHNSTON.