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#greekdrama
review
Super_Jane
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Pickpick

3.75/5 🌕🌕🌕🌖🌑 #greekmythology #plays #theban

review
Andrea313
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Pickpick

The author's personal narrative here is not always overly compelling, but the account of the work undertaken is phenomenal. Theatre of War makes an ancient tradition alive and present on military bases, in hospice centers, carceral institutions, homeless shelters, mental health facilities and more, doing exactly what theatre, at it's best, is meant to do- challenge, inspire, heal, create community, and bring us into dialogue and reflection.

17 likes1 comment
blurb
Andrea313
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I'm a big believer in the power of applied theatre, and was very excited to discover each of these titles in small bookstores as I traveled earlier this year. It feels like they'd be good companion reads so I'm starting now with the tagged book. We'll see where it takes me! #SeeMoreTheatre #DoMoreTheatre #ActOut

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Andrea313
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This week I pulled out the original recording of The Gospel at Colonus, one of my favorite pieces of theatre- a setting of "Oedipus at Colonus" as a modern parable within the frame of a Black Pentecostal church service. The music is incredible, and a gospel choir serves as our Greek chorus. It inspired me to re-visit the original, as well as Antigone- both still absolute bangers. And yes, that is a CD because the dream of the 90s is ALIVE, y'all!

25 likes1 comment
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Bookwomble
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Mini #BookHaul 📚
Sophocles' Theban Plays is in a matching Penguin edition to the Satyr Plays I bought earlier in the year. It's long annoyed me that Penguin nearly always print the original published date, not the publication date of the volume in hand. This one says 1947, but I think it may be a little later than that.
I wasn't aware that Graves had written a time travel fantasy. It has mixed reviews!
A text book for work to add to the other ⬇️

Bookwomble ... 50-odd text books I haven't read yet!
Donny! is a jokey present for a friend who adores Mr O. Written in 1973, it reads a bit creepily from the bits I've scanned. I'm sure she'll love it, though!
Ringworld Engineers is also a gift, this one for my daughter. Being stranded without a book, she picked up Ringworld from a 2nd hand shop as she recognised it as one I'd gone on about since she was a child, and she enjoyed it! Score one for dads! 😁
1y
LeahBergen Oh my God, that Donny Osmond book! 🤣 1y
Aimeesue Graves? Time travel? The mind boggles 1y
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batsy So jealous about that edition of the Theban Plays! 😍 1y
Bookwomble @Aimeesue I was intrigued to see Graves in the sci fi section and had to check it wasn't some other Robert Graves! It seems to sharply divide reviewers! The time travel element seems to be a mechanism for establishing a utopian/dystopian society that Graves can then wax philosophical about. 1y
Bookwomble @batsy It's nice, isn't it? 😃 When I checked the Satyr Plays, the cover design is slightly different, and the price is 2/6, rather than the one shilling of the Theban Plays, so it may actually be closer to the original publication date than I initially thought. I do wish 🐧 had properly dated their books, though! 1y
30 likes6 comments
review
batsy
The Dyskolos | Menander
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Mehso-so

It doesn't seem right to rate a play that doesn't have its text fully intact/available, but Menander's sophisticated and supposedly more nuanced New Comedy made me miss Aristophanes's buffoonish, rambunctious, and wildly imaginative Old Comedy. Aristophanes's dad jokes had a sting to them. I read the translation by Norma Miller, titled Old Cantankerous, and it's basically like if Frasier's dad was the lead character in an ancient Greek play.

sarahbarnes 😂😂 1y
AnnR So funny, Batsy. That would have been a play worth seeing. ❤ Frasier. Loved that series. 1y
Megabooks 🤣🤣 1y
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batsy @Ann_Reads Thanks 😁 Frasier was such fun. I just couldn't help thinking of it while reading this play! 1y
CarolynM 🤣 But does he have a cute dog? 1y
batsy @CarolynM Sadly, does not have his own Eddie 😂 1y
82 likes6 comments
review
CoveredInRust
The Dyskolos | Menander (of Athens.)
Pickpick

Short and funny. Glad this one was found in the 60s. Definitely recommend!

blurb
CoveredInRust
The Dyskolos | Menander (of Athens.)
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And now....Bastet and I will switch to classical.

review
batsy
The Frogs | Aristophanes
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Pickpick

The last I met Dionysus, he was a fearsome, wily figure in Euripides's masterpiece, The Bacchae. Lest I get too caught up in the grandeur & the outsized emotions of tragedy, Aristophanes sets out to set me right with The Frogs. In this comedy, we meet Dionysus the goof, who is tired of the Athenian tragedians & their pedestrian offerings, & wants to travel to Hades & bring the master, Euripides, back from the dead. As it turns out, Euripides too

batsy is a bit of a dunce. With one memorable chorus of frogs, & through a series of absurd tests, Euripides & Aeschylus compete to see which poet deserves to be resurrected. Plot twist: it's not who you think it is! Aristophanes goes off on the classical tragedians in this, but his special ire is reserved for Euripides. Tellingly, Dionysus's slave Xanthias comes off as the smartest, most lucid-thinking person around. I found this fresh, witty, & funny. 1y
batsy I read the translation by David Barrett. 1y
mabell In one of the Cat Who‘s, Qwill read the play to his cats, who loved the sound of the frogs. Pretty wild sounding on audio! I wondered what it looked like in print. 1y
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Aimeesue Natalie Haynes did a great overview of Aristophanes on her podcast (NH Stands Up for the Classics.) I remember it vividly 😂 One of my favorite podcasts. 1y
batsy @mabell The version I read it has it "translated" as "brekekekex, koax, koax!" ? But that's a fun fact. Is it a series you enjoy? I've always meant to check out at least a book or two but never got around to it. 1y
batsy @Aimeesue Ooh! I did not know she had a podcast and that name is right up my street 😁 I'll be sure to check it out (and also her books; I quite enjoyed the short story she contributed to the new Marple anthology). 1y
mabell That‘s about what it sounded like! 😂 I love the series - I‘m a Lilian Jackson Braun groupie. She was a brilliant writer. She took the simple format of the cozy, yet infused it with literature, theater, music, and information on a myriad of topics. George Guidall‘s audio really complements her stories, too. I definitely like some better than others, of course. 1y
Aimeesue @batsy Enjoy! It's a lot of fun 1y
batsy @mabell That sounds fab. Just like what I need at the moment so I'm reminding myself to check out the first one soon before I get distracted by other books! 1y
mabell So to continue over-explaining 😆, the first five or so books are quite different in setting, as Qwill hasn‘t yet inherited the fortune and moved to Pickax (rural northeast central US.) They are part of Qwill‘s story, so if you would be interested in the whole series, I‘d say go ahead and start with 1. If you just want to sample, I‘d pick one more in the middle. For the last 3/4 of the books, the characters & locations are recurring (beloved 😄) 1y
batsy @mabell Thank you for this explainer! It's been very helpful. I'll be sure to tag you when I give it a try 🙂 1y
BiblioLitten @Aimeesue It is one of the best podcasts I have listened to. @batsy You‘d love it! 1y
Aimeesue @BiblioLitten I am legit sad that I've listened to all the episodes. Consoling myself by listening to the You're Dead to Me podcast, which is history + humor, hosted by one of the Horrible History dudes. It's *almost* as good, though nobody's ever going to beat Haynes' recap of the Odyssey, imo. 😋 1y
batsy @BiblioLitten That's great to know! 😁 @Aimeesue I've heard of that podcast, and it's another I'll add to my ever-growing list 😆 1y
86 likes2 stack adds14 comments
review
vivastory
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Pickpick

As translator Aaron Poochigian summarizes in the intro, " Considering life in Athens litigious & stressful, two Athenians, Peisthetaerus & Euelpides, head into the wilderness to find Tereus the Hoopoe, leader of the birds, & to make their home there." Peisthetaerus & Euelpides convince Tereus & the other birds to build Cloudcuckooland, a grand border city between humans & the Gods to regain their mythical majesty. A zany comedy w/ some ?

vivastory interesting commentary underneath. 2y
batsy Aristophanes is so over the top! And it intrigues me to think about the audiences he was writing for, who obviously were into this kind of absurdist. 2y
batsy *absurdism 2y
vivastory @batsy I completely agree. It makes me wonder about lost plays that could have anticipated Beckett & Ionesco. 2y
73 likes5 comments