| Communications and Development |  |
Published by Communications and Development
Christchurch audiences will be treated to an evening of lechery, buffoonery, cowardice, drunkenness and overall lack of decorum and sophistication when a rarely staged ancient Greek satyr play opens at the Old Queens Theatre later this month.
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| Associate Professor Robin Bond (left) and Dr Patrick O'Sullivan. |
Euripides’ Cyclops deals with the story, made famous by the epic poet Homer, of the encounter between the Greek hero, Odysseus, lost on his way home from Troy, and the man-eating one-eyed ogre, Polyphemos.
The production is funded by the University of Canterbury’s College of Arts and translated and directed by Dr Patrick O’Sullivan and Associate-Professor Robin Bond, both of the University’s Classics Department. The timing of the production will coincide with the 29th Meeting of the Australasian Society for Classical Studies at Canterbury from 27 to 31 January.
Dr O’Sullivan said Euripides’ Cyclops was the only complete satyr play to have survived to modern times.
“The satyr play is a serio-comic drama involving a chorus of satyrs — part-human, part-animal followers of Dionysos, the god of wine, emotional release and theatre,” said Dr O’Sullivan.
“Satyr drama — not to be confused with ‘satire’— comprised about one quarter of the overall output of such great dramatists as Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. These satyr plays were written by the tragedians themselves and dealt with the same sorts of heroic myths as tragedies, whose grandeur and seriousness they often parodied.”
Polyphemos represented all things uncivilised and brutish and was the prototype for cannibalistic ogres found in Jack and the Beanstalk and other folk-tales, said Dr O’Sullivan.
“Odysseus famously combines cunning, endurance and bravery in his conflict with the Cyclops. But, typically of satyric drama, his heroic pretensions are lampooned more than once by the outlandish figure of Silenos, the debauched father of the chorus of young satyrs, who ‘enjoy’ with their father a kind of ‘Steptoe and Son’ relationship. As it is, the satyrs find themselves enslaved by Polyphemos on the harsh and volcanic island of Sicily and long to be reunited with their patron god, Dionysos, through the heroic action of Odysseus.
“Among the main characteristics of satyrs are their lechery, buffoonery, cowardice, drunkenness and overall lack of decorum and sophistication, which frequently work to puncture the pomposity of others around them. These satyric features are in evidence in the play, but at the same time satyrs are immortal, often on the verge of disaster, but never quite suffering it; they are closer to Dionysos than mere mortals like us and could even be paradoxical founts of wisdom and virtue of sorts.”
Dr O’Sullivan said the comic influence of satyric figures was long and enduring, evident in such later creations ranging from Shakespeare’s Falstaff, and figures from Commedia dell’ Arte, to the Marx Brothers, Barrie Humphries’ Les Patterson, and Kramer from Seinfeld.
“And the later notion of the ‘wise fool’ — compare Forrest Gump or Peter Sellers in Being There — also has elements traceable to the satyrs of Greek myth and drama.”
Dr O’Sullivan has recently completed a commentary on the play and is also working on a book on satyric drama. Professor Bond has more than 20 years experience as an actor and/or director of ancient Greco-Roman plays, many based on his own translations.
For further information please contact:
Dr Patrick O'Sullivan
School of Classics and Linguistics
University of Canterbury
Phone: +64 3 364 2987 ext 8879
patrick.osullivan@canterbury.ac.nz