Aristotle`s Lyceum

Translation: Kostas Topouzis
Direction – Dramaturgy: Katerina Evangelatos
Choreography: Patricia Apergi
Costumes: Vasiliki Syrma
Original music: Eleftherios Veniadis
Οδυσσέας Οικονομόπουλος, Πλούταρ
Lighting design: Giorgos Tellos
Κόρνο: Νίκος Ανυφαντής
Sound design: Kostas Michopoulos
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Sound engineer:
Alexandros Diakos
Collaborating Architect: Ilia Tasioula
Photos: Christina Georgiadou
Haircuts: Talkin’ Heads
Assistants to the Director: Amalia Ninou, Eleni Tsimprikidou, Eleni Koutsioumpa
Actors (in order of appearance)
Argyris Pandazaras (Hector, Athena/Aphrodite), Ousik Hanikian (Aeneas),
Errikos Miliaris (Dolon, Odysseus), Lefteris Polychronis (Messenger, Diomedes),
Orpheus Avgoustidis (Rhesus), Prometheus Aleiferopoulos (Charioteer), Giorgos
Koutlis (Paris), Adrian Kolaritz (Chorus), Ilias Hatzigeorgiou (Chorus),
Democritus Sifakis (Chorus)
8th JULY – 9th AUGUST 2015
Directed by Katerina Evangelatos
Woman’s voice at the second stassimon: Amalia Ninou
Featuring Dimitris Desyllas’ percussion class from the Athens Conservatory:
Beatrice Alithinou, Daphne Andreadi, Aristides Lykos-Desyllas, Semeli Margariti,
Odysseus Ikonomopoulos, Plutarch Tsouris
Horn: Nikos Anifantis
Apart from the text of Rhesus also included in the play are fragments from the
following writings of Aristotle:
Space (Physica), Translated by R. P Hardie and R. K. Gaye
On Dreams, (Parva naturalia) Translated by J. I. Beare
Youthful type of Character (Rhetorica) Translated by W. Rhys Roberts
Aristotle’s Lyceum
The performance is a co-production with Lykofos-George Lykiardopoulos in
co-operation with: Ministry of Culture, Ephorate of Antiquities of Athens,
Central Archaeological Council, Athens Conservatory, Hellenic Armed
Forces Officers’ Club, Byzantine Museum.
Media Sponsors
co-production
with
On Euripides’(?) Rhesus
Why the question-mark after “Euripides”? Because Rhesus has been transmitted
as part of the corpus of Euripidean plays, but its Euripidean authorship was
called into question already in antiquity by a seemingly vocal minority of
(unnamed and otherwise unknown) critics. Still, most ancient critics held Rhesus
to be genuine Euripides; so did scholars in Late Antiquity and in medieval times.
In early modern times, doubts about the authenticity of Rhesus were voiced by
the Jesuit scholar M. A. Del Rio and the eminent French classicist Joseph Scaliger
(late 16th/early 17th century). Later scholars argued that Rhesus’ idiosyncrasies
in terms of dramaturgy are too numerous and too fundamental for the play to
be the work of Euripides or of any other major tragedian for that matter
(Hardion 1741): it must be the work of a namesake, which was inserted into the
Euripidean corpus by mistake (Valckenaer 1767). Later still, during the 19th
century, German classicists (Morstadt 1827, Hermann 1828, Hagenbach 1863)
demonstrated that, aside from its dramaturgical peculiarities, Rhesus’ language
and style are also too idiosyncratic to be compatible with the assumption of
Euripidean authorship.
These linguistic and stylistic peculiarities include a penchant for rare and
recherché turns of phrase, many of which occur only in Rhesus. Also, on a
number of occasions, the author of Rhesus seems to scour fifth-century
tragedians —mostly Euripides and Aeschylus—for flashy, eye-catching words or
expressions, which he pastes into his own text either unaltered or in new,
eccentric combinations. As a result, Rhesus’ language and style can come across
as a sort of colourful (or lurid) patchwork, its patches sometimes chosen from
the most disparate sources: not only fifth-century Greek tragedy but also Homer,
Archilochus, Pindar, even Aristophanes.
Indeed, more than any other extant Greek tragedy, Rhesus seems to include
deliberate nods to the distinctive style and ethos of Greek comedy. For instance,
when halfway through the play, the Chorus breaks suddenly into the orchestra in
hot pursuit of Odysseus, it is hard not to think of Dicaeopolis’ pursuit by the
chorus of grumpy old men in Aristophanes’ Acharnians. Moreover, it is quite
without parallel in Greek tragedy to have a Greek goddess (Athena) disguising
herself, onstage, as another Greek goddess (Aphrodite): one will have to look
into the mythological burlesques of fourth-century comedy for anything
remotely comparable. Finally, Rhesus’ boasts that a single day will suffice for him
to crush the Greek invaders into submission are perhaps reminiscent of the
braggart soldier, the miles gloriosus, so characteristic of Greek New Comedy and
especially of Roman comedy.
As a result of this multifaceted diversity of styles, it is impossible to
pigeonhole Rhesus into one of the familiar literary genres of Greek
antiquity. Was the author of Rhesus experimenting with boundaries
between genres, or was he merely undecided or unable to remain within
the accepted conventions of the Greek tragic genre? The latter possibility is
at least as likely as the former, if not more so. After all, Rhesus contains a
number of idiosyncrasies and faults suggesting that its author had not quite
mastered the art of playwriting. We have already mentioned the onstage
transformation of Athena into Aphrodite: this is quite an unnecessary bit of
stage action: it does nothing to advance the plot, and seems pointless from
a dramaturgical point of view; one is forced to conclude that it was
probably inserted as a piece of flashy but short-lived theatrical spectacle.
Furthermore, the debate between Hector and Rhesus’ Charioteer towards
the end of the play seems entirely futile: we, the audience, know already
that the Charioteer’s accusations are false (Hector did not mastermind
Rhesus’ murder); and when the truth comes to the fore from no less an
authority than the Muse herself, Rhesus’ divine mother, the Charioteer is
no longer there to hear it.
Despite his numerous faults, whoever wrote Rhesus seems to have been an
experienced man of the theatre (perhaps a professional actor?), who could
adroitly manipulate dramatic space and dramatic time, and was adept at
constructing brief, often disconnected, but always impressive and, indeed,
spectacular scenes. Rhesus is a far cry from the brooding solemnity of
Aeschylus or from the fascinating clash of unforgettable characters in
Euripides. Rhesus is above all a theatrical spectacle, and as such it deserves
our undivided attention.
Vayos Liapis
Associate Professor
Postgraduate Programme in Theatre Studies, Open University of Cyprus
(the article is written specifically for the programme of the performance)
The English surtitles are based on V. Liapis’s translation, originally published in his book
A Commentary on the Rhesus Attributed to Euripides (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012)
The performance couldn’t take place without the support of the Central
Archaeological Council and the Ephorate of Antiquities of Athens. Special
thanks to Eleni Banou, Sofia Moschonisioti and Niki Sakka for their
unreserved support.
We would like also to express our sincere thanks to Vayos Liapis, Platon
Mauromoustakos, Vasilis Kalfas, Eva Manidaki, Eleni Karampela, Nikos
Tsouchlos, Konstantinos Arvanitakis and Dimitris Desyllas.