Homicide, Revenge, & Marital Disasters: Reception of Greek Drama in Rome, England, & Japan

Catalog description

(1) We examine theater and its relation to society, particularly, its reflection of legal culture (detections of murderers, adulterers, and young lovers); we also examine law’s ‘theatricality’ (‘productions’ of trials). (2) We also explore more broadly how dramas were performed, using as comparanda Japanese Noh and Kabuki (in each, for example, we find all-male casting). (3) Attention is also directed toward twentieth century receptions of these plays; we focus largely on Japanese productions, particularly of Yukio Ninagawa, mastermind of Japanese theater who directed numerous Greek tragedies and Shakespearean plays in different venues, absorbing and subverting phenomena of traditional Japanese theater.