Historically, English adaptations of Aeschylus' "Agamemnon" have rendered its ancient Greek poetry into proven English poetic forms. The results have been often good and occasionally brilliant. Yet the original Greek meters provide clues as to how a section of a play was performed (sung, spoken or spoken to musical accompaniment). This has prompted Alexander Harrington, a director known for his mastery of oratorical theater, to attempt something radical: approximating Aeschylus' actual, original poetic meters in a new translation. This intrepid idea has resulted in a script of surprisingly clear stage speech and unusual poetic quality. It will debut November 12 to 29, 2009 in La MaMa's large Annex Theater, performed by The Eleventh Hour Theatre Company.
The script is available for perusal at www.jsnyc.com/season/agamemnon.pdf.
The production will also feature an original score by Michael Sirotta, a principal composer of La MaMa's Great Jones Repertory, who is setting the sung and chanted sections to music.
Greek tragedy combined song, speech and musically accompanied speech (whether it was chant, recitative or underscored speech is unknown). The plays were written in verse, but of a different nature from ours. Greek meters are based on vowel length, while English meters are based on syllable stress. Some Greek meters (iambs, trochees, anapests, and dactyls) are easy to replicate in English; others cannot be exactly reproduced. Generally, the chorus' spoken dialogue was iambic; this is close to our every day speech. The principal characters for the most part also spoke in iambs. But in more lyrical sections, the chorus used a variety of meters. It makes the translation trickier, but it also presented Harrington and Sirotta their greatest opportunities for creativity, since it is the most evocative in a musical sense. Approximately half of the play belongs to the chorus.
An example of how the original meters affect the delivery of the text is below. Like most of the surviving tragedies, the first choral song of "Agamemnon" begins with a march written in anapests (in Greek verse "short-short-LONG," in English verse "weak-weak-STRONG"). This rhythm is well-suited to marching:
It's been TEN long, drawn YEARS
From when PRIam's great FOE
Lord MENalaos
With my KING AgaMEMnone;
The firm LEAGUEof the SONS
Of great ATreus' HOUSE,
Sharing THRONE and joint SCEPTER
From great ZEUS of the GODS,
Did emBARK from this LAND
Thousand SHIPS to comMAND;
The choral portions are divided into sections called strophes and antistrophes, whose meters must match exactly. This adds a structural rigor to the translator's job. In Harrington's adaptation, the metrical mirroring is strictly maintained. Thus the choral songs are made up of melodic twins in which every two verses have the same tune.
The "authenticity" idea in the poetry will be extended into the play's visuals. Scholars have deduced that the heroes of Greek satyr plays were costumed similarly to those of tragedies. The costume design by Rebecca Bernstein derives from an Athenian vase painting of a satyr play, showing actors in robes with elaborate graphic designs that are quite different from the plain white chitons and draping that are commonly associated with Greek tragedy.
The actors' faces will be painted to achieve the sculptural severity of masks while allowing for facial expression. This technique was used in Harrington's 2007 production at La MaMa, "The Burial at Thebes," Seamus Heaney's adaptation of "Antigone." The severe makeup enables The Eleventh Hour to adhere to the three-actor rule. Athenian tragedies were performed by an all-male chorus and three male actors who played all the principal roles, including women. In this production, some of these male roles will be played by women.
Alexander Harrington (director, translator) is the founder and artistic director The Eleventh Hour Theatre Company, for which he has directed "The Burial at Thebes," "Henry IV, Parts 1 & 2," "Henry V" and his own adaptation of Dostoevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov (Part 2)," all at La MaMa. His Eleventh Hour Theatre productions outside La MaMa have been "Richard II" at HERE and "The Brothers Karamazov, Part 1" at The Culture Project. His first production at La MaMa was the Richmond Lattimore translation of "Agamemnon" in 1997, before he founded Eleventh Hour Theatre. His other directing credits include "Billy Budd," "Twelfth Night," "Much Ado about Nothing" and the premiere of Edward Einhorn's "Linguish." His adaptation of "The Brothers Karamazov" was published in the New York Theatre Experience's anthology "Playing with Canons." As a scholar and critic, Mr. Harrington's work has been published in "Dissent" magazine, "First of the Month," "Upstart Crow," "Shakespeare Criticism, Vol. 89" and "Literary Themes for Students: War and Peace." Along with David Mamet, he is contributing an essay on political theatre to the upcoming anthology "New Threats to Freedom." Harrington teaches acting Shakespeare at HB studio and has taught at Clemson University and the Gallatin School at NYU. He was an original member of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab and a participant in The Actors Studio Playwrights/Directors Unit.
