Twentieth-Century Plays Using Classical Mythic Themes: A Checklist

Twentieth-Century Plays Using Classical Mythic Themes: A Checklist SUSAN HARRIS SMITH While the relation between classical mythological and modem drama has been amply documented in books and articles, no substantial checklist of plays has been available. The only previous attempt, George E. Bush's and Jeanne R. Welcher's "A Check List ofModem Plays Based on Classical Mythic Themes" (Bulietin of the New York Public Library, 73 [1969], 525- 530), cites a mere 107 plays. The present list cites over 740. It embraces not only the clear-cut examples of "modernized myths" (the Electra plays of Hofmannsthal, Giraudoux, and Braun), but also plays that make important or indirect use of classical myths (O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra, Eliot's The Cocktail Party, and Orton's The Erpingham Camp), some idiosyncratic translations (Yeats's version of the Oedipus trilogy), and a few opera librettos, musicals, films, and radio scripts. The checklist is as comprehensive as I could make it, but I would welcome whatever additions and emendations that might be suggested. Locating examples of myth in modem drama, beyond the obvious examples , is difficult and tedious work. The titles of plays can be quite deceptive: for example, Heym's Atalanta, Usigli's Alcestes, and Johnston's Weep for the Cyclops, none of which concern classical myths. Often the title of a play contains no suggestion of its mythic content (Wilder's The Drunken Sisters and Abel's The Wives). In many instances, the relationship between the content and the source may be purely allusive, though thematically important (Shepard's Icarus's Mother, Innaurato's Ulysses in Traction, and Cocteau's Bacchus). Therefore, a list of this kind cannot be comprehensive or free of subjective interpretation. The sources for this checklist range from major reference works such as Myron Matlaw's Modern World Drama, Jacob Landau's Studies in the Arab Theater and Cinema, Alfred Straumanis's Baltic Drama: A Handbook and Bibliography, and the Annual Bibliographies in Modern Drama, to countless Twentieth-Century Plays Using Classical Myths III books and articles that treat the subject of classical mythology and modern drama. Among the books are: Angela Belli, Ancient Greek Myths and Modern Drama; Hugh Dickinson, Myth on the Modern Stage; Thomas E. Porter, Myth and the Modern American Drama; Lia Seeci, Ii mito greeD nel teatro tedesco espressionista; Frank Chandler, The Contemporary Drama of France; Leo Aylen, Greek Tragedy and the Modem World; W.K. Jones, Behind Spanish American Footlights; and Christoph Trilse, All/ike und Theater heute. Some of the most useful articles are: Stanislaw Stabryla, "Mit w dramacie XX wieku," Ruch Literacki, 8 (1967), 189- 199; P.l . Conradie, "The Treatment of Greek Myths in Modern French Drama," AnnaLe Universiteit van StelLenbosch , 29, series B, NO.2 (1963), 25 seq.; and Manfred Fuhrmann, "Myth as a Recurrent Theme in Greek Tragedy and Twentieth-Century Drama," New Perspectives in German Literary Criticism (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, (979), pp. 295- 3'9. Of the journals which have devoted special issues to the subject, at least two should receive special notice: Modern Drama, 12, no. 3 (r969), and Cahiers du Sud, '9, no. 219 (1939). I am enormously indebted to Charles A. Carpenter, who has directed me to many of these sources and who has assisted me in some specific research problems. The list begins with plays published or produced in 1898, in order to include early significant works of Andre Gide. While there was a revival of the classic tradition in the late nineteenth century beginning with Leconte de Lisle's Les Erinnyes (1873) and L'ApolLinade (1888), most such plays are stiffadaptations uninformed by the modem spirit. Many of the early twentieth-century plays included in this list are in the same formal style. The plays are grouped according to the mythic subject: the principal character in the work or a collective topic (for example, THE GODS, CRETE, or TROY). Where necessary, cross-references are given (for example, BACCHUS; see DIONYSUS and THE BACCHAE, or ANTIGONE; see also OEDIPUS). Under each heading, the plays are listed alphabetically by author with the title in the original language where possible. The date given is the first date available, either for...