Diversifying Greek Tragedy on the Contemporary US Stage by Melinda Powers (review)

At first glance, Melinda Powers' Diversifying Greek Tragedy on the Contemporary US Stage might seem a surprisingly narrow slice of reception studies: nothing Roman, nothing comic, nothing Modern, nothing global, nothing nontheatrical. But it's the power of Powers' tome that it proves the enduring fascination (and versatility) of Greek tragedy: even within the relatively narrow ambit of her purview, Powers covers an impressive swathe of issues vital to contemporary performance in America, including non-white bodies and stereotypes; gender and drag; LGBTQ+ identity; and veterans' experiences, including PTSD. Some reception theorists—myself included—might be surprised by the absence of Charles Martindale as a theoretical frame: Martindale's famous definition of a classic as one that can serve as a (reiterative) vehicle for pluralistic "voices" might serve Powers' purposes nicely (Redeeming the Text, Cambridge, 1993, 28). But perhaps Martindale is too textual for her purposes: instead Powers draws especially on the scholarship of Sue-Ellen Case as well as Helene Foley and Marianne McDonald, each of whom is dedicated to the notion of performance as performance, not simply as text. Thus Powers bills herself a type of "cultural historian, examining the corporeal signifiers of each performance as if they were artefacts. Theatrical space, audience, performance style, and costumes are the material that I document . . ." (11). Because the extra-textual signifiers of performance are crucial to her research, she has largely confined herself to analysis of performances she has herself witnessed (which might account for the seemingly eclectic selection, with many from New York City, where Powers works). The book's five chapters, then, group about twenty performances into the headings above, with an entire chapter dedicated to Luis Alfaro's Chicano versions of Greek tragedy.

Chapter 1—"'The Black Body' in TWAS' MEDEA and Pecong and CTH's Trojan Women"—is an expansively titled but ultimately rewarding investigation of three Harlem productions of Euripides. It also shows a bit of Powers' polemical tone, as she chides critics for not paying more attention to Take Wings and Soar's Medea (2008), which received only one critic's review, even with famous actress Trazana Beverley in the title role. (So an admiring shout-out here to New York Theatre's intrepid Kat Chamberlain: we salute you.) TWAS' Medea presents for Powers an interesting study: it's a generally straightforward version of the play (designed in swanky, American threads, and with a formal-dinner vibe). But the cast is African American, and that one casting choice is enough to catalyze a whole host of issues, some interpretative and some distinctly American. Set against the backdrop of violence against black bodies in the United States, this Medea avoids the cliché of having a white Jason and a black Medea: "TWAS' production does not use the self/other, foreigner/Greek binary inscribed in the Euripides . . ." (32). Instead, this black Medea is herself "other-ized" by dint of her intersection of gender and race, a powerful reading of the title role (and predicament). In addition, the avoidance of translocation (to a specifically African or African American context) reinforces the idea that black and white America are "intertwined, not separate" (32). Contrariwise, TWAS' Pecong, a version of Medea, was specifically set in the Caribbean, thereby raising a host of other issues: this translocation transparently distances the "black body" from the classical text (41). In other words, translocation is also an act of bifurcation, of separating epochs and identities. A possible solution to the problem of translocation is introduced via the Classical Theatre of Harlem's Trojan Women which is here analyzed as a "double-conscious" translation: it interweaves the story of the Trojan War with that of the civil wars in Western Africa. As Powers elucidates, CTH's production may thus be read as ancient and modern simultaneously; it avoids the unfortunate division between "classical" and "diverse" that attends to some translocations of ancient tragedy.

Considerations of audience rise...