{"id":1412,"date":"2016-12-31T21:06:44","date_gmt":"2016-12-31T21:06:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/?p=1412"},"modified":"2017-01-02T17:13:11","modified_gmt":"2017-01-02T17:13:11","slug":"12-plays-of-xmas-5-alkestis-by-euripidesanne-carson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/2016\/12\/12-plays-of-xmas-5-alkestis-by-euripidesanne-carson.html","title":{"rendered":"12 Plays of Xmas: 5 Alkestis by Euripides\/Anne Carson"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"12plays-alkestis\"<\/a><\/p>\n

For most of these 12 Plays of Xmas, I can imagine how they might be staged, what tone the cast and production team might hope to achieve. But Alkestis\u2026 Alkestis<\/em> is just weird.<\/em><\/p>\n

Euripides\u2019 wrigglesome play was, according to translator Anne Carson, programmed after three tragedies in the Athenian festival of 438BC. \u2018It is not a satyr play,\u2019 she says, \u2018but neither is it clearly a tragedy or a comedy. Definitions blur.\u2019<\/p>\n

Carson\u2019s classical translations (her Antigone<\/em> for Ivo van Hove, her fragments of Sappho) are a great meld of voices. As a poet who writes aslant, bone-dry, she links smartly with Euripides, even as she distrusts him. \u2018I have had for some years on my computer a file called \u201cUnpleasantness of Euripides,\u201d\u2019 she says, \u2018in which I place at random thoughts on this subject, in hopes that the file will someday add up to an answer to the question, Why is Euripides so unpleasant?\u2019<\/p>\n

Alkestis<\/em> isn\u2019t the play to answer the question. Compared to other of the playwright\u2019s works in which spiteful gods toy with human hopes, in which people are exiled, abused, humiliated without pity, this play has a sort-of happy ending. Admetos, one of the Argonauts, is due to die, but the Fates agree to let someone take his place. His parents refuse; his wife, Alkestis, volunteers.<\/p>\n

However you cut it, this isn\u2019t a heroic look for Admetos. Before, during and especially after his wife\u2019s death, he is fuming with self-pity. The chorus \u2013 who in the grand tradition of choruses, isn\u2019t especially tactful (\u2018Your pain I understand\/ But it is to no avail\u2019) \u2013 eventually breaks, interrupting his wail about \u2018the empty desert of my bed\u2019 by snapping \u2018but you saved you.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

Heroism, of a kind, arrives in the shape of Admetos\u2019 pal Herakles, who blunders into the house of mourning en route to another of his labours. He marches off to reclaim Alkestis from death, but presents her to Admetos as an anonymous veiled woman; he claims to have won her at an athletic event (\u2018She isn\u2019t stolen, I got her by fighting\u2019).<\/p>\n

The end of the play might remind you of The Winter\u2019s Tale<\/em>: a husband\u2019s mysterious reconciliation with his apparently dead wife. Shakespeare\u2019s Hermione notably doesn\u2019t address Leontes (given that he publicly accused her of adultery, unjustly condemned her for treason and left their baby for dead, it\u2019s hard to know how that conversation might begin). Alkestis doesn\u2019t have quite as much reason for marital froideur, but it\u2019s perhaps just as well that she\u2019s forbidden to speak for three days, until \u2018purified of death.\u2019<\/p>\n

\"Big<\/a>

Big Dance Theater in Supernatural Wife (aka Alkestis), 2011. Photo: Christopher Duggan<\/p><\/div>\n

A snivelling widower; an oafish rescuer; a heroine deprived of a sign-off speech. Like I said, a weird play. Set in the palace doorway, it is transfixed between petty comedy and void-staring immensity. How might you pitch it in performance? Carson, whose translation was published in Grief Lessons<\/em><\/a> (2006), compares it to Hitchcock. Her text was performed in New York as Supernatural Wife<\/em><\/a> by Annie-B Parson\u2019s Big Dance Theater in 2011. I\u2019d have loved to have seen the tonal choices they made, line by line, moment by moment. It would surely have been quite a ride.<\/p>\n

Sample stage direction<\/strong> \u2018Enter Herakles with veiled woman.\u2019<\/em>
\nSample quote<\/strong> Admetos: \u2018IO! MOI! MOI! [cry]\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

12 Plays of Xmas<\/strong>
\nI have, surprise, a lot of books. And I have, surprise, not read them all. So, 12 unfamiliar plays, 12 posts: welcome to 12 Plays of Xmas.
\nOwners by Caryl Churchill<\/a>
\nBirth by TW Robertson<\/a>
\nRuined by Lynn Nottage<\/a>
\nThe Roaring Girl by Middleton & Dekker<\/a><\/p>\n

Follow David on Twitter @mrdavidjays<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For most of these 12 Plays of Xmas, I can imagine how they might be staged, what tone the cast and production team might hope to achieve. But Alkestis\u2026 Alkestis is just weird. Euripides\u2019 wrigglesome play was, according to translator Anne Carson, programmed after three tragedies in the Athenian festival of 438BC. \u2018It is not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1414,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[402,34],"class_list":{"0":"post-1412","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-12-plays-of-xmas","9":"tag-theatre","10":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1412"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1421,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1412\/revisions\/1421"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}