Modern Language Review

REVIEWS Aristophanes inPerformance 42I BC-AD 2007: 'Peace', 'Birds', and 'Frogs'. Ed. by EDITH HALL and AMANDA WRIGLEY. London: Legenda. 2007. xix + 390 pp. ?48; $69. ISBN 978-1-90435o-6I-3. This volume, produced under the auspices of theArchive of Performances ofGreek and Roman Drama, contains an all-encompassing performance history of threeplays ofAristophanes' Old Comedy from their first performance to thepresent day.Aristo phanic comedy, despite its highly politicized, sexual, and time-bound humour, is shown to be the touchstone of comedy, influential from theRenaissance onwards. The three plays in question, containing fantastic journeys to heaven or the under world, explore ideas such as obtaining peace via a heroic journey on a dung-beetle to heaven to end thewar between Athens and Sparta (Peace), the founding of a new city inCloudcuckooland as ameans of escaping petty squabbles inAthens (Birds), and an expedition to the underworld to revive the greatest tragedian ofAthens in order to save the city (Frogs). The book charts the attempts ofmany centuries and writers to adapt this topical comedy to theirown times and preoccupations, and expands neces sarily into the other plays byAristophanes in order to fillchronological gaps. Edith Hall sets the scene with an overview ofAristophanes' reception from fifth-century Athens to thepresent day. Discussions ofAristophanes' early reception inantiquity's Second Sophistic (Ewen Bowie), theEnglish Renaissance (Matthew Steggle), and inEnglish translationswith their struggle tomake Aristophanes relevant to theircontemporaries (Hall) take the reader up tonineteenth-century and later reception (Section I). Section II maps out howAristophanes was translated rather thanperformed, treated either as a conservative author in support of the establishment, or radically rein terpreted by the anti-establishment (Charalampos Orfanos discusses why the per formance of Francois-Benoit Hoffman's adaptation of Lysistrata was suspended by Napoleon's censors), or adapted so as toengage with thecolonization of Ireland (Rosie Wyles onWealth inH.H.B.'s i659 translation,which was critical ofEnglish occupa tion) and India (Phiroze Vasunia on Dalpatram's I850 socio-moralistic pro-British adaptation intoGujarati as Lakshmi). The third and largest section discusses the inclusion ofAristophanes' plays in the theatrical repertoire. Staging Aristophanes moves fromnineteenth-century academic revival by university drama societies (Amanda Wrigley) to becoming a shortcut for protest against current politics and social injustice in the twentieth, including pro ductions by Karolos Koun of Birds (I959, revised I962: discussed by Gonda van Steen as politically explosive and influential and byAngeliki Varakis as a symbiosis ofGreek traditional and modern folk elements), and Peter Hacks's influentialPeace in I962 East Berlin, which treatsAristophanes as socialist yet in an anti-Brechtian Marxist interpretation (Bernd Seidensticker). The Shevelove-Sondheim collabora tion of 1974, studied byMary-Kay Gamel, turned Frogs into a musical, but with itsdramatis personae updated: Shakespeare and Shaw are controversially substituted for theAthenian playwrights of the original, exemplifying a process which is still ongoing inAristophanes' reception. Section iv continues the case studies of very recent productions. Political adapta tions of theplays could be seen and used as criticism of apartheid (theBirds of 197 I, discussed by Betine van Zyl Smit), or the texts could be viewed as precursors of typically French literarygiants such as Rabelais orVoltaire. Malika Bastin-Hammou explains the reflections of French wars and interest in new stage technology in the performances of, especially, Peace. In Italian theatreAristophanes was treated as reinforcing conservative cultural 8o8 Reviews elitism and as non-political, with the exception ofMarco Martinelli's All'inferno! (Martina Treu concentrates on the function of thechorus), and Ronconi's Frogs (dis cussed by Francesca Schironi), which displeased the then Italian president Berlusconi (2002). The problems ofmodern English translations of such a topical text lead Sean O'Brien and Michael Silk to two diametrically opposed assessments. The former moved the scene fromAthens tohis home town ofNewcastle upon Tyne, and had to accept resulting inconsistencies inhis text.The latterdiscusses translation problems on the verbal and rhythmical level of language and considers how best to stage the musical elements ofOld Comedy. The volume concludes with a comprehensive list ofAristophanes' translations up to 1920 byVasiliki Giannopoulou. Aristophanic comedy, as the volume shows, is eminently capable of adaptation by opposing political, moralistic, or aesthetic ideologies, and it is tobe hoped that future volumes in...