Posted by matthewd on Thursday, June 1, 2017 in 2017 Blog post.

For our final class field trip of the Maymester, we journeyed to Siracusa, an ancient Sicilian city located in the south eastern part of the island. We spent two nights there, one of which we got to see a Greek tragedy “The Phoenician Women” by Euripides. It is based on the same story as Aeschylus’ play “Seven Against Thebes.” The play’s plot is quite confusing, but is roughly centered around two brothers, Polyneices and Eteocles, and their struggle to decide who ought to rule Thebes, after their father Oedipus is no longer fit to rule. The play has a persistent theme of patriotism, as both brothers want to rule the land but end up being destructive and dying from mortally wounding each other.

The play was significantly different than a standard play that you go to in the US. Most obviously, it was in Italian so it was necessary to use a translator which consisted of a black box, headphones, and a woman translating each line in sync with the actors. This proved to be the first challenge, as it was necessary to focus on both the actors and the translator. However, I believe this made me focus harder on understanding the play, which as a result led me to follow it better than plays in the US, like Shakespeare.

Also, what was very cool about this play was that it was outside in an ancient Greek theatre, which was equally beautiful and practical. Although the theatre is similar to ones we have previously seen, it was eye opening to see it completely filled in order to give an idea of what it was like in ancient times.

The play itself was also different in the sense that there wasn’t really any backdrop, fancy props, or setting changes. This left a lot of the play open to the imagination, and put more emphasis on the actual acting. The actors were extremely dramatic, which was necessary considering the nature of the play.

To be honest, I was surprised how packed the play was for being an ancient Greek tragedy, and how into the play the crowd was. People in the US are more concerned with contemporary forms of entertainment, and if this was shown in the US, I doubt as many people would come. In conclusion, I believe this stems from the fact that Sicily has a great amount of pride in their past, as it has shaped the culture that we see today. It is this reason why Sicily has great preservation of their historical sites and is such a great tourist destination and place to study abroad.

Stage

Crowd