0771NOTOrestes_Barton

0771NOTOrestes_Barton

Ovid Met. 10.1-85
Apollodorus Libr. 1.3.2

John Barton, Tantalus: an ancient myth for a new millenium (directed by Peter Hall, 2000) a cycle of 10 plays requiring ca. 12 hours to perform.

The over-arching title and the mise-en-stage articulate the mythological importance of Tantalus, from whom the entire family of the Atreidai (and indeed all human beings) descend. We are all descendants of Tantalus. Because of our tainted forebear, we totter ever on the brink of destruction. The huge rock looms forever above the characters' and audience members' heads (e.g. Telephus p. 82). Because the cycle ends (Erigone p. 486) with the marriage of Orestes and Erigone, the play cycle very much deserves to be read as an expansive oresteia. (Cf. Morford & Lenardon, ed. 10, p. 453.)

This remarkable cycle of plays embraces the entirety of the Trojan War and the myth of the House of Atreus. Composed much in the same mode as classical dramatists wrote, Tantalus was commissioned for premier at Denver, Colorado under the direction of the Royal Shakespeare Company. —review by A. Horowitz, Theatre Journal 53 (2001): 320-24. PrjctMuseorJSTOR

Horowitz's observation on the staging of Agamemnon and Cassandra embracing in Troy (p. 322) goes to the heart of Barton/Hall's brilliant adaptation, both traditional and innovative at once.

OGCMA slides are designed by Roger T. Macfarlane for use in Classical Civilization 241 courses at Brigham Young University.
The present resource contains information assembled for The Oxford Guide to Classical Mythology in the Arts, 1300 - 1990's, edited by J. Davidson Reid (Oxford 1994), and it is used with express permission from Oxford University press.
Address concerns or inquiries to macfarlane@byu.edu.