100 books like The Art of Ancient Greek Theater

Choosing five books that might be the most useful for anyone contemplating a revival of plays that were created for a single performance nearly two and a half thousand years ago is a daunting task, one I could have undertaken many times over.

While no practitioner would be recommended to try to recreate the original production, all would be advised not to ignore the circumstances which have contributed to the plays’ survival as living dramas.

Peter Arnott was rare among classicists in that his approach was primarily from a performance perspective.

He was himself a director of note, but also a puppeteer whose solo productions of Greek tragedies and comedies were a good introduction to the reality of masked performance to players and audiences in the huge performance spaces where the Athenian festivals were celebrated and where the playwrights explored the potential of their new medium.

If Arnott’s approach makes it easier to understand and appreciate how Greek drama and theatre were part of a performance culture in classical Athens, Baldry’s widens that perception to the much broader social and political climate of ancient Greece, from the likely ‘invention’ of tragedy and comedy in Athens at the end of the 6th Century BCE, to their development throughout the Greek world over the next two centuries and survival to our own time.

The whole sense of this new art form, a synthesis of storytelling, poetry, music, and dance, which developed as a kind of living and moving sculpture, is a hard one to take in all at once.

What Baldry offers is a brief but clear introduction to the background of both tragedy and comedy for anyone whose awareness of the potential of plays and players only begins with Shakespeare. He is both readable and a reliable… show more.

While the first two links are a good introduction to classical drama and theatre for the uninitiated, this third choice is different, a vast and unparalleled compendium covering productions of the whole corpus of direct and marginal translations of Greek tragedy on the English stage over some 250 years.

It is a work of reference rather than a ‘good read’, but it is a book into which I hope everyone would find reason to dip who believes in research as an essential feature of creative preparation for the new production of a ‘classic’.

The book is written by two of the most prominent and inspirational contemporary classical scholars whose prolific output in kindred areas of the classics and of theatre history has little rival.

Issues such as stage censorship, social and political change and translation bias show how the classical repertoire from Aeschylus through to Seneca has made it possible,… show more.

Despite a somewhat daunting front cover, this is a most engaging book.

It can be misleading to divorce an understanding of Greek comedy from that of tragedy. Both were performed on specific occasions and engaged their audiences through complementary approaches to dramatic performance.

Kenneth Dover, knighted in 1977 for ‘services to scholarship’, was a most inspiring of teachers and a writer on all aspects of the ancient world, never more so than this book on Aristophanes.

Here he confronts all aspects of Old Comedy from a playwright who, through a mixture of farce and fantasy, created an unparalleled portrait of daily life in ancient Athens, but whose works remained fully untranslated and unperformed in English right up to the later years of the 20th Century.

Dover shirks neither political impetus, nor the ribaldry, blatant sexism, and often wildly obscene behaviour of the characters.

Thrilling portraits of violent women in Greek tragedy—for example, Clytemnestra, Electra, and Medea—seem like an anomaly in a society that expected women to get married, bear children, be quiet, and stay at home. In this accessible introduction to the subject Rabinowitz examines tragedy in its original theatrical and social contexts. Her analyses of selected plays are grounded in psychoanalytic and feminist theory, and include vivid accounts of some modern performances. Whatever is happening in the world, there is always a Greek tragedy that speaks to it. 

A unique and insightful look at how three groups fought back against their widespread stereotyping in the media of the early 20th century, and how two of them largely succeeded in changing these portrayals. The reasons why African-Americans were much less successful than Irish and Jews in fighting stereotypes are complex and fascinating, and hold lessons for us today.

This excellent collection of articles by the top connoisseurs of East European art and culture discusses how Ukrainians and Jews created new trends in art and literature in the midst of the revolutionary turmoil Kyiv, then short-lived capital of the Ukrainian People’s Republic and later of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. This book proves that avant-garde images and trends emerge from the revolutionary utopianism and the desire to create a universalistic language understandable beyond the ethnic divide and languages.

Violets are Blue is told from the heart of twelve-year-old Wren. It explores the confusion and heartache that comes from an unexpected divorce, shifting friendships, and a mom’s alarming and erratic behavior. It is an emotional story that uniquely shares life’s messy feelings while gently and thoughtfully introducing the difficult topic of opioid addiction. It also introduces readers to the world of special effects make-up. Violets are Blue is beautiful, complex, and full of heart. Wren’s journey will spark challenging conversations and promote empathy.

I read this biography in 1972 when it was first published; I was in high school. Twenty-two years later I would write my novel that was clearly inspired by Houseman’s detailed and absorbing account of his theatrical career—particularly his collaboration with the 21-year-old Orson Welles whom Houseman immediately recognized as a dangerous firestorm of talent. Their years together and the eventual destructive splintering of their partnership make for a story that will stay with you. It made this young person feel that with sufficient nerve, talent, and vision, I might accomplish anything—which is exactly what you should feel when you’re young.

The chronology of my Shakespeare-era novels hasn’t reached The Tempest, but I love how this novel features a production of the play—in a prison. The relation of the inmates to their roles and the protagonist’s personal crisis give Prospero and his island new life in a setting also set apart from society. I enjoyed how the characters come to realizations about Shakespeare’s play as they rehearse, the goal of my own novels from a different angle. Many spinoffs from Shakespeare use his plot devices, but Atwood relies on The Tempest for her plot. Each ‘best’ novel here reveals new visions to the reader and gains plot and suspense from the links to Shakespeare. Though my goals aren’t identical to these authors', their works offer inspiration.