The Greek Play

Here is video of our cast members rehearsing while under the influence of those notoriously strong Dionysian spirits native to the Delphi environs. 

1. The first video shows Apollo and Thanatos (Megan Barrett and Laura Allan) practicing their opening debate about the wisdom of deal-making with the gods.

Apollo and Death at Delphi

(To get a sense of how well their voices carried in that theater with their talents, check out a few seconds of the same scene taken from high above.)

In the second video, Alcestis’ child (played by Spencer Cohen) sings in woe about her mother’s ‘loss of existence’:

Child Song at Delphi

Reese could hear the song all the way at the top beyond the seats of the theater!

They truly laughed and cried. More details soon, but the show was a hit in the beautiful theatre at the Skironio Museum.  Well done everyone!

The set is packed, the costumes are done, our last rehearsal is over, and my ‘wife’ is sick… oh no! Sadly, our Alcestis is feeling more than under the weather and the bus to the theatre leaves in less than an hour. But the show must go on! We only have one performance, one time to get it right, so we’re just going to put our heads down and power through this and hope we come out ahead. Hopefully Lily will feel better before the show, but we already have contingency plans in case she can’t join us. Other than that disaster (there’s always something), everything else seems to be going smoothly. We haven’t had the chance to perform in or even see our theatre yet, but we’re not bothered; we’re too good to be thrown off by that. We threw this all together in two and a half weeks and tonight we’re going to go out there and kick some ancient Greek drama butt! Break a leg everyone!

Here the cast practices outdoors in front of the 1896 Olympic stadium (note the white Olympic rings in the background).  Professor Cohen stood on a third floor balcony to see if she could hear everyone over the din of Athens traffic.  If not, then that actor had to project more forcefully.  Given how loud the traffic is around here, it was a tough test to pass!  

We’ve made the big time!  The Lynchburg News and Advance has interviewed a few of the students regarding our trip, and you can find the article here: Ancient drama at Randolph College.

In addition to theatre and drama, the Classical Greeks also delved into the plastic arts.  We saw this incredible marble sculpture in the Greek Archelogoical Museum.  The first is a marble sculpture of Pan making a move on the most beautiful being ever created, Aphrodite (with Cupid fluttering above).  As experienced by one of our recent American presidents, Pan is rebuffed with a shoe.  This led one of our students, Katrina Wiechmann, to dub Aphrodite the “slipper slapper.” 

One question the students pondered: Is this sculpture comic or tragic?  Let us know your judgment by clicking on “comments” below (click on each for larger image).

 Here’s one more sculpture, this time in bronze, of the god Zeus (or perhaps Poseidon — no one knows for sure).  It was unearthed and raised from the sea floor, having been lost in a shipwreck.  Even though he’s lost his thunderbolt, this is one bad dude, someone you definitely want on your side.  

Admetus and his servant/stage manager say “Learn your lines, or may you live a longer life than Zeus!”

I’m having a very hard time believing that we’ll all be leaving Athens in less than one week. I’ve grown to think of this city as home after my months here, and it’s going to be somewhat strange to leave it, stranger still to actually land in my real hometown after 10+ months out of the country. But until I can even think about boarding that plane, we have a play to do. This is the shortest amount of time I’ve had to work on a show, and the pressure to get everything done and perfect before the curtain on Thursday has made a lot of people a little high-strung, myself included. But I really believe that if we all buckle down and focus in these last few days, we can accomplish something great here. We might as well make the most of the time we have here to prepare; if it gets too hectic just remember, in 7 days, we’re home. And we will be victorious.

We are in the 12^th day of our time in Athens.  Does anyone else believe that?  I sure don’t.  It feels like we have both seen so much, and yet at the same time not even scratched the surface of all Athens and Greece has to offer.  Tomorrow we will rectify that in a small way by visiting Delphi.  If you know anything about Ancient Greece, you will know that Delphi was the location of the most important oracle in those times.  The oracle was called the Pythia and she sat over a fissure from which emanated noxious gases.  Once overcome, ‘wisdom’ came out of her mouth.  If there are any fans of the new BSG among the readers, you will recognise this from their mythology.

I am very excited to go there and see what I can see.  More at the end of the weekend.

PS The title is from the song ‘Umbrella’ by Rihanna.  We are using ‘ela’ in rehearsal instead of ‘line’, and therefore that song is in my head constantly!

Hello from Greece!!
So an update on the play, from a music crew member!!! The music is going well, We’ve finished writing the music for 2-3 of the 6 songs. Song 1, 3, and 4 are done, and song 2(Lily Knoble’s song) is 3/4 of the way done. The musical theme was originally composed by Megan Barrett in song one and the crew, composed of me, Megan, and Yayi have been composing songs similar in theme to the first song. So the lyrics for the fifth song are written out and awaiting music to go to. In relation to the music, the Choreography for the song 1 is just about done, and songs 2 (Lily’s song) and 3 (Spencer’s song) doesn’t need Choreography.Well, I’ll be off, talk to you soon!!
JLA  

After a week getting oriented and studying, a weekend away from the hustle and bustle of Athens was a welcome break for us all.  So, we took ourselves to the georgous seaside resort of Napflion. Swimming at this beach in the Aegean Sea refreshed us all.   

Below, Professor Schwartz and Helen Regina Cohen relaxing by the water in Napflion.  Behind them is a 15th century island Venetian fortress.