Adaptations

SCRIPTS

 Prometheus 1.1a version of Aeschylus’ (?) Prometheus Bound was performed in 1998 at night in a parking lot near the UC Santa Cruz cogeneration station.

This production involved an original score by composer Ralph Denzer. Most of the characters sang, and the Chorus sang and danced. There were connections with current events in the U.S. and at UCSC; Prometheus was a professor. Greg Fritsch directed. You can watch the adaptation below:

Watch Prometheus 1.1 video(1998) – 1:34

Download annotated Prometheus 1.1 script

The Julie Thesmo Show, a version of Aristophanes’ Women at the Thesmophoria Festival, performed in 2000 at the Second Stage. Aristophanes’ plays are rarely performed (except Lysistrata) because they are filled with references to Athenian customs and events unfamiliar to modern audiences. In this play, the women of Athens are angry at Euripides for his negative portrayals of women in his plays, and they use the Thesmophoria, a campout for women only, to plot revenge. In my version the festival becomes a women-only daytime TV talk show, and the references to Euripides’ plays become allusions to Star Wars and Superman. Student Ali Al-Gasseir and I co-directed.

 

The Buzzzz!!!!, a version of Aristophanes’ Wasps, performed on the lawn outside the Cowell Provost House in 2006. Wasps involves contemporary Athenian political issues, so this version is literally located at UCSC. The lead characters are a professor and his mother, and many local issues are brought up; there are original songs by Santa Cruz composer Phil Collins, and alumnus Chris Grabowski (who had commissioned Medea) directed.

 

Helen of Egypt, a version of Euripides’ Helen, performed on the UCSC Mainstage in 2008.
The play is set in Egypt, and Helen declares that she never went to Troy; instead the goddess Hera punished Paris by creating a robot Helen, so the Trojan War was fought for an illusion; this seemed a very appropriate script as the “weapons of mass destruction” supposedly owned by Saddam Hussein were never found.  I “raised the stakes” by leaving it uncertain whether Helen really had been to Troy or not, Phil Collins provided songs, and UCSC faculty member Mike Ryan directed.

 

Orestes Terrorist, a version of Euripides’ late, rarely staged Orestes, performed on the UCSC Mainstage in 2011.
This was brilliantly directed by UCSC faculty member Danny Scheie. In this dark, radical version of events from the Oresteia and other plays, which features three teenagers who have experienced terrible violence and who take violent revenge, Euripides questions the idea that violence can lead to understanding justice, and suggests that gods are even less just than humans.