Greek Tragedies as Plays for Performance

David Raeburn has recently retired from a stipendiary Lectureship in Classical Languages at New College in the University of Oxford,UK, where he previously held the Grocyn Lectureship in the Faculty of Literae Humaniores. Before that, he spent more than 40 years as a Classics teacher and headmaster of two secondary schools. He is the co-author of The Agamemnon of Aeschylus (2010) and translator of the Penguin Classics editions of Sophocles' Electra and Other Plays (2008) and Ovid's Metamorphoses (2004). His research interests include Greek tragedy and Augustan poetry in Latin. He has directed over 30 full-scale or workshop productions of 18 of the 33 extant Greek tragedies, performed either in the original language or in translation with school and university students.

"A remarkable guide to recapturing the sights and sounds of Greek tragedy. David Raeburn draws on his long experience as teacher, translator and director to show in detail how a selection of famous plays can be studied – in English or the original Greek – as scripts for performance. He has plenty of thought-provoking discussion of the stage action to offer, and a special feature is his guidance on the rhythms of the original poetry, especially the choral lyrics, with audio recordings easily accessible online."—Pat Easterling, Cambridge University (Emeritus Regius)"An invaluable book written with love and detailed understanding. It is based on a lifetime's unique experience of producing each of these classical plays as a teacher and scholar at the highest level, therefore without equal in its field. Again and again Raeburn sees what these plays need for their staging and interpretation, largely because he has faced the challenge of putting them on the stage, whereas most classical commentators have not. He goes clearly and concisely to the heart of them in a style which all who read, produce, or have to study them will appreciate. A landmark both for our theatres' actors and directors and for those in schools and universities who want to be taken to the central issues of each play and the ways in which character, speech, movement, and setting interrelate."—Robin Lane Fox, Oxford University"This engaging enterprise will undoubtedly be most useful to classroom teachers and anyone interested in how Greek drama was originally staged or trying to mount an 'authentic' production today." (David Stuttard, Classics for All)

• Preface ixAbout the Companion Website xi1 Introduction 12 Aeschylus 153 Persae 214 The Oresteia 335 Sophocles 816 Antigone 877 Oedipus Tyrannus 1058 Electra (Sophocles) 1239 Euripides 13710 Medea 14311 Electra (Euripides) 15712 Bacchae 173Appendix A: Glossary of Greek Tragic Terms 189Appendix B: Rhythm and Meter 191Index 195