Greek Dramatics

 Ancient Greek drama on sacred Greek soil

My grandaughter Poppi phoned me the other day, before we locked-down, to say her class would be attending a performance of the greek drama Antigoni the next day and would I like to come and see and take some photos for my blog.  Of course I would! 

The play was being performed amongst the ruins of the Temple to Poseidon, mighty  God of the Sea, and the complex of buildings, meeting places and market in the surrounding area.

  I arrived exactly on time, expecting to wait, as is usual, another half hour before it began but they had started dead on time.  That was the first surprise.

The second surprise was that it was all in modern greek so even I could understand it.  I was captivated.

There they were, just Poppi's class, teachers, me and a few of the crew.  They sat on plastic modern day chairs amidst the olive trees, the ancient stones and excavations of this historical site .

I sat on this base of an ancient column and watched the actors making their entrances from the midst of the ruins, exclaiming the words of Sophocles

Antigoni is a tragedy with a lot of wailing, beating of drums.  It was written around 441BC.  All the main characters kill themselves for love of family  .  There is of course a lot more to it but I'm not going to tell you the plot here.

I enjoyed the play, the whole theatrical atmosphere.  It was extremely well done, from costumes to acting.  Congrats to this travelling troupe.  

The students weren't so enthused.  Ancient greek is a basic lesson in greek schools, just another subject which they must  pass but won't help them much in their future lives.  Just the way I thought about Latin 50 (odd) years ago.  What remained with me over the years was 'amo amas amat amamus amant' and I even had to google the verb to make sure my memory was correct.

 Any other Latin phrases like 'caveat emptor, ad nauseum or bona fide' I picked up mainly through the wide variety of books I read.