Reviewed by:

• Diversifying Greek Tragedy on the Contemporary US Stage by Melinda Powers
• Karelisa Hartigan (bio)

Greek drama on the American stage: a good thing. The ancient classics speaking to the contemporary world: another good thing. An author who bases her discussion on productions of Greek-based plays that she has seen: a third good thing. I looked forward to reading Melinda Powers' recent book. But as I began, I realized I should have looked more closely at the first word in her title, diversifying. The plays, their writers, and their production companies were indeed truly diverse, and their scripts far removed in meaning and message from the Greek originals.

Powers has done a masterful job in collecting evidence for these plays: her research has been extensive. Every page is filled with quotations and the bottom margins full of notes. She writes that these theatre artists use the ancient texts to "develop a new syncretic, mythological mix that reflects the needs, concerns, and anxieties of a democracy in the present" (2). Powers follows the leads these new "adaptations" of ancient dramas offer, stating, "I work as a critic and historian of contemporary, live performance and its role in creating and reflecting social, cultural, and historical contexts, while articulating questions related to US identities" (12).

The book comprises an introduction and five chapters, each addressing a different contemporary social issue. Chapter 1 examines the relationship between ancient Greek drama and African American communities using plays produced by two Harlem-based theater companies, TWAS and CHT. In each discussion, Powers chooses a lens through which to view the shows; here she views them as illustrations of "the black body," the strategies used by the companies to negotiate cultural ideas about standard views of Greek drama and those of "the black body." In this allotted space, I cannot summarize the plots of the updated scripts (Trojan Women and two versions of Medea), but to illustrate how changes are made, I note that the Classical Theatre of Harlem's Trojan Women relocates the action to civil war in Sierra Leone and uses the tragedy "as a framework to explore the violence of war and its repercussions for the global community" (42). But the set, an urban station, serves to implicate western views on black identity. In her discussion of these plays, Powers accepts the agenda the black productions assert.

Chapter 2 addresses the use of Greek drama in urban Latinxs communities. Powers writes that, unlike the African American theater, Latinxs "do not have an extensive historical relationship with the genre" (51). She focuses on three plays by Luis Alfaro, who adapted Sophocles' Electra and Oedipus Tyrannus and Euripides' Medea as modern Latino dramas. As Alfaro's versions range far from their ancient originals, an audience unfamiliar with them might not easily follow the changes. One oddity Powers repeats throughout: she gives in her notes a plot summary [End Page 535] of the Greek plays but does not offer a similar review of the new versions. Like most readers of this book, I know the Greek texts but was unaware of the story line of the Electricidad, Oedipus El Rey or Mojada. The several illustrations within each chapter do allow the reader to see how the companies produced the plays.

Powers' lens here, taken from Alfaro's teaching, was "executing stereotypes." Although she devoted about 31 pages to this issue, I found it hard to understand if "executing" was to be understood as destroying or performing. But throughout, Powers/Alfaro illustrate how the characters in the Greek dramas play into the Latinxs stereotypes held by mainstream America. The vendetta justice of Sophocles' Electra is well repeated in Alfaro's Electricidad, where the characters believe in the "cholx code of gang violence" (60). Powers connects the issues in Alfaro's plays with contemporary events: mistrust of the police, the poverty of cholx neighborhoods, the abuse and drug addiction found there. In Oedipus El Rey, social conditions replace the ancient oracles in predetermining the destiny of members of the Latinx communities. Alfaro's...

审核人：

• Melinda Powers在当代美国舞台上多元化的希腊悲剧
• 卡雷丽莎·哈蒂根 (bio)

美国舞台上的希腊戏剧：一件好事。古代经典与当代世界对话：另一件好事。一位作者将她的讨论建立在她所看过的希腊戏剧作品之上：第三件好事。我期待着阅读梅琳达·鲍尔斯最近的书。但当我开始时，我意识到我应该更仔细地看看她标题中的第一个词，多样化。这些戏剧、他们的作家和他们的制作公司确实非常多样化，他们的剧本在意义和信息上与希腊原著相去甚远。

鲍尔斯在为这些戏剧收集证据方面做得非常出色：她的研究非常广泛。每页都充满了引文，底部空白处充满了注释。她写道，这些戏剧艺术家使用古代文本来“发展一种新的融合的神话组合，以反映当前民主的需求、关注和焦虑”（2）。鲍尔斯跟随这些古代戏剧的新“改编”提供的线索，他说：“我是当代现场表演及其在创造和反映社会、文化和历史背景中的作用的评论家和历史学家，同时阐明与美国有关的问题身份”（12）。

这本书包括一个介绍和五个章节，每个章节都针对不同的当代社会问题。第 1 章使用两个位于哈莱姆的剧院公司 TWAS 和 CHT 制作的戏剧来考察古希腊戏剧与非裔美国人社区之间的关系。在每次讨论中，鲍尔斯都会选择一个镜头来观看节目；在这里，她将它们视为“黑体”的插图，这是公司用来协商关于希腊戏剧标准观点和“黑体”观点的文化理念的策略。在这个分配的空间中，我无法总结更新脚本（特洛伊妇女和两个版本的美狄亚）的情节，但为了说明如何进行更改，我注意到哈莱姆特洛伊妇女的古典剧院将行动转移到塞拉利昂的内战，并利用这场悲剧“作为探索战争暴力及其对全球社会影响的框架”（42）。但是，这个城市车站的布景暗示了西方对黑人身份的看法。在她对这些戏剧的讨论中，鲍尔斯接受了黑人作品所主张的议程。

第 2 章讨论了希腊戏剧在拉丁裔城市社区中的使用。鲍尔斯写道，与非裔美国人戏剧不同，拉丁裔“与该类型没有广泛的历史关系”（51）。她专注于路易斯阿尔法罗的三部戏剧，他将索福克勒斯的伊莱克特拉和俄狄浦斯暴君以及欧里庇得斯的美狄亚改编为现代拉丁戏剧。由于阿尔法罗的版本与古老的原版相差甚远，因此不熟悉它们的观众可能不会轻易跟随这些变化。一个奇怪的权力自始至终重复：她在笔记中给出了情节摘要[完第535页]希腊戏剧，但没有提供对新版本的类似评论。像本书的大多数读者一样，我知道希腊文本，但不知道Electricidad、Oedipus El Rey或Mojada的故事情节。每章中的几个插图确实让读者了解这些公司是如何制作这些戏剧的。

鲍尔斯在这里的镜头取自阿尔法罗的教学，是“执行刻板印象”。尽管她在这个问题上花了大约 31 页的篇幅，但我发现“执行”应该被理解为破坏还是执行，我很难理解。但自始至终，Powers/Alfaro 都说明了希腊戏剧中的角色如何融入美国主流社会对拉丁裔的刻板印象。Sophocles 的Electra的仇杀正义在 Alfaro 的Electricidad中得到了很好的重复，其中角色相信“帮派暴力的 cholx 代码”（60）。鲍尔斯将阿尔法罗戏剧中的问题与当代事件联系起来：对警察的不信任、cholx 社区的贫困、那里发现的虐待和毒瘾。在俄狄浦斯埃尔雷伊，社会条件取代了古代神谕，以预先确定拉丁社区成员的命运。阿尔法罗...