From dlupher@ups.edu Sun Sep 17 15:06:24 2000 Received: from mxu3.u.washington.edu (mxu3.u.washington.edu [140.142.33.7]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.05/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id PAA158298 for ; Sun, 17 Sep 2000 15:06:23 -0700 Received: from mail.ups.edu (main.ups.edu [192.124.98.219]) by mxu3.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.02/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id PAA04157 for ; Sun, 17 Sep 2000 15:06:23 -0700 Received: from [207.207.116.71] (wyatt1dhcp71.ups.edu [207.207.116.71]) by mail.ups.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id PAA13112 for ; Sun, 17 Sep 2000 15:06:18 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <4.3.2.7.0.20000917133403.00b663b0@postoffice.idirect.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Sun, 17 Sep 2000 15:05:56 -0700 To: classics@u.washington.edu From: David Lupher Subject: the classical Sunday NY Times Today's Sunday NYT has several items which may interest list members: - In the "Arts" section, there's a long article by Margaret Croyden on Peter Hall's staging of John Barton's 10-hour extravaganza "Tantalus" in Denver. This production will play through Dec. 2, and then will apparently migrate to England without a further American tour. Despite its title, it's not about Tantalus, but about his great-grandson Agamemnon---and about the Trojan War generally. The article claims that the material is largely drawn from the summaries of the Epic Cycle, though some of it (Iphigenia asking for her own death, Helen not really at Troy at all) seems to be coming from Euripides. In fact, a lot of it sounds rather like Barton's (and Cavender's) 1981 extravaganza "The Greeks" (not mentioned in this article), another pastiche of Greek tragedies centering around the Trojan War. (Some features of the current project do sound new, however: e.g. this arresting bit: "Cassandra gives herself to Agamemnon in a compelling, sexy scene"---perhaps a scene sugggested by Cassandra's "mad scene" in the "Trojan Women"?) The article also notes that the Denver Center "will mount a multimedia exhibition on the history of classical Greek theater; there will also be a symposium featuring specialists on ancient Greek drama." Can we hope for any reports on the production, the exhibition, and/or the symposium from Denver-area list members? - The Book Review prints Natalie Angier's positive review of Cynthia Eller's "The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory: Why an Invented Past Won't Give Women a Future" (Beacon Press). By coincidence, I have just finished reading Eller's book and concur in recommending it. (Once again, some colleagues in the English Dept. are foisting Eisler's "The Chalice and the Blade" upon my Honors students, to "counterpoint" their reading of the dead white male Greek Herodotus, and so I am once again girding up my loins for the fray. I was very grateful to get hold of Eller's book, having enjoyed her "Living in the Lap of the Goddess," on the feminist spirituality movement.) - A small item in the "News in Review" section notes that an official on Lesbos attempted (unsuccessfully, I gather) to prevent a boatload of British Lesbian tourists from disembarking, on the grounds that his island is not to be considered some kind of "gay paradise." Did anyone happen to catch a fuller account of this incident? I assume that this would have happened in Mytilene, but I have a very hard time (having spent a week on Lesbos a few months ago) imagining how this incident could have occurred. In any case, I would assume that the official in question is now looking for a new job---outside the tourism sector. [Okay, maybe this item has only limited classical content, but there *is* a statue of Sappho on the esplanade of Mytilene, manifestly welcoming disembarking pilgrims---most of whom promptly gravitate to Eresos.] David Lupher Classics Dept. Univ. of Puget Sound .