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Menander's Dyskolos at Sydney, 1959-2009*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 April 2015

Christopher Flynn  and
John Sheldon
Christopher Flynn
Affiliation:
Kirribilli, NSW, [email protected]
John Sheldon
Affiliation:
Macquarie University, [email protected]
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Extract

Between 1955 and 1967 the undergraduate Classical Society of the University of Sydney staged a Greek or Latin play in the original language every year, an enterprise strongly supported by the academic departments concerned. The publication of the recently discovered Dyskolos of Menander was an opportunity not to be missed for a veritable coup de théâtre by staging in Sydney the first modern-world performance of this play. It is the sole surviving complete example of the work of an author whose enormous popularity in antiquity was only matched by his highly fragmentary representation in the written tradition. The comedy was given two performances in the Wallace Theatre at Sydney University on 4th July 1959.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antichthon , Volume 44 , November 2010 , pp. 111 - 127
Copyright
Copyright © Australasian Society for Classical Studies 2010

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Footnotes

*

This article is in the main a rewriting of the joint presentation given by Christopher Flynn (CWAF) and John Sheldon (JSS), two members of the cast of the 1959 Dyskolos production, at the Australasian Society for Classical Studies Conference held at Sancta Sophia College within the University of Sydney on 4th February 2009. We have aimed at retaining as much of the flavour and style of the presentations as is consistent with the serious purpose of a scholarly journal like Antichthon. We are grateful to the editors for their advice and encouragement with the project and to the two anonymous referees for their helpful comments and suggestions which are for the most part incorporated in what is published here.

References

1 The Classical Society was inaugurated on 10th July 1933 with the young Athanasius Treweek as its initial president. The first productions undertaken by the Society were Aristophanes’ Clouds in 1945 and Euripides’ Bacchae in 1946. These were followed by Euripides’ Alcestis in 1950, Aristophanes’ Frogs in 1951 and Aeschylus’ Agamemnon in 1952. In the light of his ‘hands-on’ involvement in the 1959 Dyskolos, it is worth noting that J.H. Quincey was a key figure in those three productions. After a gap of two years, and encouraged by the Latin Department recently invigorated by the advent of Professor John Dunston, two comedies of Plautus (Menaechmi in 1955 and Mostellaria in 1956) were staged by the Society in the Wallace Theatre as part of the University's International Festival of Drama chaired by Mrs Thelma Roberts, wife of the (then) Vice-Chancellor. Greek tragedy returned with Sophocles’ Antigone in 1957, to be followed by the Roman Comic Muse – Miles Gloriosas in 1958. Dr Felix Arnott, Warden of St Paul's College, later Archbishop of Brisbane and Anglican Chaplain of Venice, was producer of these last two plays.

2 The practice of having a matinee on the same day as the evening performance was initiated the preceding year for Miles Gloriosus on account of the growing popularity of the plays, especially among school audiences. Both of the performances of Dyskolos were well attended. The financial statements of the Classical Society for 1959 record £137.7.9 received for tickets sold at the Greek Department, at Paling's (a music shop and ticket agency in the city), and at the door.

3 There is nothing anywhere in our Dyskolos programme (for which see p. 124 below) to indicate the day or even the year of the performances. However, two contemporary documents (both in the possession of JSS) state it quite precisely, viz the Classical Society's financial statements mentioned in the previous note, and a dated journal for 1959 compiled by a member of the audience.

4 Bodmer, P. IV: Editio Princeps: Martin, Victor, Ménandre: Le Dyscolos (Geneva 1959)Google Scholar.

5 This was thanks to prompt action by Mr V.J. Flynn, CWAF's father.

6 The variety of the performances listed in n. 1 shows how extensive was the experience of staging classical plays both among the teaching members of the Departments of Greek and Latin and in successive generations of students. Not only the producer of the 1959 Dyskolos but also most of the members of the cast had already performed in a play on stage in one or both of the classical languages, some of them more than once; and the confidence that such experience gives was readily picked up by the new members of the cast.

7 The redoubtable Miss Wood.

8 It was noted with pleasure at the ASCS conference presentation that the creator of the role, then Mary Nathan, now Maery Gabriel, had come from Victoria to be present on the occasion. It was also by a happy chance that on the wall of the Common Room at Sancta Sophia College, where this presentation was given, a mosaic done by Maery was hanging in full view of the audience. This piece is very similar to the one which had won the Blake Prize for Religious Art in 1984, and had been acquired by the College, of which Maery was a former student. She was naturally delighted to set eyes on it again after many years.

9 Quincey, J.H., Ritchie, W., Shipp, G.P. and Treweek, A.P., Notes on the Dyskolos of Menander. Australian Humanities Research Council Occasional Paper No. 2 (Adelaide 1959) 3, on Dysk. 5 Google Scholar. They appear there as Q R S and T. For Ritchie's reasons, see Notes 6-7, on Dysk. 430-1

10 H. Lloyd-Jones (ed.), Menandri Dyscolus (OCT 1960) ap. crit. on lines 430-1, ‘matri Sostrati dedit Ritchie.’

11 Handley, E.W., The Dyskolos of Menander (London 1965) 208–9Google Scholar. He is even more loth to relinquish the Mother in “The Bodmer Menander and the Comic Fragments’, in Relire Ménandre (Geneva 1990) 140 n. 28Google Scholar.

12 Sandbach, F.H., Menandri Reliquiae Selectae (OCT 1972) on Dysk. 430–41Google Scholar.

13 Sandbach (n. 12) ap. crit. on lines 430-4.

14 Gomme, A.W. and Sandbach, F.H., Menander: A Commentary (Oxford 1973) 200–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 Miller, N., Menander Plays and Fragments (London 1987)Google Scholar.

16 Arnott, W.G., Menander, vol. 1 (Cambridge MA and London 1979) 183 and 250 Google Scholar.

17 Baume, M. (tr.), Menander Plays and Fragments (Oxford 2001) 20 Google Scholar.

18 The scenery may be seen in the photographs on p. 118 (top) and p. 122.

19 Quincey, in Notes (n. 9) 3, on Dysk. 5. Q's suggestion is followed with acknowledgement by Handley (n. 11) 129 and tentatively rejected by Sandbach (n. 14) 136-7.

20 See comments on the staging of this scene in Handley (n. 11) 290-1 and Sandbach (n. 14) 275.

21 Quincey, Ritchie, Shipp, Treweek, Notes (n. 9) 9, on Dysk. 758. This is admittedly awkward as a parenthetical aside, within but possible, I think. The authors of Notes no doubt saw a parenthetic at 758 as an emphatic reference by Knemon to his requests made at 750 and 751, which was how David Ferraro as Knemon performed the line. For use of the ekkyklema in this scene see Sandbach (n. 14) 239-41.

22 She was Wendy Kelly at the time. She also remembers that during the performance ‘we were all somewhat fascinated by a strange gentle swishing sound which seemed to occur in the auditorium at regular intervals. Eventually we realized that the audience had been provided with a copy of a translation of Dyskolos by J.H. Quincey (in their programmes) and that the swishing sound came from the turning of the pages.’

23 The evening performance was graced by the presence of church and consular dignitaries. The Apostolic Delegate, Archbishop Romolo Carboni, was there; and to the best of people's recollection, the Greek Orthodox Metropolitan Bishop of Australia and the Consul-General for Greece in Sydney, or their representatives, were also present.

24 Seen. 22.

25 1915–1991. It was probably Gordon himself who played the percussion part which is wrongly attributed to JSS on the ‘Additional Characters’ slip inserted in the programme. No manuscript of the music has been found. It is interesting to note, however, that music for the choruses in a famous performance of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon by the students of Sydney University in 1886 exists in manuscript in the National Library of Australia (NLA MS 417). The composer was Hector R. Maclean (1851-1935), and the Greek words were set for unaccompanied male voices. Remarkably good photographs of this production exist in the Sydney University archives. A booklet containing a ‘free’ translation of the play by its producer, Professor Walter Scott, for the use of the audience is also in the National Library in Canberra. Scott became Professor of Classics in 1885 in succession to ‘Badham of Wadham’. In 1891 the chair of Classics was divided into two separate chairs of Greek and Latin. This change was advocated by Scott although it involved some sacrifice of salary on his part. Thomas Butler became Professor of Latin, while Scott retained the chair of Greek. The two chairs remained separate until they were amalgamated into one ‘of Classics’ a century later in 1991

26 A similar scheme for the music, using similar instruments, was employed quite independently in the Geneva production in June 1959. The composer was Jean Binet, and the players formed a quartet of recorder, flute, clarinet and percussion with a soprano soloist. The musical interludes seem to have occurred where they did in Sydney, although the performance commenced with an overture before Pan's prologue, which was immediately followed with more music. See Ménandre: Théâtre (Editions de l’Aire, Lausanne 1981) 79. According to Reverdin's preface to that book (18 n. 5), the Journal de Genève published in 1960 a booklet which contained among other things the music for the play.

27 A recent search among the Nachlass of the late Professor Ritchie now located in the Centre for Classical and Near Eastern Studies in Australia (Madsen Building, University of Sydney) has failed to locate the cassette. The tape possessed by JSS may therefore be the only surviving one. It has now been copied onto CD, a copy of which will in due course be deposited with the Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama (APGRD) at the University of Oxford.

28 Some excerpts from that tape of Dyskolos music were played during the conference presentation.

29 Dale and Webster had taken part in a seminar in London on the diplomatic text which Martin had communicated to them some months before the publication of the editio princeps. This seminar was chaired by Eric Turner, and its findings were published in the Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies (University of London) 6 (1959) 61–72 Google Scholar. See Goold, G.P., ‘First Thoughts on the Dyscolus ’, Phoenix 13 (1959) 141 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30 Seen in the photograph reproduced on p. 118 (top) With this may be compared a photograph from the Geneva premiere (see p. 118) showing Sikon, Getas and sheep, which was published in Ménandre: Théâtre (n. 26) 14, and of which a copy was also displayed at the 2009 ASCS Conference.

31 There was a barbecue hosted by George Shipp, complete with his swinging the billy, at which the Websters vied with each other and us in finding or inventing Greek names for the various exotic implements used for that characteristically Australian ritual; many of these derived from Sikon's cooking activities in the Dyskolos.

32 A suggestion by Christopher Flynn appears in Notes (n. 9) 10, on Dysk. 830.

33 This does not include the supplements which they offered exempli gratia, although some of those were part of the text for our performance.

34 Cf. Bulletin no. 6 (December 1959) of the Classical Association of New South Wales (for the date). The lecture was sponsored jointly by that Association and by the Sydney University Arts Association.

35 As Sandbach describes them in his Fontes on p. 45 of his 1972 OCT. (They are called ‘Sydneienses’ by Lloyd-Jones in his 1960 OCT, praef. vii.)

36 The front covers of the copies of The Birth of Modern Comedy of Manners were then overstamped in violet ink with the legend ‘OCCASIONAL PAPER No. Г. Occasional Paper No. 2 (Notes on the Dyskolos of Menander) includes ‘T.B.L. Webster, “The Birth of Modern Comedy”, AHRC, 1959, The Griffin Press’, with the classification ‘ Occasional Paper No. 1 ‘, among the AHRC publications listed inside its back cover.

37 Our thanks go to Phoebe Garrett, of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, for providing this information.

38 See the concluding paragraph, with n. 49.

39 Information received by word of mouth from Professor André Hurst.

40 Professor Hurst also served as Rector of the University of Geneva from 2003 to 2006.

41 It had been adapted by Louis Gaulis, and is printed in Ménandre: Théâtre (n. 26) 79-138. See the explanation by Professor Martin of the reasons for making the adaptation on 73-4.

42 See n. 8.

43 Early in the presentation at the conference the long-serving secretary of ASCS made an unscheduled incursion onto the scene, breathlessly shouting his opening lines of warning that he was being pursued by a madman who was pelting him with clods of earth and stones. After he had been calmed and reassured, he took his seat in the audience.

44 See the photograph (p. 118) showing the scene where Sikon and the sheep enter with Getas (Dysk. 393 ff.)

45 The cover of the Dyskolos programme is reproduced at p. 124. Although the programme itself gives no attribution for that design, it was the work of Maery Gabriel (see n. 8, and p. 123 above), as is demonstrated by the very similar design of the cover of the programme for the Sydney University Classical Society's stage production in 1960 of Plautus' Rudens. The Rudens programme includes a printed attribution of its cover design to Mary Nathan.

46 See n. 3 above.

47 A copy of that foolscap replica programme for the 1959 Dyskolos production, together with copies of the photographs of the cast and of the sheep scene at Dysk. 393 ff. which are reproduced on pp. 118 and 122 will in due course be deposited with the APGRD at Oxford -see n. 27 above (deposit of the CD of the music). See also nn. 30 and 44 (the sheep scene photograph).

48 Further copies of the foolscap replica programme are available from the Department of Classics and Ancient History at Sydney University at the cost price of AUD$30 per copy.

49 Goold(n. 29) 142 n. 30.