Mario Telò and Melissa Mueller (eds.) THE MATERIALITIES of GREEK TRAGEDY (Objects and Affect in Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides) p/b 320 p. Bloomsbury Academic (2019) 978-1350143593 £28.99
This is a book which is hard to read and hard to understand and therefore hard to review. It usually happens with books produced as a result of several lectures presented at a conference. In this particular case these thirteen articles were written for the annual meeting of the Society of Classical Studies in San Francisco in January 2016. The book was published in 2018.
Object and affect are no doubt the key words of the whole book. Objects considered not as a series of props but even as actors able to provoke some feelings around them. Not to forget the book quite recently written by one of the editors Melissa Mueller, Objects as actors, that has probably inspired some of the contributions .These contributions are displayed around the volume`s two main interpretive nodes: objects, chapters 1 to 9; affect, chapters 10 to 12, closing with a more theoretical reflection of Edith Hall about the so called new and old materialism.
The editors have summarised every contribution enlightening no doubt its very deep content. Personally, I have examined in detail the article by Noemi Weiss, Speaking Sights and Seen Sounds in Aeschylean Tragedy.
I have quite recently dealt again with the subject: Imagen y sonido en Bacantes, Valencia 2016, using as starting point for my research the classic book from Taplin Greek Tragedy in Action 1978 following The stagecraft of Aeschylus 1977. Both books of course are quite often mentioned by Weiss all through her paper. I completely agree with her from the very beginning when analysing opsis in Aristotle’s Poetics up to the end, where the author concludes that the beacon at the start of Agamemnon (maybe the most fascinating opening of a Greek Tragedy) is an object but quickly becomes a powerful, active force setting in motion the entire drama. The way Weiss analyses in detail sight and sound all through Seven Against Thebes some pages before, is also remarkable, extremely detailed, should I say even perfect. Physical props and “the dark matter” of theatre: both can move the soul. This is exactly the conclusion of Weiss at the end of her enthusiastic approach to both Aeschylean tragedies. Of course, she is right.
The book itself is full of remarks and suggestions very convenient and useful for many contemporary stage directors who quite often neglect the detailed evidence of the texts and produce instead awful expensive performances. Please read this book, anybody interested in Greek Drama, but be patient. Read slowly and so, same as me, you will have a very fruitful taste of Greek Drama.
José Luis Navarro
EUROCLASSICA (Spain)