Gender and Racial Issues in the Adaptation of Ancient Greek Tragedy : Performing A Mouthful of Birds by Caryl Churchill

DOI IR (HANDLE) Open Access

Description

This study aimed to translate and perform the play A Mouthful of Birds by Caryl Churchill and examine the way of directing the stage, which raises problems without reproducing conventional discrimination and prejudice. A Mouthful of Birds, an adaptation of the ancient Greek tragedy Euripides’s The Bacchae, recreates its theme of possession and women’s violence. While this work succeeded in fluctuating politics and stereotypes around gender with both content and format, it carries over the issue of describing the non-Western world as incomprehensible and abnormal. A female character from Trinidad-Tobago, Marcia, demonstrates as being a victim of violence among British white women getting power with violence. When performing the play, the oppressive circumstances around Marcia must be recreated. On the other hand, since the colony of England does not have the same meaning in Japan, it has to take different approaches. Thus, we reconstructed and shot parts of A Mouthful of Birds starring Marcia, posted them on Youtube, and held an online inquiry. Through those research, we attempted to find the most suitable approach without reproducing conventional problems along with adaptations, such as translation using dialect and makeup of blackface.

Journal

Details 詳細情報について

  • CRID
    1390295879373468416
  • DOI
    10.18910/91083
  • HANDLE
    11094/91083
  • Text Lang
    en
  • Article Type
    conference paper
  • Data Source
    • JaLC
    • IRDB

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