Listings

Performances: Southern Hemisphere


Australia


Plautus' Casina
Dolphin Theatre
University of Western Australia

July 20-22, 1995

The play has been translated by Judith Maitland and music specially written for it by Philip Korn. We have attempted to present most of the cantica in a way appropriate to plautus, with plenty of dance and skirmishing. Rehearsals so far have shown that these passages are far more effective when set to music; such passages are difficult to enliven when the lines are merely spoken. The passages that are actually intended to be spoken have a different momentum and do not present such problems.

The set and decor, by Joseph Buch of the Curtin University of Technology, Bentley, Western Australia, will be Athenian with Roman overtones, as is appropriate. The wedding dress in the drag scene will certainly be Roman, dyed of course with saffron.

The translation is as close as possible to the Latin, with anachronistic substitutions only in order to avoid obscurity. The translator's favourite is the use of the term "Orange People" to render "Bacchae" 978-80, thus achieving a ludicrous reference to the wedding dress itself.

The production will run from July 20th-22nd this year, and is directed by Judith Maitland, lecturer in the Department of Classics and Ancient History, the University of Western Australia.

For more information contact:
jmaitla@uniwa.uwa.edu.au

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