Euripides’ Melanippe Wise
A Reconstructed Version
by Andriana Domouzi & Christos Callow Jr
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Poster design by creative studio Sinjin Li
CYBORPHIC is proud to present:
Melanippe Wise, a lost tragedy by Euripides, in a new complete version. The play has been reconstructed by Andriana Domouzi and written by Christos Callow Jr.
Directed by Justin Murray of Catharsis.
Melanippe: Bee Scott
Hippo/Nurse/Chorus: Orla Sanders
Hellen: Alex Andreou
Aeolus: Robin King
Shepherd/Chorus: Harold Addo
The reconstruction is based on academic research on the few surviving fragments of the Greek text and references by other classical authors and critics. Dr Andriana Domouzi reconstructed the play for her PhD thesis at Royal Holloway, University of London and worked on the text as dramaturg, while Dr Christos Callow Jr completed the play. The original play was first performed in Athens around 418-413 BC and was popular in the ancient world; Aristotle thought Melanippe’s famous monologue challenged the female stereotypes of the time. The story of Melanippe – subtitled Wise to reflect Melanippe’s intellectuality – is a proto-feminist tribute to women’s rights and intellectual equality, while also addressing aspects of maternity, sexuality, male anxieties around powerful women, humanism, scientific knowledge vs superstition, orphism, astronomy and cosmology.
PLOTLINE
Melanippe Wise is the young daughter of King Aeolus and Hippo (herself the daughter of Centaur Chiron and a former healer-seer, now a constellation) and granddaughter of Hellen, the ancestor of all Greeks (hence the “Hellenic” civilisation). Melanippe is forced by Poseidon to abandon the babies she had with him, and to defend her rights as woman and mother when those babies are found and brought before the King. Her rhetorical skills and reasoning trigger the males of her family who see her and her sons as threats to the social order; threats to be eliminated. The intervention of Melanippe’s mother in the form of a horse as dea ex machina prevented the destruction of the babies, proclaiming them future founders of the Aeolian and Boeotian Greek tribes. But what about Melanippe?
WORKSHOPS & FURTHER DEVELOPMENT
In advance of the reading, there will be a workshop series on the 26th and 27th October at the Cockpit Theatre (Marylebone, London), focusing on creative decisions, issues of adaptation and dramaturgy, as well as research. These will be relevant to all those who have an interest in Greek myth, tragedy and adaptation. Follow this link to book a place for the workshops: https://lostragedyworkshops.eventbrite.co.uk After the reading, we hope to take the play to full production in 2020 and subsequently for this reconstructed version of the play to be published. An academic volume dedicated to contemporary adaptations of fragmentary Greek tragedies will have a chapter devoted to the creators' process for the revival of Melanippe Wise.
SPONSORS
This new piece, the research and the workshops are generously funded by the University of Derby’s College of Arts, Humanities & Education Research Fund and the University of London's Institute of Classical Studies Public Engagement Grant. The original research at Royal Holloway, University of London was funded by the Academy of Athens.