We decided we wanted to catch an authentic Greek play held in the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, a theater built in 161 AD. The play was in Greek, and would be 2 hours long. We didn't know anything about the storyline, but we were really looking forward to this authentic Greek experience. The tickets were $40 each, which is more than we anticipated spending, but figured it would be more than worth it.
As soon as we got into the theater, Barbara (an art/theater/music guru) noticed how unproportionate and unauthentic the set statues looked. I never would have noticed on my own, but she took it as a warning sign for the quality of the performance to come. I thought she was overreacting. Then act I started.
The play began with a king-ish looking man addressing a small group townsfolk looking people. Within the group of townsfolk there was a 9ish old child standing next to an elderly man. All of the townspeople were looking intently at the king man except this kid. She kept fidgeting with her hands, turning away and looking behind her, playing with her outfit, and then finally, pestering the man next to her. She pulled on his arms, tugged at his sleeves, and tried touching his face. Each time, he swat her hand away and kept staring at the king. We couldn't tell if this was part of the play or if this girl was just that terrible at playing her role. A few minutes into the play, it was very obvious that the man addressing the king forgot his lines. He stammered a little, until the King loudly whispered his line under his breath, at which point the man resumed his speech. The lines were long. LOTS of dialogue with very little acting, which I kind of expected. At numerous points in the play, there was a group of about 15 people, dressed in black, with darkened eyes who would dance while one of the men "played" a flute. It was clear that the music they danced to had been prerecorded, because every once in a while it would play at the wrong time, and the flute player would be caught off guard, so he would hurriedly pick up his flute and begin to "play" along, but it was clear his fingers weren't playing along with the music, and that he was a half a step behind. At one point an elderly man came out wearing the most fake looking santa beard I have ever seen. At another point, a man came out wearing a pink striped jumpsuit with a huge collar, and a furry vest over the top of it. At another point, there was a queen-ish looking woman who forgot her lines and laughed out loud at her mistake. Throughout the entire show, there were awkward pauses while people tried to remember what they were supposed to be doing, and numerous times in the show, people back stage poked their heads around to see what was happening on stage.
We died laughing. The rest of the audience clearly didn't find the play funny in the same way we did, although they would burst out laughing after certain lines that we obviously didn't understand. There were so many times during the play that Barbara and I could not stop laughing. And we didn't want to be rude (we were sitting front and center and our section was crowded with spectators) so we tried to laugh as quietly as possible, but it was uncontrollable. Tears were streaming down my face and I was having trouble breathing. As soon as I got myself under control, Barbara would start up again and it would throw me into another laughing fit. The poor people in front of us.
When the play ended (11:30PM) we sat through another 20 minutes of the main character giving overall remarks about the play. Then we sat through 10 minutes of applause while flowers were distributed to the actors (at which point the wayward child actor ran forward and grabbed flowers that clearly didn't belong to her). During this time we found out that the woman sitting in front of us was the very proud wife of the flute player and we swore under our breaths for laughing at his fake playing skills out loud. woops.
Ok, so the overall storyline of the play. From what I gathered, a king's kingdom was in trouble. His people were unhappy. A group of dancing men (pirates? ghouls?) came and spoke with the king. A different man comes to speak at great length with the king. The king is sad. Santa beard comes out with a small boy (the king's son) and the king and queen are very upset. The dancing pirates shoo the boy away and dance some more. The pink furry clown comes out and speaks with the king and the other man. The king begins to die, but the pirates dance with him and bring him back to life. The other man leaves and the king is well again.
Barbara looked up the play afterward, and it turns out it was actually a play about God's call to Abraham to sacrifice his son. WHAT??? From what I remember, there were no dancing pirates in Genesis, but we figure the play had a Greek spin on it and incorporated the Greek chorus. Either way, I'm now figuring that santa beard was actually God and furry clown was the ram. I'm a terrible Christian for not recognizing such an important Biblical story. I'm actually feeling zero guilt about not seeing the "obvious" Biblical threads in the story, but I am feeling a little guilt at thinking the play was so hysterical. Apparently these are really renowned Greek actors, and we kind of thought the whole thing was a bit of a joke. I'm going to chalk it up to not being able to understand the language- I'm going to give the actors the benefit of the doubt and say they meant for the play to be like that. Either way, it was an evening I will not forget. I sure wish this hadn't cost us $40 a piece, but I wouldn't trade the experience. I haven't laughed that hard in a long, long time.
I really enjoyed this!!
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