As I prepare for my classes this week, I came across this little nugget, which has given me some food for thought: “As art a reflection of the society in which it was created, a playwright’s words reflect the societal viewpoints and the circumstances of the time and period when the works are first created.” While I agree with this to an extent, I am also reminded of the idea that themes often present themselves throughout history, and therefore we get the impression that history repeats itself. While this allow plays from different eras to have similar themes, it also allows themes from different eras to be consistently relatable and give the feeling of being “present tense.” For example, why do we see so many plays about revenge? Perhaps because, as a people, we’ve never learned our lesson about the metaphysical destructive potential of vengeful actions ... but I’m just spitballing, here.
Really, what I wanted to convey with this column is to illustrate my fascination at how themes tend to present themselves throughout history, but can still be relatable to new generations throughout history as well. This came to my attention last week at Sheridan College while I was teaching Theatrical Backgrounds, which is the Dramatic Literature and History course. This year, I have one student in the course, so we meet as an independent study.
In our meeting last week, we were discussing the classic Greek Tragedy “Medea.” As a refresher, this play is about the sorceress Medea, who is accompanies the fabled hero Jason throughout a good portion of his journey, and engineered many of his successes, mainly because of her love of him. When he marries another woman for political gain, her heartbreak drives her to a madness that culminates in the deaths of not only Jason’s wife and father, but Medea also murders her own children herself.
In further reminder, Greek Tragic heroes - or heroines in this case - all carry a tragic flaw, which is a human misgiving that leads to the character’s downfall. An audience watching should recognize the flaw, and hopefully learn to correct this said flaw.
So, as I discussed this with my student, we tried to identify Medea’s tragic flaw, which could be argued to be her love of Jason. And, truly representative of her generation, my student said that Medea broke the “golden rule: never date a ****boy.” Having an inclination of what she meant, but still showing my age, I looked the term up in the Urban Dictionary, and found this definition: “.... [a] boy who is into strictly sexual relationships; he will lead a girl on and let her down ... Boys like this will pretend to genuinely care about the girl but always fail to prove the supposed affection.”
While I laughed heartily, it pleased me beyond measure to know that a student can truly extrapolate a profound truth about her current reality and circumstances upon reading ancient texts. Of course, upon thinking about this later, I realized that the current generation sees a story like this through these particular lenses, to the point where there is actually an unspoken code with a “golden rule” understood about such circumstances.
I think about this as I look at the world and how it is interpreted by the youngest generation of adults. Women like Ms. Wyoming, Beck Bridger, who I worked with this summer in “Master Class;” women who have remarkable things to say, remarkable stories to tell, and profound perspectives to share. A playwright writing in this time MUST take these perspectives into account to truly capture the voice of the time and period.
In the end, though, it’s somewhat bittersweet that ancient works can still be relevant: sweet that current readers can connect to them, and bitter that the tragic flaws have apparently not inspired better behavior in the populace. I guess we dramatists still have our work cut out for us.
I’ll see you at intermission.
