Classics grad recruited by unique school

Classics student presents at national conference

 

 

Daniel Mendelsohn

Award-winning writer, critic and translator Daniel Mendelsohn will present “Medea on the Jersey Shore: Tragedy and the Crisis of Reality in Contemporary Culture,” Thursday, September 20, 7 p.m., Grand Valley State University Eberhard Center, Robert C. Pew Grand Rapids Campus. The lecture is one of six events during Grand Valley’s popular Fall Arts Celebration. 



Earlier this year, Mendelsohn was elected into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as part of a 2012 class that included Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, actor Clint Eastwood, and Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos. Trying to pigeonhole Mendelsohn‘s own area of expertise is a challenge, given his broad range of interests and writings. A common element found in much of his work is fresh insight about contemporary culture as influenced by his scholarly training as a classicist.



Mendelsohn, now the Charles Ranlett Flint Professor of Humanities at Bard College, studied Classics at the University of Virginia and Princeton University, where he completed his doctorate in 1994. Since then his articles, essays, reviews, and translations have appeared frequently in such diverse publications as The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, Esquire, Travel + Leisure, and The Paris Review.



A recipient of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Excellence in Reviewing (2001) and the George Jean Nathan Prize for Drama Criticism (2002), Mendelsohn has written six books, including an award-winning account of his search for the truth about six relatives who perished in the Holocaust, “The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million.” A collection of essays, “How Beautiful It Is And How Easily It Can Be Broken,” was a Publisher’s Weekly Best Book of 2008. “Waiting for the Barbarians,” a new collection of Mendelsohn’s essays on subjects ranging from Susan Sontag and Noël Coward, to TV’s “Mad Men” and Greek myth in “Spider-Man,” will be published in October.



Mendelsohn’s lecture will be followed by book signing and a reception. All Fall Arts Celebration events are free and open to the public. 

New translation of 'Medea' will leave Heritage Theatre Group audiences in disbelief, director says

Published: Monday, July 09, 2012, 8:03 AM

Sue Merrell | The Grand Rapids Press 

Courtesy Photo | Scott BaisdenSherryl Depres as Medea

 

 

GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- If you think feminism evolved in the 20th century and “Mean Girls” is a new plot twist, then you should check out Euripides’ 2,500-year-old play, “Medea.” Long before women got the vote, or got drunk singing “Goodbye Earl,” this lady of ancient Greek mythology was getting even.

“Medea” is the mythical sequel to “Jason and the Argonauts.” After sacrificing everything to help Jason win The Golden Fleece, and his royal inheritance, Medea married Jason and gave him two beautiful sons. Now, he wants to dump her for the first cute, young princess who comes along.

“You know the woman who works to put her husband through medical school, then when he’s a doctor, he dumps her for a trophy wife? Medea is that story,” said Diane Rayor, a professor in the Classics Department of the Grand Valley State University. Rayor has written a new translation of the play, which will receive its world premiere this week in a production by Heritage Theatre Group.

“I think the audience is really going to like it,” added director Karen Libman. “It’s a short play, 90 minutes with no intermission, but very tense. The audience will be out of breath in the end because they can’t believe what they’ve seen.”

Medea, who will be portrayed by Grand Award-winning actress Sherryl Despres, is a sympathetic character in the beginning because she has been abandoned. But during the struggles of the play, her desire for revenge transforms her to such an extreme that even Greek audiences were shocked by the choices she is willing to make to hurt Jason.

“It’s the role of a lifetime,” Libman said. “She must be heartbroken and cold-hearted.”

Michael Dodge, who recently appeared in “The Sound of Music” at Master Arts Theatre, portrays Jason. Others in the cast include Jerry Borths, Christopher Weaver, Scott Wright, Mark Moran, Kim McDaniel, Stacy Schram, CJ Namenye and Amy Groen.

Libman, a professor of theater at Grand Valley, introduced Rayor to theater when she asked Rayor to serve as a dramaturg for Heritage Theatre’s production of “Metamorphoses” in 2006. Rayor said she enjoyed the collaborative theater process so much, that she asked Libman and her theater students to help her workshop her translation of Sophocles’ “Antigone,” which was recently published by Cambridge Press. Rayor has published five books of translations of Greek poetry, but said translating plays is more difficult.

“The key with translating a play is that it must be clear and understandable as soon as the words are spoken,” Rayor said. “You don’t have time to go back and reread it or look up something. It has to work instantly.”

Working with actors helps Rayor create a translation that is both accurate and actable. There are many translations of the classics, she said, but usually those that stress an accurate translation of the Greek are only suitable for classroom study. Versions for the stage are usually adaptations, inspired by the original play but not an accurate translation. Rayor strives to do both.

She refined her translation of “Medea” at a workshop with actors in February and has continued fine-tuning during rehearsals for the Heritage Theatre production.



“I do a lot of listening,” she said, “I make a list of all the questions. Things people don’t understand. Even at the auditions. What makes them stumble?” 



The resulting script preserves all the elements of the original Greek tragedy, including the nautical references, which are usually eliminated. In the style of Greek tragedies, the original play included a large chorus that actually sang and danced between the scenes, commenting on the characters and plot. For the Heritage production, the chorus has been reduced to three performers but, thanks to original music composed by Todd Lewis, it will be sung. 



“Making the chorus really heard as musical was one of the biggest challenges,” Rayor said. 



Rayor’s translation of “Medea” will be published by Cambridge Press. She also has a grant to record an audio book version using the actors from the Heritage Theatre cast. 



“The plays are meant to be performed,” she said. “That’s always better than just reading the text.”



Rayor, who has her doctorate and has taught at Grand Valley for 20 years, started out to be an American history major at Colorado College in Colorado Springs. Her first class in Greek history was so interesting she never made it to American history. She studied Greek and Latin so she could read the classics in their original form. In her junior year, a teacher asked her to translate a poem.

“The proverbial light bulb went off. I knew I wanted to be a translator. It’ s like a jigsaw puzzle trying to get the beauty and sense of the original work,” Raynor said.



In Greek mythology, Medea is the granddaughter of Helios, the sun god, so don’t be surprised if she pulls out a few magic powers during the play. Traditionally, the play ends with her flying away in the sun chariot. Although Spectrum Theater doesn’t have the overhead rigging to “fly,” Libman promises to use “the magic of theater” for a spectacular finish.

Email Sue Merrell: grentertainment@mlive.com

 

© 2012 MLive.com. All rights reserved.

The shared experience of Rome brings you into a community which extends all the way back to ancient Rome. The people who lived and wrote in Rome, and those who have been influenced by them have been many of the most important figures of all human history. It was in order to partake in this community that I went to Rome last fall and partook in the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies in Rome, one of the most prestigious study abroad programs for classical studies in the world. 

Had it not been for the generous funding of the Mark and Elizabeth Murray Scholarship from the Padnos International Center, the Benedetta and Giancarlo Galassi-Beria Scholarship Fund from the ICCS, and the Benjamin A. Gilman Scholarship from the U.S. State Department, I would have never been able to study abroad. The fact that I was able to learn Latin and Greek, and what’s more go to Rome, is a testament to American democracy and the outstanding intellectual possibilities offered by Grand Valley State University. Not only did Grand Valley prepare me academically for this incredibly challenging program, it also helped me get the funding to participate through the Padnos International Center and the Office of Fellowships.

On April 18, 2012, New York-based Aquila Theatre staged selected scenes from classical Greek poetry and drama at The Grand Rapids Public Library's Ryerson Auditorium in downtown Grand Rapids.

The program included selections from Homer's Odyssey, Aeschylus' Agamemnon, Sophocles' Ajax and Euripides' Herakles, under the theme "Stranger in a Strange Land: Encountering the Other."

Prof. Diane Rayor led a post-show discussion.

The performance was the culminating event in a series of community outreach activities organized by Prof. Rayor under the aegis of Ancient Greeks / Modern Lives: Poetry - Drama - Dialogue, a program funded by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Grand Valley Classics professor to lead local NEH program

 

Posted on February 07, 2012

 

A series of local events are included in a major national program funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities in partnership with communities, libraries and theatres. The “Ancient Greeks/Modern Lives: Poetry-Drama-Dialogue” program aims to inspire people to come together to read, see and think about classical literature and how it continues to influence and invigorate American cultural life. 



A lecture by Grand Valley State University Classics Professor Diane Rayor is on Wednesday, February 22, from 7-8 p.m., Ryerson Auditorium, Level 3, Grand Rapids Public Library, 111 Library NE.



Rayor, who co-founded Grand Valley’s Classics Department in 2000, most recently translated Sophocles’ Antigone (Cambridge University Press, 2011). Her lecture will use Antigone to illustrate the struggle for justice between individuals and those in power. “I’m excited to team up with the Grand Rapids Public Library and Aquila Theatre to introduce Greek drama to a broad audience,” Rayor said. “Ancient Greek stories, for nearly 2,500 years, have continued to raise questions about human behavior and vital ethical issues.”

    

In addition, Rayor will lead a reading group at the Grand Rapids Public Library on four consecutive Wednesdays, beginning March 7. The program will explore the theme “Strangers in a Strange Land” and includes four books free of charge and snacks during the discussions. Veterans and their families, immigrants and people new to Greek drama are especially encouraged to sign up. 



On April 18, Rayor will also lead a discussion at the Grand Rapids Public Library following a staged reading of scenes from Greek drama by professional actors from Aquila Theatre. 



The programs are free and open to the public. For more information, visithttp://www.grpl.org/perl/events.pl or call the library at (616) 988-5400. Learn more about the national program at www.ancientgreeksmodernlives.org.

2011 College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Distinguished Alumna in Residence Brittany Hunter, Classics and Honors '08, addressed a capacity crowd in Kirkhof Center on October 27:

"You Majored in What?"

How my liberal arts degree led to my high-tech dream career.

Brittany made her first website when she was 13. It was purple and it had sparkles and ponies. It was around that time that she decided she wanted to design software. 

A 2008 GVSU Honors graduate, she received the B.A. in Classics with an emphasis on both ancient Greek and Latin -- a background that sometimes elicits comment in her line of work. Yet her training in Classics has proven to be anything other than a drawback as her career has progressed from employment as the website coordinator for a Grand Rapids-based international nonprofit organization, to work as a developer on the GVSU Webteam, to her current position at the nationally recognized software firm Atomic Object.

Brittany credits her success to the intense training she received in critical thinking, rhetoric, and language while learning about the Greco-Roman world at GVSU. In combination with her love of visual design, this preparation enables her to respond to the needs of clients by comprehending complex business domains and effectively communicating difficult concepts in understandable, usable, visually beautiful ways. 

Outside of work Brittany spends a lot of time riding, training, and taking care of her three horses; on weekends she competes with them in local dressage competitions. During the school year, she enjoys teaching violin lessons and tutoring high school Latin. She also dabbles in photography, blogging, cooking, and gardening.