Words by: Onjei Bond
With the arrival of a new Beetlejuice, a new Quiet Place, and another Godzilla, sometimes it can feel like the creative world is just an ouroboros of the same stories being retold, again and again.
In no sphere is this as obvious as the Classical one.
Classical Studies, for those uninitiated, studies ancient Greece and Rome, whose stories are the basis for much of Western story-telling.
Recently, there has been a new wave of Classics retellings- specifically feminist retellings. Unity books display the colourful, often gold-gilded, titles proudly. Whitcoulls too. Step into any bookstore and you’d struggle to miss the latest Greek mythological retelling, claiming to “put [the] forgotten women of Greek mythology back at the heart of the story”, and uplift women who are “voiceless in history”.
I’m talking about Circe, The Silence of the Girls, The Penelopiad, etcetera, and all of Jennifer Saint’s favourite girl names in a list. Buzzwords such as ‘agency’, ‘voice’, and ‘feminism’ abound. Names like Natalie Haynes, Jennifer Saint, and Pat Barker fight it out, whilst Madeline Miller smokes a cigarette and wonders where it all went wrong.
Modern retellings of ancient stories aren’t a new concept, but they’ve reached a new point in their cultural wheel. Jennifer Saint has written four in as many years, with a million more presumably on the way. It’s a booming genre with lots of space on the bookstore shelves.
But how Feminist are these ‘feminist’ retellings? And what makes a feminist classical retelling good?
Earlier this month, I had the honour of sitting down with the creative heads and Co-Directors of Iphigenia Among the Taurians- A piece of theatre showing in October- and discussing feminist retellings, Ancient Theatre, and the tensions of Classical studies vs. modern day.
Considering the fine line between the classical and modern sensibility, there’s probably nobody more suited to speak on it.
VATS, or The Victoria Ancient Theatre Society, is a Vic club comprised of Classics and Theatre students, and is a love letter to how modern audiences can engage with ancient theatre.
Each year, the VATS crew translates a play - be it Greek or Latin- and adapts it slightly so the jokes still land and political critique still hits, then engages with the months-long process of bringing it to life with as much historical accuracy, aplomb, and fun their meagre budget allows for.
Izzy, the creative head, describes how “there’s a tension here, because this is Classical Theatre, and there’s a strain between wanting to tell the thing exactly how it was and adapting it to a new audience. I think adaption can be healing for communities, and I think that’s what we’re trying to do, and I think it is important”.
Cassidy, the Classical advisor, nods. In his words, it’s all about “the appropriate balance between modernization and authenticity. There have been a million adaptations made where Classics have been booted out the window. That’s never what VATS has been about. This is a theatrical club, but it is also a very Classical club.”
I’ve read the script for Iphigeneia, and not to be biased, it’s good. So how does VATS achieve a feminist retelling, which still honours the original text, where so many others have failed?
To start, a feminist story is not just a story with a woman in it, it’s a story about, and for, the main female lead. Speaking on this, Izzy describes how she engages the text- not by changing the story, modernising it, or even by removing men. Orestes, arguably the original main character of the play, remains integral to the plot.
However, she’s deprioritised him in favour of what Iphigenia needs to do, and what her plot points are. In Izzy’s words, “Women are not present in Ancient Greek plays, and are written out of history. I’m centring Iphigenia and the chorus because I think it’s healing for women to see themselves as agents of history and not as some passive backdrop or landscape for a man to act upon.”
A truly feminist female character must be every bit as nuanced as you allow your male characters to be. Iphigeneia being centred doesn’t mean Iphigeneia is perfect. It means, no matter what she does, she’s the focus. Women can’t be blank pieces of A4 paper with WOMAN written in Sharpie, which gets sent through priority-mail plot points. They can’t be a female character from an ancient myth, who experiences the same myth, without any impact or reaction. As the ‘Sexy Lamp’ test goes, could your feminist main character be replaced with an inanimate floor lamp with fish-nets? if so, Kelly Sue DeConnick’s original use of the phrase states, “YOU’RE A FUCKING HACK!”
This becomes interesting in regards to the Classical aspect of these retellings. If a paper cut out of a woman is not enough for the feminist half of this brief, it certainly isn’t enough for the Classical half either.
In addition, a Classical retelling must engage with the CLASSICAL part of the RETELLING. if that emphasis seems too much, you’d be surprised. From Atwood’s choice to portray Helen of Troy as an airheaded bimbo obsessed with her looks, to Saint’s portrayal of Ariadne; Which felt like a to-do-list of story beats Ariadne had to be around for, it seems the art of historical fiction is a tricky line.
This is because these recent publications are written by non-classists, for non-classists. They engage with classical works with a damning lack of cultural relativism or research, and assume ‘voicing’ a female character makes it feminist.
A Classical woman must be researched and contextualised. Nearly none of these books feel like classical retellings because you could change Athens for Auckland and the Chariot for a Chevy and have similar stories. Ariadne’s partner is a cheating slob. Her rebound isn’t who she thought he was. Penelope is a shy you-don’t-know-you’re-beautiful girl at school getting ignored in favour of the vapid Heathers-esque Helen.
What makes them classical retellings is the same names and plot points- but there’s no presence of Classical society or sensibilities, and they all talk like they know what an iPhone is. The lack of Classical research is blatant, and honestly, leaves them feeling hollow on the inside. Atwood states she read a total of four books. One was the book she retold.
If I handed in an essay with that many sources, regardless of my writing, I’d fail.
For all my upset, there are some well-researched pieces. Madeline Millers Circe presents a brilliant humanised portrait of the originally simple seductress-sorcerer from the Odyssey, wrapped in a well-versed knowledge of Greek myth and a fair bit of knowledge of the bones of ancient society.
VATS, too, under the ever-looming wing of the Classics department, remains accurate in set and dress, informed not only on the in-text relations, but historical context.
The tension between feminism and historical accuracy, reception and faithfulness, remains.
But the key is this tension- and I’m excited to see how a truly well-rounded retelling looks when Iphigeneia Among the Taurians hits the stage in October.
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