| |
| author |
Kris Perez
| | title |
"Beheading" The Minotaur: How Anna Ziegler's Modern Myth Reframes Classical Storytelling for a Modern Audience: A Director's Perspective
| | abstract |
This essay aims to explore Anna Ziegler's play The Minotaur and its place within the
development of a modern theatrical landscape that recontextualizes Greek myths. Within the past
decade and a half, there have been many modern interpretations of Greek myths, with many
plays, including Sara Ruhl's Eurydice (2003) and Anais Mitchell's Hadestown (2016), being
prime examples of the modern recontextualization of Greek myths and applying to the myths
modern ideas and sensibilities such as female-led stories and anti-industrial sentiments. This
essay aims to explore why this phenomenon is occurring by analyzing the work of Anna Ziegler
and its relationship to the Modernist movement of the twentieth century and its own exploration
and recontextualization of Greek Myth. After examining and connecting the dots between
Ziegler's works and the Modernists through analyzing the source material of The Minotaur myth
and its many reinterpretations in art and literature, and by analyzing another of Ziegler's plays,
Ron Swoboda's Wish, I present my own directorial view of Ziegler's play by exploring its central
themes of the "modern hero's journey" and the modernist idea of challenging ancient ideas of
"fate" and rejecting it. I present my own production process in directing and staging a full
production of Anna Ziegler's The Minotaur as a practical application of my thesis that Greek
myths keep being looked at due to the fact that we as a society lack connection at the deepest
level with each other. Something that myths are capable of doing is connecting us with our own
humanity through the use of their universal themes and being perfect blank theatrical canvases
with which to re-contextualize and create "modern myths," or myths that we as a modern society
can more readily relate to that question our most fundamental ideas about being human.
| | school |
The College of Liberal Arts, Drew University
| | degree |
B.A. (2024)
|
| advisor |
Judy Tate
|
| full text | KPerez.pdf |
| |
