Electra Plays

Peter Meineck is Associate Professor of Classics at New York University, where he holds the endowed chair in Classics in the Modern World. He is the founder of Aquila Theatre. Cecelia Eaton Luschnig is Professor Emerita of Classics, University of Idaho.Paul Woodruff is Professor of Philosophy and Classics, University of Texas at Austin.Justina Gregory is Professor of Classical Languages and Literatures, Smith College.

Today good reading and effective performance of ancient drama require a constellation of talents to succeed, and in the four brought together for The Electra Plays we are getting some of the best. Justina Gregory provides a fine critical Introduction to the whole project, and the performance-tested translations of Peter Meineck, Cecelia Eaton Luschnig, and Paul Woodruff are wonderfully readable and speakable--even when the events to be spoken of are not. This is not the usual random gathering of plays, but a volume with a concentrated focus on the three playwrights' treatment of the same events in the House of Atreus. There are parallels and profound differences, all of them endlessly discussable. This ensemble of plays and the team that made it should appeal to anyone interested in Greek literature, theater history, or mythology. --James Tatum, Aaron Lawrence Professor of Classics, Dartmouth College, and author of Plautus: The Darker Comedies (Johns Hopkins University Press)