The Getty Museum continues his journey through the ancient Greek and Roman culture; the Museum and CalArts’ Center for New Performance (CNP), in association with Trans Arts, just announced their collaboration on Prometheus Bound, the eighth annual outdoor theater production in the Getty Villa’s Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman Theater, to be presented at the end of summer.
“We are delighted to be collaborating with the widely respected and highly innovative team of theater artists at CalArts for this new presentation of Prometheus Bound,” says Timothy Potts, director of the J. Paul Getty Museum. “In the ancient world, theater was a fundamental part of religious and social life, and as our theater program at the Getty Villa demonstrates, Classical drama still connects strongly with contemporary playwrights, actors, and audiences.”
In the mythic tradition, the Titan Prometheus, progenitor and champion of humankind, stole fire from Mount Olympus to give to mortals. In this play, he also taught them crafts and skills essential for human civilization. As punishment, Zeus dooms him to an eternity chained to a mountaintop, where Prometheus spends his days and nights railing against the gods and their injustices.
Featuring a newly-translated text by noted poet and essayist Joel Agee, Prometheus Bound will be directed by Travis Preston, artistic director of CNP and dean of the CalArts School of Theater. In 2006 Preston was named Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Minister of Culture for “contributions to the arts in France and throughout the world.”
The production will include original music by composer Ellen Reid and celebrated jazz multi-instrumentalist Vinny Golia, who will also perform live onstage.
Of the surviving ancient Greek dramas, Prometheus Bound (of unknown date, but perhaps first performed in the 450s B.C.) is considered to be one of the most beautifully written, theatrically unique, and theologically profound: a masterpiece of Western theater. It has equally proven to be one of the most challenging to translate and present to contemporary audiences. While continuing to be ascribed to the tragic poet Aeschylus, the play’s authorship has been the subject of scholarly debate in recent decades. Composed in the most ancient extant dramatic form, Prometheus Bound unfolds almost as an epic poem or extended hymn, rarely yielding the dramatic action generally associated with later Greek tragedies.
Notes Preston: “Prometheus Bound addresses man’s relationship to the eternal order of the cosmos. The circle represents the cosmos and is also an image of time. The drama is placed at the edge of civilization, as well as at the border between ritual and artistic expression. Prometheus Bound also depicts the enfranchisement of human capability. It is a hosanna to human culture and achievement.”
The Getty Villa’s annual outdoor theater production is part of the Getty Museum’s innovative theater program that enhances the visitor’s experience of the ancient world. Live performances of classical drama offer insights into the social, cultural, and political realities of life in ancient Greece and Rome while, in the galleries, works of art serve to deepen the connection between modern audiences and the mythical stories underlying the tragedies and comedies on stage.
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