ONLINE: "Alcestis" rivets our attention with the theme of surrogacy - the trading of a dutiful wife's life to preserve that of her self-absorbed husband. As a craftsman of the unexpected, the Greek dramatist Euripides maneuvers this theme via absorbing and controversial roles given to gods, demigods, and mortals in a layering of high-test, confrontational perspectives. Euripides challenges the Greeks' own moral and ethical choices, and in so doing demands that the audience weigh for which, for whom, and under what circumstances they would die for another. And just as deliberately discomforting, the dramatist springs his "modernism" by leaving unsettling questions unanswered, placing them in the audience's lap without benefit of mortal or immortal solutions. We'll put the play into its mythic and moral setting as prelude to engaging with Euripides' minefields. We'll do it in the way a Greek audience did - by directly confronting the issues as they emerge: in our case, from the printed stage. | Lecture + Q&A, Facilitated discussion.
Max enrollment: 20.
