Women in Greek Theatre: Listening Comprehension Key PDF

WOMEN IN GREEK THEATRE. National Theatre London video. KEY to the listening comprehension exercise A- 0’00”  1’14’’ Answer the following question in your own words, using the subordinate conjunctions between brackets: 1...

WOMEN IN GREEK THEATRE. National Theatre London video. KEY to the listening comprehension exercise A- 0’00”  1’14’’ Answer the following question in your own words, using the subordinate conjunctions between brackets: 1- What paradox does Dr Lucy Jackson point to as regards the representation of women in Greek drama? (Use ALTHOUGH) Although women in ancient 5th century Athens were marginalized and very low down in the pecking order1 of citizenship, they featured in many plays as strong women, quite strangely and paradoxically. 2- Does Ben Power suggest that there was a further paradox in the fact that “the plays were written by men, entirely performed by men and the audiences were all men”? (Use WHILE) There is a further paradox in the fact that these plays by men, intended for almost exclusively male audiences, featured strong and clever heroines rebelling against the stringently patriarchal and hierarchical society that had imagined and created them while treating women as an underclass in the real world. B- 1’15’’  3’27’’ 1- a- Find the missing letters below to transcribe the two adjectives Lucy Jackson uses to characterise Greek society. b- circle the stressed syllables2 of these words. misogynistic mq(sodGq)nqstqk patriarchal peqtrq)a:kFl 2- True or false? Justify in your own words: a- Athenian men refused to free women from their traditional social duties. True: Even though3 the ancient Greeks acknowledged that women performed crucial social roles, such as creating children or acting as priestesses in the running of the City’s religious festivals, they were not often let out of the house and were expected to keep within the boundaries of such traditional roles. b- The characters of Medea and Antigone reflect a central cultural tension in Athenian society. Although Medea and Antigone have kept toeing the line of the Greek society’s patriarchal codes of behaviour, they still end up being cast off and condemned by the very system they have been serving so diligently. Medea is repudiated and banished by Jason on the false pretext that she is a barbarian. As for Antigone, she is to be buried alive for having opposed Creon’s royal decree that her brother should not be given a proper burial. c- Theatre was a safe haven for social outcasts, unwed mothers, adulteresses and prostitutes. False: Theatre was only a place where female rebels were dramatized and given a voice as fictional beings. d- Athenians banned many plays about women lest they should fan the flames of social tensions. False: Athenians were paradoxically quite liberal as to the way they allowed playwrights to create female heroines expressing radically subversive views or openly condemning patriarchal oppression. 1 To be low down in the pecking order = stand low on the social ladder, belong to an underprivileged social class. (the “pecking order” refers to groups of hens in which certain hens can start pecking before others.) 2 Syllabes accentuées ou portant l’accent tonique. 3 )i:vFn DFx = although, though, while, albeit (bien que, alors que…) C- 3’28”  5’02” 1- Finish off the following sentence to explain Ben Power’s point of view in this section: According to Ben Power, Greek dramatists such as Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides were all the more brilliant as they understood that the best drama and stories could arise from giving a voice to the oppressed, the marginalized and those citizens who fought back against or resisted4 oppressive authority and power. 2- Does the statement below correctly summarize what Lucy Jackson says in this section? Correct it if it does not. Unless5 you were a white male citizen over thirty years old and relatively rich, you would have been marginalized by Athenian society and could have identified with the tragic heroines portrayed on stage – so portraying women was a way for playwrights to give a voice to all the voiceless citizens of the Athenian society of their time. D- 5’06”  end. Answer the following questions in your own words: 1- Does Judy Whittaker suggest that she would enjoy playing more likeable heroines than Antigone? No, she doesn’t. She mainly claims that she finds it amazing and interesting as an actress to be able to play female characters who are not meant to appear likeable, seductive or please audiences but rather to express their anger and passion freely, roughly, shockingly and potentially distastefully or outrageously. She probably suggests that such freedom allows her to undermine6 and subvert the stereotypical representations of women as seductresses or sexualised objects under the male gaze7. 2- Does Ben Power imply that Greek tragedy was meant to prompt audiences to empathize with monsters? Explain. No, Ben Power does not suggest that the heroines who carry out8 extreme deeds9 such as killing their own children, like Medea, are meant to be perceived as monsters. Instead, he believes audiences were expected to try and understand how extreme suffering and fateful predicaments10 could drive human beings to commit such horrendous, barbaric acts. For Ben Power, Medea remains a human being driven to barbarity by injustice and woe11. 3- What ambivalent word does Lucy Jackson use to characterise the tragic heroines of Greek drama? Do you believe the word fits the characters of Medea or Antigone? Explain in your own words. She explains that Greek tragedy is crowded with awesome women. She uses the term aptly in both its senses as she claims that tragic heroines inspire audiences with both admiration and fear12. Indeed, the male Greek audiences were certainly quite amazed at the bravery of such characters as Antigone or Medea. But they could also be somewhat frightened by the revolutionary power of the heroines’ rebellious passion and anger. 4 Résister à qqch  resist sth (verbe transitif direct en anglais mais indirect en français => cf. oppose sth/sbdy ; obey sbdy/ sth ; survive sbdy / sth etc…) 5 À moins que / de … 6 Destroy sth gradually (miner qqch) 7 The male gaze  le regard masculin (to gaze at sth / sbdy = regarder, contempler qqn/qqch) 8 Carry sth out / carry out sth = do sth, perform sth 9 = acts 10 prq)dqkFmFnt be in a predicament = be in a troublesome and embarrassing situation. 11 Literary term for despair, keen sorrow. 12 Awe (pronunciation => c : ) = admiration and fear (as before a deity) => awesome = a. impressionnant, imposant; b- terrifiant; c- génial  WOMEN IN GREEK THEATRE. National Theatre London video. Transcript Fill in the gaps: Dr Lucy Jackson (King’s College, London): In ancient 5th century Athens, women were sometimes seen, definitely not ………………... They were really, really sort of ……………………… …………………………………………... So it’s really strange when we go to pieces of theatre created at this time and see so many strong women ………………………………………………………………. on stage. Ben Power (dramaturg): The plays were written by men, entirely performed by men and the audiences were all men. And they were being performed to – in a society and in a social ………………………………………. that treated women as an ……………………………………….. And yet, the subject matter is these stories of women with incredible power – and in Antigone, or Electra or Medea, these women with huge personalities, great strength, great intelligence, great emotional intelligence, fighting back against the ………………………………………. Jodie Whittaker (actress/ Antigone): Actually, in Greek theatre it is quite extraordinary how many women there are in this powerful – there’s powerful goddesses, there’s – you know -, Clytemnestra, there’s all these amazing women. Dr Lucy Jackson (King’s College, London): So well, er, society in ancient Athens was ……………………………………………, definitely in er – you know – deeply …………………………………………. But also we have some fantastic examples of sources, other sources around the time, talking about how ……………………………………… women are. There’s a fragment from a different tragedy that says it’s better to ………………………… a woman than to marry her. So, set in that kind of context, it does seem all very strange that we have all these wonderful characters on stage. But I think, to do the Athenians some justice, they recognized how important women were. And even though women didn’t necessarily have a political voice and they wouldn’t be necessarily allowed out of the house that much, they would have been recognized as performing two, in particular, key roles for the City. First of all, they created children. Secondly, women were really, really important for ………………………………………. of the City’s religious ……………………………... In tragedy, we see that tension between recognising women are important and needing to control and …………………………….. women worked …………………... So we get a character like Medea. She is manifestly intelligent, fantastically loyal. She has done everything that a wife should do. She’s produced two sons. And yet …………………………………….., put to one side. And this is something that Athenians would have been aware of and might have wanted to say, OK, here’s the situation, what might happen? How can we talk about this problem, because we can’t talk about it in real life. We have to talk about it in the theatre, in this safe sort of space. Similarly, in the Antigone, you have a woman who is doing exactly what women should be doing; she’s making sure that the body of her brother is correctly …………………. That is a religious imperative and something that women in particular were responsible for. And the fact that she’s trying to do this duty and ………………………………………… in that by the most important man in the City, is a really, really difficult question. How do you reconcile that? So they try and ……………………………………………… these tensions by putting them on stage. Ben Power (dramaturg): The writers were great writers and they recognized that it’s in the marginalized voices, in the oppressed voices, the people who are trying to strike back against power that the best stories can come and the most emotionally affecting stories can come. And I think – you know – Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides, were – were brilliant in the way they perceived that. And as I say not in a society where those stories were ……………………. ………………………………………………………… of people’s consciousnesses. But to find those stories and take them to force them into the front of the drama. Dr Lucy Jackson (King’s College, London): So one play that features a lot of very, very strong intelligent women is Women of Troy and so again for us we want to think about how they talk about issues of the treatment of women in war, about how women ………………………………… ……………………………………. their children, of their husbands. But it’s possible to argue that in the first performance of this play being a woman wasn’t the issue. It was actually about, erm, people who were kind of on the margins of society, people who didn’t have a voice in government. And for the Athenians, …………………………. you were white and over thirty and had – probably had a certain amount of money, you didn’t have a voice …………………………………… …………………... So if you take the women in that play as just representative of those who don’t have a voice, then it works just as well. Helen McCrory (Actress / Medea): We are fascinated in the other and if there’s a symbol of other it is Medea. Nobody understands how somebody can kill their own children and Euripides is incredibly specific. Jodie Whittaker (actress/ Antigone): The thing that is amazing about the part for me is to play a woman who is angry and who is passionate and is ………………………………………….. in that state. Now, that’s a difficult thing to watch and it’s not a very nice thing to watch and it’s interesting when you come off stage and people are “I didn’t really like you.” Ben Power (dramaturg): It might be the female characters who do most extreme ………………… in the end. But there it’s also the female characters whom we most understand and whom we most feel the pain of, I think. And that’s what I think the best of this writing does is it allows us to understand how somebody would get to the point of killing their children or killing their husband or killing their mother. And it – it’s because the suffering and the ……………………………… and the pressure that build on these characters is so ………………………………………. – Dr Lucy Jackson (King’s College, London): I think what we have in Greek tragedy is a lot of ………………………………….. women. And I use that word deliberately. They’re ………………………….. in the sense that they are fantastic characters. But they are also inspiring …………………………… in what they do, how they act. That they are perhaps driven to do things that ……………………….. not do, I think, speaks more to the society of the time and again speaks to these perhaps male fears about what they are doing by …………………………….. women in the way that they did in society.  WOMEN IN GREEK THEATRE. National Theatre London video. Transcript A- 0’00”-1’14” Dr Lucy Jackson (King’s College, London): In ancient 5th century Athens, women were sometimes seen, definitely not heard. They were really, really sort of low down in the pecking order. So it’s really strange when we go to pieces of theatre created at this time and see so many strong women being portrayed on stage. Ben Power (dramaturg): The plays were written by men, entirely performed by men and the audiences were all men. And they were being performed to – in a society and in a social hierarchy that treated women as an underclass. And yet, the subject matter is these stories of women with incredible power – and in Antigone, or Electra or Medea, these women with huge personalities, great strength, great intelligence, great emotional intelligence, fighting back against the patriarchy. Jodie Whittaker (actress/ Antigone): Actually, in Greek theatre it is quite extraordinary how many women there are in this powerful – there’s powerful goddesses, there’s – you know -, Clytemnestra, there’s all these amazing women. B-1’15” 3’27” The importance of women in Athenian times Dr Lucy Jackson (King’s College, London): So well, er, society in ancient Athens was misogynistic, definitely in er – you know – deeply patriarchal. But also we have some fantastic examples of sources, other sources around the time, talking about how annoying women are. There’s a fragment from a different tragedy that says it’s better to bury a woman than to marry her. So, set in that kind of context, it does seem all very strange that we have all these wonderful characters on stage. But I think, to do the Athenians some justice, they recognized how important women were. And even though women didn’t necessarily have a political voice and they wouldn’t be necessarily allowed out of the house that much, they would have been recognized as performing two, in particular, key roles for the City. First of all, they created children. Secondly, women were really, really important for the running of the City’s religious festivals. In tragedy, we see that tension between recognising women are important and needing to control and subdue women worked out. So we get a character like Medea. She is manifestly intelligent, fantastically loyal. She has done everything that a wife should do. She’s produced two sons. And yet she’s being cast off, put to one side. And this is something that Athenians would have been aware of and might have wanted to say, OK, here’s the situation, what might happen? How can we talk about this problem, because we can’t talk about it in real life. We have to talk about it in the theatre, in this safe sort of space. Similarly, in the Antigone, you have a woman who is doing exactly what women should be doing; she’s making sure that the body of her brother is correctly buried. That is a religious imperative and something that women in particular were responsible for. And the fact that she’s trying to do this duty and she’s being thwarted in that by the most important man in the City, is a really, really difficult question. How do you reconcile that? So they try and work out these tensions by putting them on stage. C-3’28”-5’02” Marginalised female characters Ben Power (dramaturg): The writers were great writers and they recognized that it’s in the marginalized voices, in the oppressed voices, the people who are trying to strike back against power that the best stories can come and the most emotionally affecting stories can come. And I think – you know – Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides, were – were brilliant in the way they perceived that. And as I say not in a society where those stories were by any means at the forefront of people’s consciousnesses. But to find those stories and take them to force them into the front of the drama. Dr Lucy Jackson (King’s College, London): So one play that features a lot of very, very strong intelligent women is Women of Troy and so again for us we want to think about how they talk about issues of the treatment of women in war, about how women deal with the loss of their children, of their husbands. But it’s possible to argue that in the first performance of this play being a woman wasn’t the issue. It was actually about, erm, people who were kind of on the margins of society, people who didn’t have a voice in government. And for the Athenians, unless you were white and over thirty and had – probably had a certain amount of money, you didn’t have a voice in the way things are run. So if you take the women in that play as just representative of those who don’t have a voice, then it works just as well. D- 5’03” end Women as the other Helen McCrory (Actress / Medea): We are fascinated in the other and if there’s a symbol of other it is Medea. Nobody understands how somebody can kill their own children and Euripides is incredibly specific. Jodie Whittaker (actress/ Antigone): The thing that is amazing about the part for me is to play a woman who is angry and who is passionate and is unapologetically in that state. Now, that’s a difficult thing to watch and it’s not a very nice thing to watch and it’s interesting when you come off stage and people are “I didn’t really like you.” Ben Power (dramaturg): It might be the female characters who do most extreme deeds in the end. But there it’s also the female characters whom we most understand and whom we most feel the pain of, I think. And that’s what I think the best of this writing does is it allows us to understand how somebody would get to the point of killing their children or killing their husband or killing their mother. And it – it’s because the suffering and the predicament and the pressure that build on these characters is so articulate – Dr Lucy Jackson (King’s College, London): I think what we have in Greek tragedy is a lot of awesome women. And I use that word deliberately. They’re awesome in the sense that they are fantastic characters. But they are also inspiring awe in what they do, how they act. That they are perhaps driven to do things that we would rather not do, I think, speaks more to the society of the time and again speaks to these perhaps male fears about what they are doing by suppressing women in the way that they did in society.