Plautus goes USA: the adaptation of Rudens by the Ladies’ Literary Society of Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1884

Abstract

This article investigates the first documented performance of a Plautine comedy in Latin in the USA. In 1884, The Ladies’ Literary Society of Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, staged Plautus’ Rudens in Latin with an all-female cast. This performance offers a unique opportunity to analyse the Society’s understanding and interpretation of Plautus’ play as well as its adaptation for the nineteenth-century stage. Furthermore, the Society provided an English translation for its academic and especially its non-academic audience, evidence of how the Society dealt with the Plautine Latin text. Based on this translation and contemporary newspaper and journal articles, this article outlines the main characteristics of the Society’s adaptation. First, this production merits scrutiny in the historical context of staging ancient Greek and Roman plays in the USA during the late-nineteenth century, since the Society followed the trend, started by Harvard University’s staging of Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus in 1881, of presenting ancient plays ‘authentically’. Nevertheless, the Society seems to have staged this Roman comedy as a feminist response to Harvard’s production of a Greek tragedy. Secondly, the Society modernised Plautus’ comedy by adding strong melodramatic elements, and thirdly, it reflected the contemporary socio-cultural context by alluding to current American concerns.