{"title":"Afterword","authors":"Fiona Macintosh, J. McConnell","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198846581.003.0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198846581.003.0007","url":null,"abstract":"Theatre performances have always afforded a window on particular cultures at specific points in time, and this truism seems to be especially pertinent to any attempt to evaluate the extraordinary resurgence of epic performances in recent years around the world. For performing epic hasn’t simply been about an engagement with ancient oral traditions at a time when there is considerable appetite for ‘big’ stories, despite (or maybe because of) theoretical resistance to the ‘grand narratives’ of history. It has also been about turning to those stories because understanding of their original mode of composition—collective, improvisatory and so seemingly permanently ‘open’ to wider participation and change—has inspired artists to participate in this ongoing process of the remaking of epic performances....","PeriodicalId":173880,"journal":{"name":"Performing Epic or Telling Tales","volume":"9 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-02-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116318252","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Telling Other Tales","authors":"Fiona Macintosh, J. McConnell","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198846581.003.0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198846581.003.0006","url":null,"abstract":"Chapter 6 examines the various ways in which the Bakhtinian heteroglossia of epic performances has been created: by the use of a participating bardic figure, who extends the Brechtian role of narrator/commentator to assume agency within both the fictional and actual worlds of the spectators; by their space-time settings; and by both their live-ness in, and their aliveness to, the immediate performance context. Since the time of the Modernists, led by Joyce and Woolf in Britain and Oswaldo de Andrade in Brazil, epic has begun to be re-envisioned; rather than a genre in which to retell the heroic narratives of a nation, it has become a place where the voices of those previously overshadowed and neglected are finally given space. Derek Walcott’s The Odyssey: A Stage Version, Suzan-Lori Parks’ Father Comes Home from the Wars, and Lisa Petersen and Denis O’Hare’s An Iliad each do this in different ways, giving voice to those whose narratives were occluded in the ancient epics.","PeriodicalId":173880,"journal":{"name":"Performing Epic or Telling Tales","volume":"38 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-02-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122935476","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}