Author Interview - Maira Stadter Fox

Q.  What was it about Euripides' work that so attracted Tsvetaeva, Yourcenar, and H.D.?

A.  Euripides liked to turn stories and values upside down. He was interested in the marginalized (women, slaves, outsiders), and his characteristic combination of rhetoric, emotion, sensationalism, and skepticism felt "modern" to these writers (H.D. and Yourcenar both comment on his fundamental "modernity.") By turning stories upside down, I mean he lures the audience into sympathizing at least temporarily with a character whose point of view it might otherwise find completely repellent: Medea's wretchedness at her husband's desertion or Hecuba's desire for vengeance. He also enjoys unexpected versions of characters: Clytemnestra's anticipation of being a grandmother, for example, or an innocent Helen in Egypt. Both his topsy- turvy-ness and his focus on women were attractive to these writers, who did some of their own turning upside down. Finally, he also shared "modern " experiences such as living through a devastating war and exile.

Q.  There are two performances at work in your book. One is the act of gender and genre in the plays themselves. The other is the performance of the authors as women writers. How do the two performances influence one another?

A.  Tsvetaeva notes that it is a transgression simply for her, as a woman, to be writing tragedy. That is the initial defiant performance by the authors. Greek tragedy in many ways seems to question masculinity and empower femininity, only to recuperate patriarchy's dominance. This is particularly striking in Euripides' Hippolytus, where the suicide Phaedra is forgotten in order to focus on the healing of the relationship between Theseus and his dying son. One way the femininity of the authors comes into play is that this final gesture of recuperation either does not occur at all (Yourcenar, H.D.) or is shown to be very expensive in terms of Phaedra's life (Tsvetaeva). The three authors also ascribe to Phaedra various degrees of and reasons for guilt (if -any).

Q.  All three authors, especially tsvetaeva, favored writing the play-to-be-read over writing for theatrical performances. What were the advantages of the former, and the limitations of the latter?

A.  The main advantage of the play-to-be-read (or closet drama) is the author's control of the text (as far as that goes). There is no need to share primary reader status with a director and a theater troupe, or deal with practical theatrical problems, or bow to demands for cuts and rewrites. There is also the possibility of reaching a wider audience through print than through the theater. Tsvetaeva remarked that the theater was for literalists who needed to see before they could believe. She also felt that theater intruded upon the reader's intimacy with the text. None of these writers were women of the theater, although Yourcenar and H.D. enjoyed attending the theater, and Tsvetaeva for a time was close with a group of actors.

Q.  Which author's work comes closest to attaining a solution to feminine authority?

A.  What does one consider a solution? Tsvetaeva seems to be the one who believed the most unswervingly in her calling as a poet and a writer, but her Phaedra seems to suggest that when women speak or write the painful truths of their lives, they reap contempt and despair. Yourcenar likewise usually felt fairly confident in her role as a writer, but only when she had deliberately distraced herself from femininity (although her Ariadne is one of her very few characters to reach apotheosis). H.D. struggled with this issue all of her writing life, in more than one genre and under more than one name: in addition, for a time she was very intrigued by the figure of the androgynous youth. Yet they all persevered and wrote good, even brilliant work, despite each one's challenges and difficulties.

Q.  What would euripides say of these textual experiments if he could read Tsvetaeva's, Yourcenar's, and H.D.'s plays?

A.  Probably "How the hell can this be drama if there's no theater?" The idea of the closet drama I think would strike him as odd: Athenian drama in his time was such a public phenomenon, religious and civic as well as artistic. On the other hand, I think he'd like the twists given to character and story.