The JHU Classical Club certainly had authenticity in mind when they staged a production of Euripides' Cyclops last Saturday in the Mattin Center Courtyard. The play, attributed to Euripides, is the only intact satyr play that has survived to this day. These plays get their name from their chorus of satyrs. Vase paintings and statues show performances of these plays, and here is where the authenticity might ruffle a few feathers. Among other things, a satyr is characterized by flowering garlands, raucous dancing, bacchanalian alcoholism and enormous phallic props. In other words, not a family-oriented sort of outing.

Senior classics major Leigh Lieberman translated the play with her Greek class last year, and added some modern touches to maintain the integral abandon of the play -- expletives and so forth that don't translate directly. The performance was partially a reading, but it tied well into the theme of intoxication (who can remember their lines with a liter of wine in their belly?)

The play is set within the framework of Homer's Odyssey. Greek audiences, much like the literate university students of today, would be familiar with the plot of the epic and appreciate the departures and embellishments therein, a tradition that continues today through works like O Brother, Where Art Thou? Odysseus comes to Polyphemus' island from Troy and finds a dysfunctional family of satyrs enslaved by the Cyclops. Far from emphasizing the peril and tragedy that befalls the hero and his men, the play moves along swiftly through the main action, garnering laughs with clever wordplay and ridicule.

Elwood Wiggins, known about campus as a well-to-do German instructor, takes on the role of Silenus, the old satyr patriarch and slave of Polyphemus. Wiggins easily surpasses his fellow satyrs when it comes to outright depravity, but we forgive him his faults later when the drunken Polyphemus (played by sophomore Lisa Carey) drags him into some farther corner of the cave, calling him his Ganymede. The yelps which echo from offstage leave little to the imagination. Nor do we have much to ponder when the limping, bow-legged Silenus comes back onstage from his rough treatment clutching at his hindquarters.

At one point of the play, as Odysseus plots to burn out his captor's eyeball with a burning spit, it began to rain, in spite of the clear skies. For those in an antique mood it seemed as if the gods themselves desired more debauchery. Or maybe they wished to keep the crowd cool. In any case, the rain was gone as soon as it had come (and as soon as more phalluses began flapping), but it would not be the first instance of the environment playing into the performance. Using the surrounding architecture of the Mattin Courtyard was a good move, as it engaged the audience's perception of distance and height in ways that most stages do not. As Odysseus triumphantly shouts back at the blind Cyclops his true name, his voice is a true shout, defiant and safely away from his captor, and the audience.

However, the audience was often sharply reminded that the performance was in a public
place; more than once, pedestrians sauntered across the whole stage, through the mouth and walls of the Polyphemus' cave, defying stage-physics and common courtesy alike. Sometimes helicopters or sirens drowned out the voices of the actors, but gestures and intonation usually carried the meaning clearly enough.

On the whole the play was exactly what it was meant to be; a good time. It ran the right length of time, the jokes hit home in rapid succession, and there was never a dull moment. All this from the same people who brought us the heart-pounding reading of the entire Odyssey last year on the upper quad (who can forget the steaminess of Odysseus getting with Circe, the fiery chills of digging into Hades, the adrenaline rush of outrunning Scylla and Charybdis?). Okay, it wasn't much for an attention-grabber. Maybe `Cyclops' picks up where last year's noble, if not ill-fated, homage to antiquity leaves off, namely, where it gets boring.

Let's hope these amateur symposiarchs keep up the good work in the coming years. They've taught us something that most Hopkins students fail to realize in their entire lifetimes--that even the Attic Greeks knew partying was an essential aspect to living. After seeing `The Cyclops' I put the ancients' theory to the test, and wouldn't you know? I had a lot of fun, or I think I did, and that's what counts. Now I need some water and an aspirin.