Jagiellonian University - Krakow, Poland
Red Bull Theater’s Sardanapalus & Global Watch Party Review
By Dominik Laciak & Monika Coghen
If watching Byron’s Sardanapalus read by a group of actors might seem like a dubious form of entertainment nowadays, the Red Bull Theater’s dramatic reading was a potent reminder of how this tragedy can still captivate contemporary audiences. And it certainly mesmerized us during our watch party in Krakow.
As many of us reflected in our post-screening discussion, listening to the lines of Byron’s play, so beautifully and deftly delivered by the actors, who deserve considerable credit for the work they put into the production, helped us notice how much the diction of this tragedy is replete with Shakespearean language. One viewer of the watch party pointed out that Sardanapalus’s “I’ve been i’the grave — where worms are lords / And kings are” (IV.i.48–9) echoes Hamlet’s well-known rejoinder to Polonius: “Your worm is your only emperor for diet” (IV.iii.24). Some of us also suggested that Sardanapalus’s dream of a bloody banquet with his ancestors in attendance bring to mind a similar scene in Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Others, however, argued that this nightmare, in particular the haunting vision of Semiramis sitting in the place of Myrrha, recalls Victor Frankenstein’s dream of embracing his beloved Elizabeth, only to see her morph into his mother’s corpse when he tries to kiss her.
Much of our discussion was also concerned with the biographical elements of Byron’s life that curiously figure in the play. We found it tempting, for example, to interpret the scene between Sardanapalus and Zarina in Act IV as Byron’s attempt to dramatize his imagined meeting with his wife after their separation. Perhaps Sardanapalus’s remorse reflects Byron’s own feelings toward Lady Byron at the time of writing the play, and Zarina’s forgiveness can be seen as a suggestion of how Byron might have wished his wife to react if their reunion had occurred. Some of us were also interested to discover how much of Byron’s “self” was discernible in the character of Sardanapalus. His pacificism, sharp humor, skepticism, and excessive indulgence in pleasure were some of the defining traits of Byron’s complex personality.
The most spirited part of our discussion was undoubtedly about the fitness of Sardanapalus on stage. Although Byron famously disavowed his wish to adapt his plays for theatrical production, Sardanapalus remains, in our view, one of the most stagiest of his dramas. It helps, for example, to invoke the “mirror scene” of Act III, which, thanks to its moments of high theatricality, would have certainly met the demand of nineteenth-century spectators for a visual spectacle and appealed to their interest in pantomime. Contemporary theatre could also stage Sardanapalus, after some cutting and revising, in an engaging way. The constant changing of costumes, the emotional unfolding of the plot, and the moments of great pathos often undercut by comic exchanges give this play its special inflection as a tragedy that is suited for the stage.
Most of us were also astonished to discover how many topical issues and problems this play explores. With its critique of warfare, skepticism of religion, and the relentless questioning of gender polarities, Sardanapalus, as the dramatic reading of the Red Bull Theater helped us appreciate, remains thematically relevant in our contemporary world. We would, therefore, love to see more projects like this one. Perhaps Byron’s Cain could be offered a similar airing from the confines of the closet called “Romantic drama.”
