University of Freiburg, Germany
Red Bull Theater’s Sardanapalus & Global Watch Party Review
By Matteo Schiavone
Lord Byron’s closet drama Sardanapalus (1821) came again to life in the recent dramatic reading of the Red Bull Theater. It was a pleasure to be part of a global watch party, which testified to the liveliness and enthusiasm of the Romantic community around the world: such a good way to celebrate Byron’s Bicentenary!
Our watch party at the University of Freiburg took place on 29th October and was attended by about 35 students, who had read the text beforehand: if some had found a few of the longer monologues more difficult to read on the page, listening to the actors and actresses interpret the words allowed to appreciate more fully the playfulness, wit and irony of the work. Special shoutout goes to Amir Arison and Merritt Janson for their captivating portrayal of Sardanapalus and Beleses, respectively. What everyone remarked is how well Sardanapalus works on stage, which contrasts with the received idea of Romantic closet drama as a genre to be experienced fundamentally in the context of a private reading. We would, indeed, love to watch a full performance on stage now.
The watch party was followed by two tutorial sessions in the following days, where students had the opportunity to share their ideas and opinions, as well as discuss some of the key themes and characters of the play. We are thankful to the Keats-Shelley Association for preparing a rich set of questions to use for discussion: it was the perfect starting point to reflect about some of the manifold interesting aspects of Sardanapalus. Not only does the play mirror the turmoil of the early Nineteenth Century (which makes it a great work for Survey classes), but it can also still speak so well to a Twenty-first Century audience: Sardanapalus’ ambiguous gender performance and Myrrha’s strength and powerful will resonated much with us. It was a long time since Sardanapalus was last taught here in Freiburg; the global watch party, thus, created the unique opportunity for a new generation of readers and viewers to discover such a compelling work.
