“What is Hecuba to [me]?”: The Impossibility of Catharsis and Rupture of Representation in Marina Carr’s Hecuba

Öz

Marina Carr’s Hecuba (2015), an adaptation of Euripides’s tragedy Hecuba (424 BC), resonates with Hamlet’s famous line “What is Hecuba to him, or he to her?” (Shakespeare, 1599/2003, 2.2.511) for the contemporary spectator by arousing pain and guilt instead of a cathartic effect. In the adaptation, Carr portrays a different presentation of the Queen of Troy from her representations in several classical texts. Contrary to the classical picture of a vengeful mad queen, she retells the untold story of the tragic queen and reveals Hecuba’s sorrow, pain, love for her children, and the vulnerability of a woman who is surviving a war. In Hecuba, Carr manages to build an ethical encounter between Hecuba and both Agamemnon and the spectator. In doing so, she breaks the representation by applying experimental theatrical devices that disturb the spectator in their comfort zone and subvert the cathartic effect. The play leaves the spectator with the burden of heavy pain and responsibility for the Other. In this respect, this article discusses the impossibility of the purgation of feeling in contemporary theatre through a Levinasian ethical approach in relation to the Other in Marina Carr’s Hecuba.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Marina Carr
• Euripides
• Hecuba
• Levinas
• Ethics

Kaynakça

1. Aragay, M. (2014). To begin to speculate: Theatre studies, ethics and spectatorship. In M. Aragay & E. Monforte (Eds.). Ethical speculations in contemporary British theatre (pp. 1-22). London: Palgrave Macmillan. google scholar
2. Carr, M. (2015). Hecuba. In Marina Carr: Plays 3. (pp. 204-260). London: Faber and Faber. google scholar
3. Cochrane, C. & Robinson, J. (2016). Theatre history and historiography: Ethics, evidence and truth (pp. 1-29). London: Palgrave Macmillan. google scholar
4. Eaglestone, R. (1997). Ethical criticism: Reading after Levinas. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. google scholar
5. Foley, H. P. (2001). Female acts in Greek tragedy. Princeton: Princeton UP. google scholar
6. Gonzalez Chacon. M. (2016). Re-examining and redeeming the tragic queen: Euripides’ “Hecuba” in two versions by Frank McGuinness (2004) and Marina Carr (2015), en Complutense Journal of English Studies (24), 25-41. https://doi.org/10.5209/CJES.52527 google scholar
7. Grehan, H. (2009). Performance, ethics and spectatorship in a global age. London: Palgrave Macmillan. google scholar
8. Hutcheon, L. & O’Flynn, S. (2013). A theory of adaptation. New York: Routledge. google scholar

9. Large, W. (2015). Levinas’s totality and infinity: A reader’s guide. London: Bloomsbury. google scholar
10. Levinas, E. & Nemo, P. (1985). Ethics and infinity: Conversations with Philippe Nemo (R. A. Cohen, Trans.). Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press. google scholar
11. Levinas, E. (1987). Reality and its shadow. Collected philosophical papers (A. Lingis, Trans.) (pp. 1-13). Boston: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. google scholar
12. Levinas, E. (1987). Time and the Other: And additional essays. (R. A. Cohen, Trans.). Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press. google scholar
13. Levinas, E. (1998). Otherwise than being, or, Beyond essence (A. Lingis, Trans.) Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press. google scholar
14. Levinas, E. (2007). Totality and infinity: An essay on exteriority. (A. Lingis, Trans.). Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press. google scholar
15. Liapis, V. & Sidiropoulou, A. (2021). Introduction. In V. Liapis & A. Sidiropoulou (Eds.). Adapting Greek tragedy: Contemporary contexts for ancient texts (pp. 1-23). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. google scholar
16. Lloyd, M. (2019). Greek tragedy in Ireland 2019-2020 [Review of the play Hecuba by Marina Carr]. Ireland, Britain, and the Classical World. 26, 98-114. google scholar
17. Ranciere, J. (2019). The emancipated spectator (G. Elliott, Trans.). London: Verso. google scholar
18. Rees, C. (2017). Adaptation and nation: Theatrical contexts for contemporary English and Irish drama. London: Palgrave Macmillan. google scholar
19. Rich, A. (1972). When we dead awaken: Writing as re-vision. College English, 34(1), 18-30. https://doi. org/10.2307/375215 google scholar
20. Ridout, N. (2009). Theatre & ethics. London: Palgrave Macmillan. google scholar
21. Sanders, J. (2016). Adaptation and appropriation. New York: Routledge. google scholar
22. Shakespeare, W. (2003). Hamlet: Prince of Denmark (P. Edwards, Ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Original work published 1599) google scholar
23. Sierz, A. (2014). Foreword. In M. Aragay & E. Monforte (Eds.). Ethical speculations in contemporary British theatre (pp. ix-xvi). London: Palgrave Macmillan. google scholar
24. Sihra, M. (2005). Greek myth, Irish realty: Marina Carr’s By the bog of cats.... In J. Dillon & S. E. Wilmer (Eds.). Rebel women: Staging ancient drama today (pp. 116-135). London: Bloomsbury. google scholar
25. Sihra, M. (2018). Marina Carr: Pastures of the unknown. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. google scholar
26. Storey, I. C. & Allan, A. (2014). A guide to ancient Greek drama. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell. google scholar
27. Vural Özbey, K. (2023). Glocalisation and adaptation in Marina Carr’s By the bog of cats... and Blood wedding. google scholar
28. Söylem Filoloji Dergisi. 8(2), 398-20. https://doi.org/10.29110/soylemdergi.1288451 google scholar
29. Wallace, C. (2019). Marina Carr’s Hecuba: Agency, anger and correcting Euripides. Irish Studies Review. 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1080/09670882.2019.1663606 google scholar
30. Wang, W. M. (2020). Readerly plays: Narration and formal experimentation in Marina Carr’s Hecuba. Style 54(4), 399-417. https://doi.org/10.5325/style.54.4.0399 google scholar
31. Wilmer, S. E. (2005). Introduction. In J. Dillon & S. E. Wilmer (Eds.). Rebel women: Staging ancient drama today (pp. xiii-xxv). London: Bloomsbury. google scholar
32. Wood, D. (2014). Introduction. In R. Bernasconi & D. Wood (Eds.). The provocation of Levinas: Rethinking the other (pp. 1-4). New York: Routledge. google scholar