Surprise. Surprise. I am back one year later, now a Senior and in a different English class. This time, my current teacher, Dr Holt, wants me to answer how the school play Metamorphoses had to do with what we are talking about in class. Luckily, I actually was in the play, so this assignment should be a breeze.
How does Metamorphoses have to do with the concepts from our Bard class?
One of the earliest know Bards (or as they were called in Latin, "Vates") was Ovid who was the mastermind behind the myths in Metamorphoses. He may not have been the original writer of these myths, but he was responsible for documenting them and passing them along for centuries. In all 250 of the myths from Metamorphoses (the play features only 9), the lesson/ideology of change is present. In some way or another, a character goes through a physical change like turning into birds or a tree, or psychological like not recognizing your husband when entering the underworld.
The process of performing Metamorphoses also relates to my Early Moderner role as an actor. We spent the past three months, learning the stories, getting cast, and learning our lines and dialogue to impress both the citizens, and the higher ranking individuals. Like Bards from the Victorian era, we had to take the words of various ancient stories such as Greek Myths, and turn them into entertaining pieces of art that modern audiences can enjoy. A great example of this comes from the opening myth of the show, Midas. The scene was more comedic and involved a smaller number of actors from the rest, meaning that there were more opportunities for comedy and for the central actors of the scene to stand out. It was very easy for me to play the character of Silenus (center), a drunk man who pesters King Midas (left) and his servant (right), because I am a comedian. Moments that weren't necessarily in the script such as stumbling onto the stage, tapping Midas on the nose, collapsing into the pool, and dancing on the god platform with Bacchus, the God of Revelry, elevated the comedy of the entire scene, making it my absolute favorite part of the show.
Some Bards also served as storytellers, rather than actors, to move along the stories. Except for Midas and the Narcissus Interlude, every single scene had a large ensemble of narrators that served as the bards of those myths. My most notable narrator parts were in the myth of Erysichton where I voiced the Spirit of the Tree that the titular character cut down, or Orpheus and Eurydice where all of the narrators were Denizens/Demons of the Underworld for the first half of the myth.
Silenus from Midas
A Denizen of the Underworld in the myth Orpheus and Eurydice