Marianne McDonald, a professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance and a member of the Classics Program, is one of the world’s most respected pioneers in creating modern versions of the classics, in films, plays and opera. A new book, with contributions from Nobel Prize author Seamus Heaney and many others, has just been published in McDonald’s honor. Titled “Rebel Women,” the volume of prose, poetry and plays commemorates a lifetime of exceptional writing.

McDonald: I do not think anything needs to be done to make classical themes relevant for our times. They ARE relevant. However, one has to make the works themselves accessible. That could mean translating them into current language; performing ancient plays; showing modern films that deal with ancient themes; and teaching classes that show the relevance of the classics. I also enjoy engaging audiences so that people note how what they have seen applies to their own life. The experience is often cathartic, and through the guise of ancient Greek theatre one can face one’s worst fears and concerns in this modern world. People can emerge better equipped to lead better lives afterwards. This is also something I also seek in my courses: not to give answers, but to raise questions that can ultimately let each person decide how he or she can lead a life of quality. The ancient Greeks were masters at this. Plato said: “The unexamined life is not worth living”; through performances of Greek drama one can examine one’s own life.

McDonald: I am often commissioned: for instance, a director says he wants to direct a certain play, so I provide the translation. Jack O’Brien approached me in 1999 for a version of “Trojan Women” because he wanted a play that advocated peace to usher in the millennium. It was also a play written about women, directed by a woman, and the version written by a woman, so it was a vote for women to make this millennium even better than the last one..

McDonald: I had been teaching my usual multicultural myth and film course, and in the year I had the idea of the play, the subject of my course was basically about Samurai and Buddhism in film and significant texts. I thought I would write something about the aftermath of a crucial battle, and develop it rather like an Asian Trojan Women. I had lost a daughter in a terrible accident at the age of fifteen. I cannot describe the searing loss of losing a child, so I wrote this play also to celebrate her. I put her in the character of Midori (Midori means “green” in Japanese, which I see as a symbol of new life). In the play, Midori is a typical teenager who has to learn how to survive in a world that seems out to frustrate her drive for freedom and her own creativity. In the play, one sees how Buddhist thought can be in conflict with the samurai code, but at times how each can benefit the other..

McDonald: One of the classes I’m teaching this fall is Performing History in Theatre, Myth, and Film. This multi-cultural course, which is designed to teach students about the interaction between history and theatre, leaves students with a greater understanding of how theatre and film both reflect and respond to society.

This course has been very popular in the past, with about 500 showing up to enroll and 500 waiting. It is now limited to about 25 students given new regulations in our department limiting the size of a course like this, and also the size of the room. I find it personally more satisfying because I can relate more fully to each of the students and try to address what they want to get out of this course in the context of their own main work.

The topics for the undergraduate course vary, and always include something from classical drama, from which I can point out modern relevance. This course engages students by showing them how the messages from ancient drama are translated into modern film.

McDonald: Spyros Mercouris, the brother of Melina (from "Never on Sunday" and “Return the Elgin Marbles” fame), approached me about a conference in Ireland on rebel women in Greek Tragedy. I took the idea to Trinity in Dublin, and they organized the conference. Because of this conference, and because many of my friends contributed not only to the conference itself but also to the book called “Rebel Women: Staging Ancient Greek Drama Today”, the volume is being dedicated to me as a Festschrift. An event is being held in my honor to present me with this book on April 10th at Trinity and it will also feature a panel on “The Future of Greek Tragedy” which includes as speakers Seamus Heaney, Athol Fugard, Marina Carr and myself, before other festivities for invited guests.

McDonald: I like trying to preserve endangered species. That’s why I tried to save the ancient texts of Greek literature and also Irish literature. My other main project was the McDonald Center, to combat alcoholism and drug abuse. One project saves texts, and the other saves lives (one gives reasons for living, and the other life itself). I believe also in education, and have funded a chair in Japanese Studies, and established a scholarship for graduate students in honor of my deceased daughter so that these students can have the chance that was denied her.

McDonald: My father was a pioneer in radio and television and when I was growing up he had experimental systems that gave me access to broadcasts of theatre. (One called Phone Vision…where you called up and accessed programs for your television.) Basically I had an early form of cablevision that would take years to develop. He also loved the theatre and he used to take me to the theatre and opera. He was from an Irish immigrant family and didn’t have the luxury of high school. With me he gained the education he never had, and at the same time communicated to me a love of theatre and human creativity, coupled with a sense of compassion for one’s fellow man.

McDonald: Meditation and Tai Chi, and exercising a minimum of an hour a day in something that is aerobic (usually a stationary bicycle as I watch British comedy or murder mysteries.) I guess I should also mention that I have a black belt in Karate, essential for dealing with six children and visits from seven grandchildren!