Theater in Greece and Rome (TIGR), a committee affiliated with The Classical Association of the Middle West and South (CAMWS), will present the ancient Roman playwright Plautus’s tragicomedy Amphitryon on Friday 9 April 2021 during the CAMWS annual meeting. Long before the pandemic struck, this important regional conference in Classics was scheduled to be held in Cleveland.
With the pandemic making travel difficult, the conference has gone virtual and the play will be performed on Zoom. Dr. Timothy Wutrich in the Department of Classics is chair of TIGR and director of the production. CWRU alumna and current graduate student Dominica Rollins is in the cast as Alcmena, wife of the hero Amphitryon and future mother of Hercules.
The play deals with the events leading up to the birth of Hercules. The gods Jupiter and Mercury come to Thebes and take on the likeness of Amphitryon and his slave Sosia in order to seduce the virtuous Alcmena. This complex play merges several classic story lines from ancient comedy such as mistaken identity, seduction, rival lovers, and handles them in a way that opens serious dramatic themes. Among other things the play introduced the term “tragicomedy” into world literature and went on to inspire authors such as Shakespeare, Moliere, Dryden, Kleist, and Giraudoux.
The TIGR production of Amphitryon is free and open to the general public but advanced registration is required.