[Authors and titles are listed at the end of the review]
While classical reception has undoubtedly blossomed as a sub-discipline over the past two decades or so, there remains a notable gap in the scholarship around supposedly trivial subjects; among them, the topic of play. Born out of the seventh Imagines Project conference, the present volume seeks to close this gap, foregrounding playful encounters with antiquity on the parts of both audiences and creators of reception.
The volume is split into five sections, each introduced with an ‘interlude’ written by one of the editors, giving us a brief insight into the section theme. The first section on toys and games features papers concerned with material objects of play; section II turns to virtual realities expressed here through video games; section III explores the staging of classical reception through drama and music; the fourth section is on immersive encounters with antiquity; and section V completes the chapters by considering national traditions. These sections are bookended by an introduction by co-editor Martin Lindner and a concluding coda by co-editor Juliette Harrisson. At the head of each section, different editors provide brief introductions in the form of interludes, enabling the reader to navigate freely through the volume according to whichever section(s) they find most useful or interesting.
Martin Lindner’s introduction quickly and deliberately dispatches with the need for a history of the field of classical reception to provide the reader instead with a ‘beginner’s guide’ to the volume, walking the reader (or perhaps player) through different theories of play via thought experiments, concluding with ‘house rules’ for the reading experience. Lindner provides a brief explanation of the concept of play through the work of Brian Sutton-Smith, namely his concept of games through seven rhetorics (1997) and later, five layers (2008); it would have been useful for this theoretical framework to have been further developed here, as several of the papers refer to this work, some of which signpost back to the introduction. The editors have boldly chosen a broad set of papers for the volume, some of which they accept will be less satisfying than others to different readers. As Lindner asserts in the house rules: ‘Ever since there were games, new players have had to learn house rules the hard way: by being irritated or otherwise disadvantaged when they unexpectedly occur for the first time. Chances are that some of the following contributions will be less accessible to you because they require unfamiliar starting knowledge’ (p. 9). This does mean that the methodologies utilised throughout the volume are intentionally varied; the result is a challenging, though rewarding, read for those willing to step beyond specialisms and comfort zones. The aims of the volume are also not made entirely clear here; ‘play’ and its definitions by Sutton-Smith are the organising principles of the introduction, although the volume itself is more properly interested in the creative process of the production and use of classical reception, which may of course be ludic in nature, as the volume demonstrates; certainly, the link between play and creativity could be made more strongly here. The interludes go some way to filling this gap however, providing brief overviews of the media under scrutiny in each section and how they can or have been played with.
The first section is on ‘Toys and Games’. Anabelle Thurn (chapter 1) opens the volume with a discussion of the learning opportunities afforded by Playmobil’s Caesar and Cleopatra figurines, while Antonio Duplá-Ansuategui (chapter 2) explores the presentation of ancient and contemporary history in selected decks of Spanish card games. The final paper in the section (chapter 3) is a brief photo essay about the creation of the game Archaeologists vs Treasure Hunters, which authors Irina Vagalinska and Lyudmil Vagalinska were both involved in creating.
Section II turns to ‘Virtual Realities’. While Juliette Harrison’s interlude focuses chiefly on video games, the papers in this section both go beyond them to include other virtual aspects of playing with classics. Alexander Vandewalle (chapter 4) provides a necessary contribution to the field of historical video game studies with a concise overview of the field’s history and some theoretical and methodological insight, completing the paper with discussion of Paizomen, a database project run by Vandewalle which is already actively contributing to the study of classics video games. In chapter 5, in describing their teaching project Kai Matuszkiewicz and Kai Ruffing similarly use Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey as a jumping off point for teaching not only reception itself through the game, but also digital skills through the critical ‘Let’s Analyse’ presentations their students produce for assessment. Matuszkiewicz and Ruffing’s contribution fulfils the aims of the present volume well through their full examination of the interweaving of didactic, ludic, and productive elements within the project.
‘Playing on Stage’ is the topic of section III, opening with Antonius Adamske’s study of antiquity in the performance of French baroque ballet and opera (chapter 6) which deftly works through the use of classical models in music to playfully represent power, and further, questions the contemporary relevance of such performances. Zoa Alonso Fernández shifts the focus to contemporary disco in chapter 7, performing a re-reading of the received figure of Achilles through Richard Move’s production The Show (Achilles Heels). Fernández demonstrates how Move layers products of popular culture and real contemporary personalities into their interpretation of Achilles, shaping and re-shaping the hero through a queer lens via theatrical performance, ultimately allowing for critical reappraisal of the epic hero as he appears in ancient epic. Chapter 8, the final paper in the section, is a photo essay by Martina Treu and the ‘non-scuola’, and addresses the Italian ‘non-school’ workshops, considering the ways that performance of classical theatre can become a collective game.
The penultimate section on ‘Immersive Antiquities’ is one of the strongest, fulfilling the conditions of the volume’s aims in concerning itself with creative interactivity on the parts of both makers and audiences of receptions, including beyond the strictly classical and dismissing the idea of authenticity or historical accuracy. In chapter 9, Luis Unceta Gómez discusses the phenomenon of the toga party as a creative reenactment of ancient Rome inspired by other popular—especially cinematic—receptions. Unceta Gómez argues that the toga is the most recognisable of a set of signifiers that govern immersive experiences of ancient Rome, with hedonism and sexuality emerging as key elements of the toga party that conjure, for its participants, a ludic experience with history. In the following paper (chapter 10), Filippo Carlá-Uhink and Florian Freitag assess the interactivity of theme park attractions that rely on narratives or images around archaeology. Drawing on scholarship on representations of the figure of the archaeologist, Carlá-Uhink and Freitag explore the changing face of archaeology as it appears in theme park rides, noting the influence of the cinema and the persistence of the adventuring archaeologist as an archetype. The section concludes with a photo essay by Anna Socha and street artist PichiAvo (chapter 11), arguing that street art and graffiti depicting classical imagery both disrupt and continue the classical tradition, reconfiguring encounters with antiquity through the urban setting as well as through digital archiving.
Finally, section V turns to ‘National Traditions’. Pepa Castillo Pascual (chapter 12) opens this section with an examination of the work of the Spanish cartoonist Forges, whose comic book Historia de Aquí (‘History of Here’) offers a playfully alternative narrative of the Roman siege of Numantia to the nationalistic version taught in the Franco regime, albeit one that refers heavily to contemporary politics. In chapter 13, Chiara Sulprizio performs a critical and contextual reading of three animated films about Greek mythology from Russia during the Soviet Union, demonstrating how the filmmakers could playfully engage with myth as a distanced space that enabled them also to make subversive political statements. In the final paper of this section, Sven Günther surveys posts on the Chinese social media app WeChat to analyse the ways in which Greco-Roman antiquity is played with in WeChat groups in response to direct learning and to current events.
The volume is concluded with a coda containing the final chapter by Harrisson on the interaction between play and other receptions. Harrisson outright rejects frivolity as the principle that distinguishes the studies in the present volume from those written about previously, asserting instead that interactivity is the key element, with interactive engagement being playful instead of passive.
This volume is hugely ambitious and necessary, tackling a topic that it is easy to write-off as trivial. The scope of the case studies and thematic approaches is admirably broad, and the editors do a worthy job of compiling the papers into a very readable volume. The structure of the volume with the interludes supports a more playful than usual reading experience, playing on the choose-your-own-adventure style whereby the readers can dip into whichever section they find most useful or interesting.
As with any study offering such multiplicity, there is some scope for improvement. It would have been helpful to see some of the chapters developed slightly more beyond description of the media at hand. There is a general omission, in my opinion, of discussion around the availability of these media to their audiences; interactivity through the use of streaming services and the television remote control are tantalisingly mentioned in Harrisson’s concluding chapter, and it would have been worth considering the accessibility of some of the receptive encounters (which in several cases are experiences such as visits to theme parks or concerts) to different socio-economic groups and the effect that the exclusion of some groups might have on the readings of antiquity created by the media. There is also a notable omission of the ERC funded Our Mythical Childhood Database project, which is only briefly mentioned in a footnote during Luis Unceta Gómez’s first interlude, despite both this interlude—and the topics of some of the papers—relating directly to some of the objects and media recorded on the database.
Nonetheless, the diversity on offer here in both topic and presentation—the photo essays in particular are a thoughtful inclusion—is an encouraging experiment in how we move forward with scholarship on reception. The volume is well-presented with few typographical errors, and, beyond the photo essays, the chapters are appropriately illustrated. This volume will certainly provide a fruitful place to start for those interested in play and creative approaches to classical reception.
Authors and Titles
Introduction: Thinking about Playful Classics: A Beginners’ Guide (Martin Lindner)
Section I: Toys and Games
Interlude (Luis Unceta Gómez)
- Playing with Caesar and Cleopatra: ‘Anticizing’ Play Figures and Historical Thinking in (Young) Children (Anabelle Thurn)
- Card Games and Antiquity in Spain: Some Examples (Antonio Duplá-Ansuategui)
- Designing Archaeologists vs Treasure Hunters: Just Another Board Game? (Irina Vagalinska and Lyudmil Vagalinska
Section II: Virtual Realities
Interlude (Juliette Harrisson)
- The Playing Field: The Study of Classical Antiquity in Video Games and the Database Project Paizomen (Alexander Vandewalle)
- Let’s Analyse Ancient Greece: Digital Game-based Learning and Assassin’s Creed Odyssey (Kai Matuszkiewicz and Kai Ruffing)
Section III: Playing on Stage
Interlude (Luis Unceta Gómez)
- Representatio in Musica: Antiquity in French Baroque Music and Its Impact on Today’s Performance Practice (Antonius Adamske)
- ‘That’s Greek to Me’: Disco Life, Game Shows and Queer Intimacies in Richard Move’s The Show (Achilles Heels) (Zoa Alonso Fernández)
- Playing Classical Drama: ‘Young’ Theatre Festivals and the ‘non-school’ of Ravenna (Martina Treu and ‘non-scuola’)
Section IV: Immersive Antiquities
Interlude (Martin Lindner)
- Toga Parties: Ludic re-enactments of a Lubricious Rome (Luis Unceta Gómez)
- Curses, Mummies and Colonial Style: Archaeology in the Theme Park (Filippo Carlá-Uhink and Florian Freitag)
- Classical Reception in Street Art Performance (Anna Socha and PichiAvo)
Section V: National Traditions
Interlude (Martin Lindner)
- Forges’ Vision of the Roman Conquest of the Iberian Penisula (Pepa Castillo Pascual)
- Playing with Greek Mythology in Russian Animation (Chiara Sulprizio)
- Playground WeChat?! Frames of Western Classics in Chinese Social Media (Sven Günther)
Coda: The Interaction of Play and Other Receptions (Juliette Harrisson)
Bibliography
Sutton-Smith, B. (1997) The Ambiguity of Play, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Sutton-Smith, B. (2008) ‘Play Theory: A Personal Journey and New Thoughts’, American Journal of Play, 1: 82-125.