Misogyny in Greek Tragedy and Its Solutions Presented in Modern Performances

The number of performing arts based on ancient Greek tragedies has continued to increase around the world after WWⅡ. However, some works have misogynistic expressions because they were written more than 2,500 years ago in a male-dominated society. This study, therefore, aimed to identify the trends of the contemporary performances of Greek tragedy and to analyze changes in representations of gender in them through books, viewing of performances, and interviews with researchers and directors. In Japan, there were almost no Greek tragedies directed by women until 1990, and even today there are only a small number of performances by women directors, compared to the western countries. In the case of the Oresteia by Aeschylus which has derogatory expressions for women, many adaptations with gender themes have been created since the 1980s in the West. On the other hand, in Japan, there were few performances, and moreover some of them reinforced gender stereotypes. Based on this research, I finally produced a short video of the Oresteia with gender themes. This experience revealed the difficulty of creating the adaptation of Greek tragedies in Japan due to the low awareness and the difficulty of gender representation which there is no correct answer