Anne Carson has been awarded the 2026 Nobel Prize in Literature, “for her bold and inventive oeuvre that, in playful dialogue with the classical tradition, has created new forms for contemporary literature,” in the words of the Swedish Academy, which provides a biography and a bibliography of her notable works. Carson, 76, is dentified as a Canadian poet, but she has extensive connections to the theater, as a translator of Ancient Greek tragedies (eg Grief Lessons: Four Plays by Euripides; An Oresteia: Agamemnon by Aiskhylos; Elektra by Sophokles; Orestes by Euripides) and as an original playwright. Some of her decidedly avant-garde theatrical works have been produced in New York over the last few years, including “The Mile-Long Opera: A Biography of 7 o’clock” at the High Line in 2018, and “Norma Jean Baker of Troy” at The Shed in 2019, starring Renee Fleming and Ben Whishaw (published a year later.)
Photos from those two productions and excerpts from my reviews below
The Mile-Long Opera: a biography of 7 o’clock
October, 2019
Funny how hope changes everything. Funny how hope changes nothing,” a singer chants standing on the High Line overlooking 18th street, as a light in her black baseball cap eerily illuminates her face.
A few feet away, competing with the noise of a construction site, another singer chants: “Funny how construction next store changes everything. Funny how construction next store changes nothing,” while putting his hands in front of his face in a comical expression of annoyance.
Other individual performers nearby, all members of one of four different choral groups, sing how money or sex or tears or “a glass of really good red wine” change everything and nothing. Members of a couple of other choral groups sang the same variations on 30th Street.
These scenes struck me as both quintessential and atypical of “The Mile-Long Opera: a biography of 7 o’clock,” which features 1,000 performers singing lyrics – written by Anne Carson, with music by David Lang – or reciting monologues (by Claudia Rankine) along the entire 30 block length of the High Line. It is an astonishing, spectacular, moving, and deeply odd work of theater.
Norma Jean Baker of Troy
April, 2019
I might go a great distance to watch Ben Whishaw strip off his suit and turn into Helen of Troy and Marilyn Monroe before our eyes. But I only had to travel to 30thStreet and 10thAvenue, in between the High Line and Hudson Yards, to the Griffin Theater on the sixth floor of The Shed, a new $500 million performing arts center .
As it turns out, though, it was the creative team that went far — too far. “Norma Jeane Baker of Troy,” which is half sung and half spoken by both Whishaw and Renee Fleming, combines the myth of Helen of Troy with the story of Marilyn Monroe (birth name: Norma Jeane.) This inaugural piece at the Griffin reflects the mission of The Shed, as articulated by its artistic director Alex Poots, to commission original works that “take creative risks and push artistic boundaries.” The show, with a starry cast and impeccable avant-garde credentials, is an intriguing and erudite experiment on multiple levels…
Its author, Anne Carson, a poet and a scholar of Ancient Greek literature, was inspired by “Helen,” the play by Euripides that told the story of Helen of Troy and the Trojan War from her point of view. Carson created a text that is neither a translation of Euripides, nor an adaptation, but more of a poetic riff on the play, as well as on warring men and abused beauties. It’s threaded through with a kind of fever dream that more or less merges the two misunderstood women, so that, for example, the text turns Arthur (as in playwright Arthur Miller, Monroe’s third husband) into “the king of Sparta and New York,” mixing him up with Helen of Troy’s warrior husband Menelaos
