The idea of withholding a massive secret is obviously quite exciting to some people. It is also the basis of much classic drama, of course, from Sophocles onwards.
Being somebody who's like a theater geek that I am, I can just go right back to Aeschylus and Euripides and Sophocles: they were writing about gods and goddesses versus humans, and how gods could distort, pervert, or help people get what they want.
I think Thespis just wanted to be a solo player, you know?
My favorite play in drama school was 'The Bacchae.' It's about a king who literally gets eaten alive by all the women in the play in a kind of orgy - it's related to the word 'bacchanal' - and I loved that idea of animalistic chaos and following our own desires.
If you look at the timing of many of the Greek dramas from the theatrical point of view, it's all off, and I think the reason for that is that music played a very important part.
I always have difficulty with the Greek tragic plays. I think the difficulty one has - which is a serious problem - is the question of belief. Do you believe in the myth that the play expresses? Do you believe in it as myth or as reality? With any play, you have to believe in it as reality. You can't act a myth.
Whenever I'd seen Greek tragedy done with masks and declamations, it brought me out in a rash.
Tragedy is the oldest form of theatre.
I can't remember ever staying for the end of a movie in which the actors wore togas.
Gay actors have been playing straight since Euripides.
The history of screenwriting - of what we do - is more than 100 years old. It's thousands of years old, going back to Sophocles and Euripedes. I believe the only - the only - separation for being a dramatist is reading drama.
All art at a certain level is entertainment. We go to a tragedy by Sophocles to be entertained.
As an undergraduate, I studied the Greek and Roman classics, and I went to graduate school in classics intending to work on the presentation of moral issues in various Greek and Roman tragedies.
I've always been interested in the Greek tragedies. A few years back, I re-read a translation of the 'The Oresteia,' and that stayed with me, and slowly this idea of using some of those old legends and plays to tell a new story about modern urban life began to form.
Increasingly, I find myself drawn to classic forms - to Euripides, Shakespeare and grand opera.
You don't have to know about 'Hippolytus' to listen to 'Tragedy.'
You don't come to see a Greek play and not want blood and gore and depth of feeling from your boots up.
