Reclaiming Myth in Satyr Play

In this paper, I will survey the creative use of ancient Greek satyr play as a model for adaptations of myth. In antiquity, Greek tragedy was performed as part of a production of three tragedies followed by a satyr play. Yet despite making up a quarter of the output of ancient tragedians, satyr play has been almost completely lost. As a result, the precise function of satyr play within a tragic production has long been a point of debate. Through a brief reading of the relationship between Euripides’ Cyclops, the only fully extant satyr play, and his tragedy Orestes, which were likely performed together in 408 BC, I will argue that satyr play reframes and reasserts the authority of myth in response to the innovation and invention found in tragedy. I will then survey moments in 20th-century literature in which the paradigm of satyr play has been invoked. I will focus on the opera Ariadne auf Naxos, by Hofmannsthal and Strauss, arguing that its plot, where a serious opera is performed together with improvised comedy, evokes the idea of satyr play as a hybrid genre to transplant the myth of Dionysus into the present.