Live Event: Tragedy and Plague - In Conversation with Professor Oliver Taplin and Fiona Shaw CBE

TORCH Goes Digital! presents a series of weekly live events Big
Tent - Live Events! Part of the Humanities Cultural Programme, one
of the founding stones for the future Stephen A. Schwarzman Centre
for the Humanities. Drama Week Biographies: Fiona Shaw CBE Fiona
Shaw is an actor and theatre and opera director. She is known for
her role as Petunia Dursley in the Harry Potter film series
(2001–10), as Marnie Stonebrook in season four of the HBO series
True Blood (2011), and as Carolyn Martens in the BBC series Killing
Eve (2018–present), for which she won the 2019 BAFTA TV Award for
Best Supporting Actress. For her performances in the second seasons
of Killing Eve and the comedy-drama Fleabag, Shaw received
Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actress
in a Drama Series and Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series
respectively. Fiona has worked extensively with the Royal
Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre. She won the 1990
Olivier Award for Best Actress for various roles, including
Electra, the 1994 Olivier Award for Best Actress for Machinal, and
the 1997 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Solo Performance for The
Waste Land. Her other stage work includes playing the title role in
Medea in the West End and on Broadway (2001–02). She was awarded an
Honorary CBE in 2001. In 2020, she was listed at number 29 on The
Irish Times list of Ireland's greatest film actors. Professor
Oliver Taplin, Emeritus Professor of Classics, Magdalen College,
Oxford. Professor Oliver Taplin is a fellow of Magdalen College and
Professor of Classical Languages and Literature at the University
of Oxford. Professor Taplin's main teaching has been in all aspects
of ancient Greek epic, tragedy and comedy: Classics, Classics (and
Joint Honours), Classics and English, Classics and Modern
Languages, Classics with Oriental Studies at Oxford University.
Oliver's primary focus as a scholar is on Greek drama, especially
from the viewpoint of staging and performance. His first book was
The Stagecraft of Aeschylus, in which he dealt with the entrances
and exits of characters in Aeschylus's plays. Subsequent books,
including Comic Angels (1993) and Pots and Plays (2007) examine
vase paintings as evidence for the performance of tragedy and
comedy. In 1996, together with Edith Hall, he set up the APGRD
(Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama). It is devoted
to the international production and reception of ancient plays
since the Renaissance. He has also worked with productions in the
theatre, including The Oresteia at the National Theatre (1980–81),
The Thebans at the RSC (1991–92), and The Oresteia at the National
Theatre (1999–2000). Apart from Greek drama, his chief area of
interest was in Homer. Oliver retired as Tutor in Classics at
Magdalen College, Oxford in 2008. The same year, Oxford University
Press published Performance, Iconography, Reception: Studies in
Honour of Oliver Taplin, edited by Martin Revermann and Peter
Wilson. Further related subjects include vase-painting and theatre;
performance studies; reception of ancient literature in modern
poetry; practical translation workshops. Currently he is working on
a broad-brush book on Greek Tragedy, including a critique of
Aristotle’s Poetics. Publications include: The Stagecraft of
Aeschylus (Oxford 1977, reissued as a paperback 1989). Greek
Tragedy in Action (London and Berkeley 1978; revised edition 1985);
also translated into Greek, Japanese and Polish. Greek Fire (London
1990); also translated into Dutch, Portuguese, French, German and
Greek. Homeric Soundings. The Shaping of the Iliad (Oxford 1992,
reprinted in paperback, 1994). Comic Angels – and other approaches
to Greek drama through vase-painting (Oxford 1993, reprinted in
paperback, 1994). Pots and Plays. Interactions between Tragedy and
Greek Vase-painting of the Fourth Century BC (Getty Museum
Publications, Los Angeles, 2007) Sophocles Oedipus the King and
other tragedies (Oxford World’s Classics, 2016) Aeschylus The
Oresteia (Norton, New York, 2018) His new book, Sophocles' Antigone
and Other Tragedies was published in September 2020.