A Wheaton tradition that dates back to the 1920s returns center stage on Friday, April 11, courtesy of senior Michael Balderrama, who is staging a Greek tragedy on the steps of the Madeleine Clark Wallace Library. Euripides’s Orestes: A New Translation will be performed from 1 to 2:30 p.m. as part of Balderrama’s senior honors thesis during Wheaton’s 17th annual Academic Festival.

April 7, 2008

A Wheaton tradition that dates back to the 1920s returns center stage on Friday, April 11, courtesy of senior Michael Balderrama, who is staging a Greek tragedy on the steps of the Madeleine Clark Wallace Library.

Euripides's Orestes: A New Translation will be performed from 1 to 2:30 p.m. as part of Balderrama's senior honors thesis during Wheaton's 17th annual Academic Festival. The festival, which will be held from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at various locations on campus, spotlights the research, creative and scholarly achievements of Wheaton students who were nominated by their faculty and selected by a review committee.

Balderrama, a classics major, was recommended to present his performance by his advisor, Professor of Classics Joel Relihan, who will be one of the actors in the play, along with 16 students.

In 1923 when the library first opened, a performance of Sophocles's Electra was staged on the steps, Balderrama points out. The front steps of the library were built to be a theater for Greek drama; a second-story porch over the main entrance was created to be an elevated area for actors to speak. But the performance tradition had long faded.

Relihan said that Balderrama has worked hard on this presentation. "This is the culmination of all of his Classical studies, including his study abroad in Greece. He has had to translate a Greek text, study the ancient scholia, analyze mythology and literature, and learn about ancient theatrical movement and gesture."

Balderrama developed a new translation of Orestes, focusing on gesture posing and adapting the ancient Greek to practical stage direction.

Last year's winner of the Faculty Prize in Classics, the senior said he has been working on the translation from ancient Greek since his first semester at Wheaton. In fact, the tradition of performance on the library steps partly inspired him to apply here.

He already had been studying ancient Greek for three years and was in the high school drama association. When he was encouraged to consider Wheaton he explored the Classics Department on the Web site. "I saw the black and white photos from the 1923 performance of Sophocles's Electra," he said. "I remember specifically the blurb noting that they were looking for someone to revive the tradition of a senior play on the library steps."

In his application essay, Balderrama pledged to take up that challenge. And the rest is (or soon will be) history.

According to Balderrama, Orestes "takes place six days after Orestes avenged the death of his father, Agamemnon, by murdering his mother, Clytemnestra. The townspeople, urged on by his grandfather, Tyndareus, want Orestes, his sister Electra, and his best friend Pylades stoned to death. Their last hope is their uncle, Menelaus, who has returned from Troy with his wife Helen and daughter. It is a story of right and wrong, justice and injustice, senseless violence and the consequences of murder. Scholars have looked at Orestes as a commentary on the state of Athens at the end of the Peloponnesian War, where atrocious acts had accumulated on both sides."

The actors have been rehearsing the play for a month. All props and costumes were made by the cast. In addition to being a Greek tragedy director, Balderrama is also president of Gentlemen Callers, the all-male a cappella group, and a member of Dimple Divers, Wheaton's improv comedy troupe.

After graduation, Balderrama said he envisions himself working in the publishing industry dealing with Classics. "Wheaton has taught me to really pursue my desires on my own, to step out of the pack and make a mark in my own special way," he said. "I've been extremely blessed to be part of a very small department that has invested a lot of time and attention to my personal pursuits. The Classics department has enabled me to preserve this dream that could have easily fallen by the wayside."

Added Relihan: "He has kept that vision in mind for four years, and is now about to realize, not only his own lofty ambition, but an old practice of the Classics Department here at Wheaton. We hope that, after his efforts, this will remain a lively tradition."