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    A Study Guide for Lee Breuer's "The Gospel at Colonus"
    A Study Guide for Lee Breuer's "The Gospel at Colonus"
    A Study Guide for Lee Breuer's "The Gospel at Colonus"
    Ebook45 pages31 minutes

    A Study Guide for Lee Breuer's "The Gospel at Colonus"

    By Gale and Cengage

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    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for Lee Breuer's "The Gospel at Colonus", excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Drama for Students.This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Drama for Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateMay 15, 2018
    ISBN9781410393555
    A Study Guide for Lee Breuer's "The Gospel at Colonus"

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      Book preview

      A Study Guide for Lee Breuer's "The Gospel at Colonus" - Gale

      18

      The Gospel at Colonus

      Lee Breuer

      1989

      Introduction

      One of the most original productions in Broadway history, Lee Breuer's The Gospel at Colonus is an adaptation of classical Greek theater set in an African American Pentecostal church service. After studying the drama of ancient Greece in part by visiting the sites where the original plays were staged, Breuer arrived at a full realization of how the Greek theatrical experience, complete with dramatic narrative, moral investigation, effusive music, and choral and audience involvement, was inherently religious, and the modern religious practice that most readily correlates with that ancient theatrical experience is the African American gospel church.

      The Gospel at Colonus, an oratorio, is adapted from the play Oedipus at Colonus, by Sophocles, which was first produced in 405 BCE, the year after the author's death. The tragedy of Oedipus's life, told in Sophocles's more famous Oedipus the King—also called Oedipus Rex—is well known: by an accident of fate, Oedipus ended up unwittingly killing his father and marrying his mother. Upon the revelation of his wife's identity as his own mother, Oedipus blinded himself. Oedipus at Colonus tells the story of the end of the blinded king's life, when he was cast out of Thebes and left to find refuge in Colonus.

      In The Gospel at Colonus, the clergy and choristers of a Pentecostal church dramatize this story just as if it were a parable found in the Bible. Small-scale versions of the play were performed in the years leading up to its debut as a full dramatic work on November 8, 1983, as part of the Next Wave Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Starring Morgan Freeman as Preacher Oedipus and blind gospel legend Clarence Fountain as Singer Oedipus, the production reached Broadway on March 11, 1988, at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre. For its original Brooklyn production, The Gospel at Colonus won the 1984 Obie Award for Outstanding Musical.

      Author Biography

      Asher Leopold Breuer Was Born On February 6, 1937, In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, To An Architect Father And A Designer Mother. His Youth Was Conventionally Suburban, But His Later Life Would Prove A Steady Stream Of Mind-Expanding Multicultural Experiences And Creations. After His Education At The University Of California At Los Angeles, Where He Twice Won The University'S Best Play Award And Earned A Bachelor'S Degree In 1958, Breuer Was Both Performing In And Directing Stage Plays Through The San Francisco Actors' Workshop By The Mid-1960S. From 1965 Until The End Of The Decade, He Contributed To Plays In Europe, In Locales Including Paris And

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