shhs magazine - South Hampstead High School

SHHS Interiors:Layout 1 19/06/2011 11:32 Page 41mosaics are varied and beautiful, ranging from birdsand other animals to people competing in Romansports. Guided round the villa by an audio tour featuringa different soundtrack for each mosaic, thetours culminated in The Chamber of the TenMaidens, with the fantastic mosaic informallydubbed, The Bikini Girls. This was followed by a visitto the baroque city of Noto, en route to Syracuse.Noto is a beautiful city, known as The Garden ofStone. The amazing churches (over twenty) and theelaborate balconies were particularly noticeable.The hotel in Syracuse served... pasta with tomatosauce and veal in breadcrumbs.Day five in Syracuse passed beautifully. Wespent the day wandering around another theatre,and were treated to several singing performances inthe glorious sunshine. We then moved on toOrecchio di Dioniso or The Ear of Dionysi, an oldmine used for holding prisoners. Originally, the topwas open, and they had to sit in the glare of the sunwith no food or water until they died, surroundedby the bodies of those who had died before them.This did not help us to develop an appetite forpasta with tomato sauce and veal in breadcrumbsback at the hotel.The final day of our trip was spent inTaormina. In the morning, we visited the Greek theatre,which has amazing views over the bay, and, ofcourse, Mount Etna. However, disappointingly, wecouldn’t see any smoke. After spending a few hoursin the theatre we were let loose to wander aroundTaormina, looking at all the churches and completingany shopping for souvenirs we hadn’t yet managedto find. Then it was time for a last gelato andback on the coach to get the plane to a much wetter,but tomato sauce-free home.Ellie H and Marianna C, Year 12The Persians“The thing about The Persians is essentially nothingactually happens. The characters come on. Expectbad news. Get bad news. Cry. Lament. Go off again.I suppose it’s kind of a parody of what a GreekTragedy is.” said Professor Simon Goldhill, Directorof Classics at King’s College, Cambridge, midwaythrough his stunningly informative pre-performancetalk, which rather outshone the King’s CollegeLondon production of Aeschylus’ Persae.To give the actors their credit, they seemed,for the most part, to have learnt their lines verywell - no mean feat when confronted with theprospect of a couple of thousand lines ofAeschylean Greek, parts of which probably didn’tmake all that much sense even to the original audience.I also feel that the director’s decision to providea faithful, rather than summarised, translationof the subtitles was commendable. After all, surelythe Chorus’ line, upon learning of the Persiandefeat; “Alas! Despair! You are saying/ that the deadbodies of our loved ones/ are floating, soaked andconstantly buffeted by salt water,/ shrouded in mantlesthat drift in the waves” is far more interestingand gives more of a sense of Aeschylus as a poet(especially since these lines reference Homer’sOdyssey 19.241-2) than the translation which mighthave read, “Oh no! Apparently our families havedrowned!”The lead actors, too, turned in some fine,sensitive performances. Ben Donaldson gave a convincingportrayal of an arrogant Xerxes, destroyedby the guilt of the terrible slaughter he has allowedto fall upon his people, and Petros Bouras-Vallianatos, as Darius, presented a majestic formerruler, filled with wrath at the folly of his heir.Ella G, Year 13 Leaver2009-2011 School Magazine 41