Towards the start of 2023, St Hilda’s College welcomed playwright Stephen Sharkey, actor Jack Tarlton and musical director Alex Silverman to run the day-long workshop Catullus in Song, with the support of the APGRD and Oxford University Classical Drama Society. In the workshop, participants translated some of Catullus’ poems and were matched with talented musicians working in a variety of styles to produce brand new ‘carmina’. Over the course of the day, we translated a hugely diverse selection of Catullus’ verse, from the raw to the raucous, the hate-filled to the heartfelt. We set them to music, to be sung, some accompanied by piano, guitar, or a simple lyre. Then as evening fell, translators became performers, taking to the stage of the JdP Music Building to breathe life into the lines of the most undead of classical poets. In the air of that intimate theatre, the passion, wit and artistry of Catullus rang out – very much alive.
Gaius Valerius Catullus is one of the most distinctive voices to survive from the ancient world. Ranging from the famous two-line masterpiece that begins ‘odi et amo’ (‘I love and I loathe’) to highly polished mini-epics in the style of the Greeks, Catullus displays technique and panache that would lead him to become one of the most revered and imitated of the Roman poets. Today he is perhaps best known for his ‘Lesbia’ poems, addressed to a woman with whom he is hopelessly in love. ‘Lesbia’ is a nickname – she is usually identified as Clodia Metelli, wife of an eminent politician. These poems (or songs, the Latin for both is ‘carmina’) are sometimes witty and tender, sometimes furious, but always passionate, straight from the heart.'
A snapshot of the day...
Translations from the day...
Here we present a selection of the poems that were translated and performed on the day, with some notes on Catullus in song by Stephen Sharkey:
About the creative team
Jack Tarlton
Jack Tarlton is an actor, director and teacher who was born in Edinburgh and trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. As an actor his theatre work includes Daniel (A Play, A Pie and A Pint), One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Sheffield Crucible - Nominated for Best Supporting Actor at Broadway World UK Awards), The Death of Ivan Ilyich (Attic Theatre Company), City of Glass (59 Productions, Lyric Hammersmith & HOME, Manchester), BRENDA (HighTide & The Yard), Hedda Gabler (Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh), Pitcairn (Out of Joint, Shakespeare’s Globe & Chichester Festival Theatre), CHORALE – The Animal (You), The Holy Ghostly and The War in Heaven (Presence Theatre & Actors Touring Company), From Morning to Midnight, Coram Boy and Once in a Lifetime (National Theatre). Television includes Traces, Outlander, 8 Days: To the Moon and Back, Doctors, The Golden Hour, Dead Ringers, Doctor Who, The Genius of Mozart, Swivel on the Tip, Hearts and Bones, Life Support, Wings of Angels and The Cater Street Hangman. Film includes The Imitation Game, Nora and The Unscarred. Directing credits include A Night at the Rare Books Auction (Being Human Festival), the British programme of the international online theatre festival Poor Connection, and staged readings of AGAINST (Backwell Festival Productions & JOE), The Deep (Presence Theatre at Offbeat Festival & the Embassy of Iceland), Emperor Fukushima (Presence Theatre & Empty Deck at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe), Now That’s What I Call Music and The Frugal Horn (Presence Theatre at Backwell Festival) and The Returnings (Presence Theatre at the Norwegian Embassy, Nordic Drama Now & Backwell Festival). Jack has run workshops on Shakespeare, Brecht and modern drama studies and adapting prose and translation for the stage at the University of London, University of Buenos Aires, Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich, Oxford University, East 15 Acting School and for The Old Vic, Stockroom and Strange Town. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Modern Languages Research at the University of London.
Stephen Sharkey
Stephen Sharkey has translated and adapted a wide variety of classic and classical stories for the stage, including works by Euripides, Aristophanes, Wilde, Defoe, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Dickens and Goncharov. His most recent work includes an adaptation of WHITE TEETH, Zadie Smith’s modern classic novel, in a major production at the Kiln Theatre by artistic director Indhu Rubasingham, a version of Tolstoy’s THE DEATH OF IVAN ILYICH for one actor, and INKHEART, adapted with Walter Meierjohann from the children’s novel by Cornelia Funke for Home, Manchester. His new translation of Brecht’s THE RESISTIBLE RISE OF ARTURO UI was commissioned and co-produced by Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse and Nottingham Playhouse and his adaptation of A CHRISTMAS CAROL was directed by Erica Whyman at Northern Stage, Newcastle, and is published by Josef Weinberger. Stephen has written three further Christmas shows for Northern Stage: HANSEL AND GRETEL, PETER PAN, and THE GLASS SLIPPER. Other translations include ION by Euripides for Gate Theatre, London; THE BIRDS by Aristophanes, reworked as a musical comedy for children called CLOUDCUCKOOLAND; and SEX AND THE THREE-DAY WEEK adapted from a Feydeau farce for Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse. Publications include THE MAY QUEEN (Methuen) originally produced by Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse and an adaptation of THE GREAT GATSBY (Methuen) originally produced by Blackeyed Theatre. Stephen has also written several plays for BBC Radio 4: the first of these, ALL OF YOU ON THE GOOD EARTH, won the Society of Authors’ Richard Imison prize for best radio debut.
Alex Silverman
Alex Silverman has won acclaim and awards for his composition, arrangement, and direction of music. Though he is most often found in the theatre or in front of a choir, his output includes work for TV, Radio and Film. He is comfortable working in a broad range of styles- from Baroque Opera to contemporary Jazz, occasionally all at the same time. Alex’s approach to music-making is thoughtful and playful, and his distinctive voice has proved increasingly popular with performers, critics and audiences alike.