Re-evaluating Herakles-Hercules in the Twenty-first Century

Audiences and critics agreed that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s robustly charismatic performance as the titular ancient hero in Brett Ratner’s revisionist adventure epic HERCULES (2014) was by far the best part of an otherwise average movie. Scott Foundas of Variety declared the movie’s “strongest asset is surely Johnson, who continues to foster one of the most affable, guileless screen personas in movies today” (variety.com, 7.23.14).

This paper will document the process of composing and producing a new dramatic musical work based on Herakles and reflect upon the reception of the work to date. Tim Benjamin’s Herakles was composed in consultation with a classical advisor and premiered by Todmorden Choral Society and Orchestra, with a number of professional soloists, in April 2017. The setting for this premiere was the magnificent Neoclassical town hall of Todmorden, a small Pennine mill town on the border between Yorkshire and Lancashire in the north of England.

The Pronomos Vase (c. 400 BCE) is the single most important piece of pictorial evidence for theatre to have survived from ancient Greece. It depicts an entire theatrical chorus and cast along with the celebrated musician Pronomos, in the presence of their patron god, Dionysos. One actor is costumed as Hercules, replete with club and lion skin; he wears high boots and the elaborate long sleeved patterned tunic typical of stage costume. On his torso he wears what has been identified as an armoured cuirass.

His ego nec metas rerum nec tempora pono (Aeneid 1.278) – Jupiter’s prediction about the Romans applies even more aptly to his son Herakles. As other papers in this panel make clear, his temporal range by now is extending to the twenty-first century. I want to complement that aspect with a spatial and geographic one, that is by looking at Herakles’ furthest extension to the east: his role in Gandhara Buddhist art primarily in the second and third centuries of our era.