Baucis and Philemon
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Most likely when someone hears the word Broadway, musicals such as Grease and Phantom of the Opera come to mind. The common misconception of Broadway is that the plays are filled with entertaining songs and easy plots, simply there for entertainment purposes. In directing the Metamorphoses, Mary Zimmerman is able to exemplify that Broadway consists of much more than the fake smiles and loud songs, as usually conceived. By dramatizing eight myths included in either Ovid's Metamorphoses or Apuleis' Golden Ass, Mary Zimmerman has an immense talent for making the audience ponder the myth being seen. Even though many of the myths were changed in order to make the play more dramatic effect, Baucis and Philemon is one of the myths that remains very similar on screen as it does on paper.
An instance where both similarity and difference show up is at the very beginning of Baucis and Philemon. The story versions often start by explaining the setting, "Upon the hills of Phrygia I have seen two sacred trees, a lime-tree and an oak, so closely grown their branches interlace (Ovid, lines 956-960)." By using this method of narration in the stories, the telling of the two sacred trees foreshadows the ending. Once the myths on paper get that out of the way, they begin to explain how one day Zeus and Hermes, also known by some sources as Jupiter and Mercury, decide to take a journey down to earth. The play begins when Zeus and Hermes plan to disguise themselves as beggars...