Descent into Dionysian Madness with Carlevale
Although I saw the similarities between Dionysus and Myra (most likely popping up as a result of the various mentions of the god himself, in addition to allusions to other Greek mythical beings) I completely forgot about the relation between Dionysus and theatre until I read Carlevale’s article “The Dionysian Revival in American Fiction of the Sixties.” Carlevale discusses the magic of transformation and make-believe, exhibited so well by those in Hollywood, and more specifically, those students at Buck Loner’s school that Myra witnesses as they try to assume different identities, both on the screen and off. Carlevale writes “The magic that enables the actors to change identities enables the audience to do so as well. ‘It is easy for these young people,’ Myra observes of her students at the Academy in particular and of American young people generally, ‘to be anything since they are so plainly nothing, and know it’” (387).
The play with identity obsesses Carlevale just as much as it captivates Myra’s attention in the novel, and brought my attention back to the Greek communal/religious festivals in which plays would be put on in honor of the god Dionysus. Worshipped for wine just as much as his inspiration to the arts, the loss of inhibitions represented by Dionysus are incredibly important for both the time period of the 1960s as well as Myra’s ability to change her identity not just once but three times within the course of the novel, all the while commenting upon the identities of others. By inhabiting Hollywood and being surrounded by actors and actresses who all seem to be searching for themselves by way of disguise, Vidal allows himself to comment on sexuality, American culture, and the need for personal identity in one fell swoop.
With the Hollywood and the Academy in mind, Dionysus and his power of transformation through sex, art, alcohol and drugs becomes a symbol for the period of cultural change crystallized in Myra Breckinridge. Carlevale made all of this come together for me, linking Hollywood’s necessary emptiness of identity through the assumption of new forms with the also necessarily ambiguous identity of Myra/Myron in order to create a novel that discusses American culture through the lens of outdated Greek ritual. If I had to sum it up in one sentence: Carlevale found something culturally applicable in Dionysus that many other writers in the 1960s latched onto, including Vidal with Myra Breckinridge.
