Most of us wedded to translating Greek tragedy or comedy have experienced Ubu's marital problems. Translating anything from one language and culture into another is tough enough. Translation of drama adds a new dimension of risk; translators of classical plays find claws sprouting wherever they lay a finger. Ubu's wife (who is appropriately enough disguised as a ghost) offers scant consolation to anyone who recalls the fate of most mortals who tried to get their hands up a goddess.

The title of this Introduction reflects the complexity of finding language in a theatre that is becoming ever more cross-cultural, something which, for better or worse, seems to be inevitable. At the XIth International Meeting on Ancient Drama in Delphi in 2002 one of the most exciting productions was a Beijing Opera performance called Thebais, based on Aeschylus' Seven Against Thebes and Sophocles' Antigone. Subtitles were screened in modern Greek and in English.