Why do revivals and adaptations of Greek tragedy still abound in European national theatres, fringe stages and international festivals in the twenty-first century? Taking as its starting point the concepts of myth developed by Jean-Luc Nancy and Roland Barthes and the notion of the NclassicalO outlined by Salvatore Settis, this book analyses discourses around community, democracy, origin and Western identity in stage adaptations of Greek tragedy on contemporary European stages. The author addresses the ways in which the theatre produces and perpetuates the myth of NclassicalO Greece as the origin of Europe and how this narrative raises issues concerning the possibility of a transnational European community. Each chapter explores a pivotal problem in modern appropriations of Greek tragedy, including the performance of the chorus, the concept of the NobsceneO and the audience as the demos of democracy. Modern versions of Women of Troy, Hippolytus and Persians performed in Britain, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Poland and Greece are analysed through a series of comparative case studies. By engaging with the work of prominent theatre-makers such as Mark Ravenhill, Michel Vinaver, Katie Mitchell, Sarah Kane, Krzysztof Warlikowski, Romeo Castellucci, Calixto Bieito and Rimini Protokoll, this volume offers a critique of contemporary democratic Europe and the way it represents itself onstage.
Contents: The cradle of Western civilization? Athens as beginning - Myth, community and the myth of community - Can we deal with the chorus? Performing collective identity and the decline of union - The 'obscene' and the limits of representation: false etymologies, censorship and performability - Constructing the audience as the demos of democracy: spectatorship and/as citizenship - The myth of the simultaneous birth of theatre and democracy in Athens - How can theatre and performance deal with, and respond to, the persistence of these mythologies? - Neither actualisation nor reconstitution: a manifesto in six points.
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