• Greek Tragedy, Agonistic Space, and Contemporary Performance

    Author(s):
    Stephe Harrop (see profile)
    Date:
    2018
    Group(s):
    Ancient Greece & Rome, Classical Tradition
    Subject(s):
    Theater, History, Theater--Political aspects, Theater and society, Drama, Greek drama, Latin drama, Greek drama (Tragedy)
    Item Type:
    Article
    Tag(s):
    chorus, agonism, Theatre and history, Theatre and politics, Theatre and society, Dramatic literature, Greek and Roman drama, Greek tragedy, Space
    Permanent URL:
    http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/bkfw-hf45
    Abstract:
    In this article Stephe Harrop combines theatre history and performance analysis with contemporary agonistic theory to re-conceptualize Greek tragedy's contested spaces as key to the political potentials of the form. She focuses on Athenian tragedy's competitive and conflictual negotiation of performance space, understood in relation to the cultural trope of the agon. Drawing on David Wiles's structuralist analysis of Greek drama, which envisages tragedy's spatial confrontations as a theatrical correlative of democratic politics, performed tragedy is here re-framed as a site of embodied contest and struggle – as agonistic spatial practice. This historical model is then applied to a recent case study, Aeschylus’ The Suppliant Women as co-produced by Actors Touring Company and the Lyceum, Edinburgh, in 2016–17, proposing that the frictious effects, encounters, and confrontations generated by this production (re-staged and re-articulated across multiple venues and contexts) exemplify some of the potentials of agonistic spatial practice in contemporary re-performance of Greek tragedy. It is contended that re-imagining tragic theatre, both ancient and modern, as (in Chantal Mouffe's terms) ‘agonistic public space’ represents an important new approach to interpreting and creatively re-imagining, interactions between Athenian tragedy and democratic politics.
    Metadata:
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    Published as:
    Journal article     Show details
    Pub. Date:
    2018
    Journal:
    New Theatre Quarterly
    Volume:
    34
    Issue:
    2
    Page Range:
    99 - 114
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    4 years ago
    License:
    All Rights Reserved
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