"Fear and pity: about the tragedy’s resurrection in the post-pandemic era"

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"The present article aims to discuss two theatre adaptations of the ancient tragedy as they were interpreted by the British director and playwright Robert Icke: Oresteia and Oedipus. Introduced in the Romanian theatre landscape by Andrei Șerban, who staged Oedipus at the Hungarian State Theatre of Cluj, Icke proves to be one of the most interesting recent dramaturgical discoveries. I have chosen to discuss the two plays in relation with the practitioners’ option to rethink the tragedy for nowadays audiences. In the context of pandemic and of the war so close to the Romanian borders, the tragedy finds inevitable connections with the contemporary spectators. It ends up being perceived on a deeper emotional level, rather than an intellectual one. This leads us to conclude that we are witnessing a new stage of the rebirth of the tragedy as a genre, from an aesthetic and cultural point of view."