PROFILE GREEK TRAGEDY AND PERFORMANCE

Abstract

Greek tragedy is easily one of the most dynamic fields in Classics. In addition to its perennial appeal and popularity among diverse audiences, every few years its study is reinvented and redefined as scholars and students apply new theories and critical lenses, many of which stem from contemporary concerns. In the last 50 years, for example, a rich body of work began to explore the manifold intersections between Greek tragedy and Athenian ritual and social practices, in line with rising interest in the social sciences. Over the past few decades scholars have slowly but steadily turned their gaze towards the performance and staging of tragedy and ancient Greek drama. To a large degree this interest has been fuelled by contemporary performance practice and experience, particularly as productions and adaptations of ancient plays have proliferated across the globe. Whereas the scholarship on the myriad ways in which Greek tragedy has been adapted and performed across the globe is itself a growing subfield deserving of its own profile, my focus here is on recent scholarly and creative work produced in the last ten years that illuminates Athenian performance practices. As I illustrate, we have come a long way since the seminal works of N.C. Hourmouziades (Production and Imagination in Euripides: Form and Function of the Scenic Space [1965]) and O. Taplin (The Stagecraft of Aeschylus: the Dramatic Use of Exits and Entrances in Greek Tragedy [1977]), who were among the first to draw attention to tragedy as a performed art.