Theater and Democratic Thought: Arendt to Rancière

Abstract

The Greeks invented both democracy and theater. And having done this much, they then invented a third thing—political theory—that allowed them to conceptualize relations between the other two. Plato’s interlocking critiques of democracy and drama formalized a general intuition that theater played a central role in the political life of the democratic city. Greek tragedy as we know it was coterminous with fifth-century democracy, taking shape shortly after the reforms of Cleisethenes and interrupted by the brief imposition of oligarchic rule after the Peloponnesian War. The Theater of Dionysos, roughly comparable in structure and capacity to the Athenian ekklesia or Assembly, even served on occasion as an alternate site for democratic debate.1 Present-day scholars largely concur in the view that theater helped to educate the demos in the deliberative reason, critical judgment, and civic values that undergirded political life.2