Tyranny and Myth in the Plays of Four Contemporary Greek Dramatists

Abstract

put a damper on the traditionally lively Athenian theatre scene. Strict censorship, imposed by the military government, seemed to foreclose any possibility of its being revived. Theatre forms traditionally popular in Athens were ill-suited to the political realities, and as a result, the Greek theatre was compelled to transform itself. Its apparently comatose state in the late sixties proved to be only a transitional stage. Censorship played a greater role in determining the nature of the Greek theatre during the final years of the dictatorship than did the idiosyncrasies of individual playwrights, the traditional preferences of the audience and even an apparent theoretical leaning toward the ideas of Brecht and Piscator. Among the most striking characteristics of the new theatre was the production of plays which fulfill the criteria for myth and ritual described in The Theater and Its Double by Antonin Artaud.