Greek Tragedy, Agonistic Space, and Contemporary Performance

Abstract

Abstract:This article 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. It focuses on Athenian tragedy's competitive and conflictual negotiation of performance-space, understood in relation to the cultural trope of the agon. Drawing on DavidWiles' 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 current case-study; Aeschylus' The Suppliant Women as co-produced by Actors Touring Company and The Lyceum, Edinburgh, in 2016-17. It is proposed that the frictious effects, encounters, and confrontations generated by this production (re-staged and rearticulated across multiple venues and contexts) exemplify some of the potentials of agonistic spatial practice in contemporary re-performance of Greek tragedy. Throughout, 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.

Treatment of Fate in Shakespearean and Classical Greek Tragedies: A Comparison

“…Obviously, the Greeks were the first to develop from this synthetic impulse into a variety of complex types of art that could articulate the values and ambitions of a culture and portray its successes in terms of a mixture of analytical thinking, wit and humor, verse, music and dance. The output of this period was from about 480 BC to the end of fifth century, i.e., from the time of Aeschylus' early plays to the latest plays by Sophocles and Euripides (Harrop, 2018). The three most famous Greek tragedians who produced immortal plays are Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides.…”

The Open Constructed Public Sphere: Aeschylus’ The Suppliant Women in a Version by David Greig

“…This article, however, follows the opposite view, that of Chantal Mouffe's agonistic approach: "the public space is where conflicting points of view are confronted without any possibility of a final reconciliation" (Mouffe 2013, p. 202), which is an exercise that The Suppliant Women seems to enact masterfully 3 . 3 This article is not the first on Aeschylus' The Suppliant Women in a version by David Greig that uses an agonistic approach (see Harrop 2018). Critiques to Habermas's understanding of the public sphere are numerous. In her article "From Deconstruction to Reconstruction: A Habermasian Framework for Contemporary Political Theatre", Paola Botham, who applies an Habermasian framework to several contemporary political British plays, provides us with a solid summary:…”