Chapter 12 - Trapped between Fidelity and Adaptation?

Summary

Modern Greece offers us a distinctive example of the reception of ancient drama that testifies to the complications introduced by questions of national identity, vested ideological interests, and deep political divisions. On the modern Greek stage, the performance of ancient Greek drama has been characterised by an ongoing struggle between tradition and innovation. The traditional approach privileges ‘authenticity’, as part of a wider intellectual project that seeks to invest modern Greece with the glamour and cultural capital of ancient Greece. This chapter investigates the tension between this inherently conservative approach to performing ancient drama and freer, more innovative responses, as exemplified by the work of one of the country’s premier theatrical companies, the National Theatre of Greece. My analysis focuses on four representative case studies, two from 2000 and two from 2015–16, as a representative sample from the opposite ends of the tradition vs. innovation spectrum.