« Familière et partageant l’origine grecque » : idéologie et théâtre dans les mises en scène contemporaines du répertoire dramatique grec ancien. À propos de l’Électre de Peter Stein

Abstract

In Greece, the systematic production of ancient drama at the National Theatre, especially after the inauguration of the Epidauria Festival in the 1950s, introduced and recycled a largely ‘classicist’ interpretative and performative model – and this constant recycling ritualized, in turn, its own continuity, gradually establishing what was taken to be the “authentic” performative code, indeed a ‘native’ one, ‘faithful’ to the original texts, meanings, heroes etc. Since the 1980s, performative codes have become more pluralistic and yet the interpretative codes remain essentially classicist, promoting a hero-worshipping theatre of ‘admiration’. Taking as its starting point the first performance of Greek Tragedy directed by a foreign director at the Greek National Theatre, Peter Stein’s Electra by Sophocles, in 2007, the paper discusses various European and Greek performances of the play, in order to show that this classicism permeates the modern Greeks’ overall understanding of ancient Greek culture –the common knowledge of Antiquity– that is configured by/in contemporary Greek consciousness, in order to serve the idea (and the ideology) of a ‘native’ continuity with the Ancient Greek past.

Keywords

• Greek Tragedy
• reception of Ancient Tragedy
• Modern Greek Theatre
• Sophocles
• Electra
• Peter Stein