Abstract
In conclusion, Greek Tragedy and the Contemporary Actor revisits and extends some of the key debates and tensions explored in earlier chapters. This discussion highlights key issues associated with tragedy’s ‘classical’ status, psychophysical acting, theatre histories, and the politics of performing tragedy today. It revisits a series of unresolved tensions—between text and musicality, character roles and theatrical storytelling, mimetic and transformative spatial presence, individualized character-building and choral ‘ensemble-ness’—arguing that the task of the contemporary actor must be one of active, informed self-positioning in relation to these continuums, with the precise combination of practices selected, and the relative emphasis placed upon each aspect of ancient dramaturgy, critically characterizing each modern artist’s individual creative response to the provocations of Greek tragedy.
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Notes
- 1.
Compare Evans (xxvii) and Pitches (64).
- 2.
Such critical statements often operate on the—broadly Aristotelian—assumption that the task of re-performed tragedy may be encapsulated in a simple, self-evident dyad; to be ‘faithful’ to an ancient playwright’s (notional) intention, and morally uplifting for a present-day audience. See, for example, Woodhead (2015).
- 3.
As a point of comparison, Rodosthenous (2017) invests this authority in the figure of the director as ‘auteur’ (4–8).
- 4.
In My Life in Art, Stanislavski proposes: ‘Being creative is above all the total concentration of the whole mind and body. It includes not only the eye and the ear but all our five senses. Besides the body and thoughts, it includes intelligence, will, feeling, memory, and imagination. During creative work our entire spiritual and physical nature must be focused on what is happening in the character’s soul’ (Benedetti, 258). However, within such aspirations, there is also a danger of venerating integrated-ness or holism as an end in itself, in much the same way distorted value judgements idealize yoga-fit bodies or correct attitudes in actor-training studios (Kapsali).
- 5.
The concept of dissonance, derived from the notion of an unresolved psychological state, was proposed by social psychologist Leon Festinger. Humans have an inner drive to resolve inconsistencies between what they believe or feel, and external agencies which challenge these cognitive settings (Cohen, 5). When in this state, humans experience ‘cognitive dissonance’.
- 6.
Arguably, it is here that this volume’s thinking comes closest to postdramatic discourses, which foreground rupture and interruption as necessary to the creation of contemporary tragic experience (Lehmann, 441–4).
- 7.
For a critical consideration of the ‘universalist’ claims made by some proponents of tragedy in relation to post-colonial and non-Western settings, see Fischer-Lichte (82–3).
- 8.
Compare Wiles (4): ‘Theatre practitioners have repeatedly looked to the past, to old stories, old spatial arrangements, and old techniques, in order to challenge and renew present practices. Historians thus have one role as servants to the art of contemporary theatre-making.’
- 9.
Similarly, if instead of accepting historically skewed receptions of Stanislavski’s system as a primarily psychological method, or idealistically holistic experience, the contemporary actor is empowered to apply aspects of Stanisalvski’s actor training as part of, and within, a more flexible acting ‘toolkit’, a more active and open-ended approach to the unique challenges of performing Greek tragedy may become possible.
- 10.
Laera particularly focuses her critique on European countries, but similar claims may be extended to other developed, English-speaking nations. For a brief history of the modern desire to create community through performances of tragedy, see Fischer-Lichte (80–1).
- 11.
- 12.
Acting approaches inspired by Stanislavski’s early work often helps constitute the former, foregrounding modern psychology, interpersonal or domestic relations, and coherent character arcs; Cole identifies such practices as functioning ‘like a domesticating translation’ (1). The latter option was explored in Laera’s subsequent research project ‘Translation, Adaptation, Otherness: “Foreignisation” in Theatre Practice’ (2016–19). http://www.translatingtheatre.com/the-project/ (viewed 23 April 2018).
- 13.
Though this does not, for the purposes of the present argument, imply the range of exclusions associated with this ‘citizen’ role in its classical Athenian context. See Hall (124–5) and Fischer-Lichte (80).
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Dunbar, Z., Harrop, S. (2018). Conclusions. In: Greek Tragedy and the Contemporary Actor. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95471-4_8
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