From Mysteries to Tragedy

Abstract

This chapter presents the transition from symbol to allegory, the relationship between word and image, past and present, mystery and rhetoric, in such productions as Orestea (una commedia organic?) (1995), Julius Caesar (1997) and the cycle Tragedia Endogonidia (2002–4). To understand such concepts introduced by Socìetas as ‘pre-tragic’, ‘myth’ and ‘infancy’, it is necessary to go back to the second half of the 1980s when the company’s work focused on interpreting myths of ancient Mesopotamia and referred to the idea of the mystery. It demonstrates the conceptual evolution of the ideas forming the basis of Castellucci’s theatre, their metamorphoses and continued presence.