How does theatre transform us? Some answers from Greek tragedy

What is it about?

The transformative power of playing and watching theatre has been well-known for a long time, but it is worth exploring this topic again from a historical perspective, at a time, moreover, where on-screen activities threaten the living arts, and these are less and less subsidized in the context of severe economic and political crises. In this chapter, I demonstrate that ancient Greek tragedies explores the effects of imaginary fiction for heroes confronted to identity, ethical or political dilemmas, whether individual or collective. The theoretical framework discussed is that of Vygotsky's theory of play and Moreno's psychodrama. Both show that theatrical play offers the potential for self-transformation, for overcoming obstacles through the emergence of solutions facilitated by playful, counterfactual enactments. I show that in Euripides' Heracles and Ion, the main characters go through forms of conscious and unconscious play with material objects to discover or redefine their identity as heroes and theatrical characters.

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Photo by Marco Montero Pisani on Unsplash

Photo by Marco Montero Pisani on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Moreno's psychodrama is a kind of psychological therapy that claims to have roots in ancient Greek drama and the ancient notion of catharsis. Yet, the precise connections of its theoretical framework with ancient Greek plays have not been explored. This chapter is the first endeavour that shows how psychodrama relates to ancient Greek tragedy. It also unveils the meta-cognitive discourse at work in the transformations of two tragic characters, Heracles and Ion, in relation with counterfactual imagination and make-believe playing with objects.

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