ABSTRACT
Hofmannsthal found in lyrical drama, a form at the edge of the dramatic, the possibility of the tragedy of 'missing out' on oneself and life, and he elaborated a psychoanalysis raised to tragic dimensions in Elektra. Artaud's concept of the theatre approaches tragedy when he views the 'transgression' of nervous and mental constitution designated by the word 'cruelty' as 'inexorable necessity' and, accepts the danger that such efforts at liberation mean risking self-destruction. In ancient tragedy, the heroic subject experiences downfall, but in so doing also experiences an uplifting or raising that makes its hubris shine forth once more, as it were, and affirms its justification. Einar Schleef's postdramatic tragic theatre represented a sensory and vocal challenge to middle-of-the-road bourgeois self-centredness basking in the glow of its own culture and the good it claims to embody. For Schleef, tragic theatre oversteps the traditional 'stage-form' and uses chorus, voice and body to disarticulate naïve egocentrism beyond the limits of dramatic representation.
