ABSTRACT
This chapter asks the question why Greek tragedy is of any relevance today and whether indeed tragedy is completely dead or whether it is only dead as an idealist form and very much alive as an active, polemical form of theatre which addresses contemporary issues. It argues that the tragedies which were performed in fifth century Athens were also radical and subsequently stripped of that radicality by Western idealism and cultural imperialism and used as a symbol of the canon, as texts which contained truths and values which were considered the cornerstones of Western liberal thought. It concludes that their re-makings, which are explored in subsequent chapters, approach and re-invent these tragedies firstly by acknowledging and drawing upon the radical streak which they originally contained, and then by questioning and subverting the traditional ways of approaching, reading, interpreting and performing them. The author then proceeds to investigate the nature of adaptation and to enquire into how it functions in the theatre – especially in relation to the classics – and to what purpose. She traces the onset of radical political engagement with the classics on the theatrical stage to Bertolt Brecht’s adaptation of Antigone and offers her own term, “hypertheatre”, as a tool with which to analyse and understand such plays.
