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The Play’s The Thing
Why classical Greek drama eschewed depictions of violence
Random chance enabled a few shreds of the rich cultural heritage of Athens to survive the predations of decay. Although the music of the period is lost forever, we are fortunate enough to have glimpses of its theater.
As in many cultures, Greek theater began as the enactment of religious myth. But as the Axial age progressed, Greek drama transmuted into a means whereby novel ideas could be explored through personification.
The great trio of Greek dramatists, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, explored themes central to Greek life. What did one owe to the gods and to one’s fellow citizens? How can we untangle competing loyalties? How should disputes be resolved? Were the old ways of sacrifice adequate to match the complexities of a modern polis?
Even in modern translation, plays such as Prometheus Bound, the three plays of the Oresteia, and Antigone, Medea, and Lysistrata are all profoundly moving and troubling, seeking as they do in their various ways to wrestle with deep social problems that we in our modern world seem little closer to either understanding or resolving.
Anyone who’s seen an authentic performance of any of these plays (or at least, as authentic as it’s possibly to be, given how scant our knowledge is of the manner in which they…
