Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T16:27:10.320Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Masked Activist: Greek Strategies for the Streets

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2007

Abstract

Greek tragedy served as a disciplinary state apparatus that displaced women's public performances of the lament. Yet, in spite of its displacements and regulatory structures, the tragedy has been adopted by Euro-American playwrights and performers for political and even feminist political purposes. From Heiner Müller's Medeamaterial to readings of the comedy of Lysistrata, the structures of the Greek stage are currently deployed to stage the relation of gender to state practices. While these examples may seem to be in contradiction to the Greek structures, they actually further the use of the classical dramaturgical devices for their purposes within the tradition. However, certain Arabic revisions of Lysistrata reveal the assumptions in the model that prevent its adoption.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Notes

1 Sue-Ellen, Case, ‘Classic Drag: The Greek Creation of Female Parts’, Theatre Journal, 37, 3 (1985), pp. 317–27.Google Scholar

2 Elin, Diamond, Unmaking Mimesis (London and New York: Routledge, 1997)Google Scholar.

3 Gail, Holst-Warhaft, Dangerous Voices: Women's Laments and Greek Literature (London and New York: Routledge, 1992)Google Scholar.

4 Plato, The Republic, trans. Paul Shorey, in Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns, eds., Plato: The Collected Dialogues (New York: Random House, 1961), p. 632, lines 386–90.

5 Quoted in Holst-Warhaft, Dangerous Voices, p. 99.

6 Helene, Foley, Female Acts in Greek Tragedy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), p. 261Google Scholar.

7 Judith, Butler, ‘Critically Queer’, Glq: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 1, 1 (1993), pp. 1732Google Scholar, here p. 24; italics mine.

8 Ibid., p. 17.

9 Page reference 124.

10 Cited in Carl, Weber's notes to DESPOILED SHORE MEDEAMATERIAL LANDSCAPE WITH ARGONAUTS, in Carl, Weber, trans., Hamletmachine and Other Texts for the Stage (New York: Performing Artrs Publications, 1984), pp. 124125Google Scholar, here p. 124.

11 Heiner Müller, WASTED SHORE MEDEAMATERIAL LANDSCAPE WITH ARGONAUTS, in Weber, Hamletmachine and Other Texts for the stage, pp. 126–135, here p. 127.

12 Helen, Gilbert and Joanne, Tompkins, Post-colonial Drama: Theory, Practice, Politics (London and New York: Routledge, 1996), pp. 203–54Google Scholar.

13 Heiner Müller, WASTED SHORE MEDEA MATERIAL, p. 94.

14 Trans. mine.

15 Trans. mine.

16 Trans. mine.

17 The Lysistrata Project (http://www.lysistrataproject.com) (12/06/06)

18 Foley, Female Acts, p. 89.

19 Marina, Kotzamani, ‘Lysistrata on the Arabic Stage’, PAJ, 83 (2006), pp. NN–NN, here p. 14Google Scholar.

20 Ibid., p. 15.

21 Ibid., p. 16.

22 In Kotzamani– 24–26.