Stage of emergency : theater and public performance under the Greek military dictatorship of 1967-1974 / Gonda Van Steen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Van Steen, Gonda Aline Hector, 1964- author.

Series:

Classical presences

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Theater--Greece--History--20th century.

Theater.

Greece.

History.

Greece--Politics and government--1967-1974.

Politics and government.

Political science.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

xiii, 376 pages; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2014.

Summary:

This volume offers a critique of cultural and intellectual life in Greece during the dictatorship of 1967-1974, discussing how Greek playwrights, directors, and actors reconceived the role of culture in a state of crisis and engaged with questions of theater's relationship to politics and community. In the early 1970s, several bold new plays appeared, resonating with the concerns of Greek public and private life. The reinvigorated Greek stage displayed an extraordinary degree of historical consciousness and embraced revisionist cultural critique as well, leading to a drastic re-shaping of the Greek theatrical landscape. Stage of Emergency is the first study to focus on these particular theatrical developments of the so-called junta era, shedding light not only on the messages and impact of the plays themselves, but also on the politics of culture and censorship affecting the Greek public during this period. Book jacket.

Contents:

How to Stage a Coup: Prometheus Unbound 2

State of Exception, Stage of Emergency: "The Greeks Rehearse the Uprising" 14

A Theoretical Positioning 14

Agamben's Theory: Possibilities, Challenges, "Better Scripts" 18

The Scope of This Book 25

Sources and Research Challenges 35

1 The Theater-Historical Context and the Turn to New Greek Theater 45

Foreign and Domestic Greek Plays, Allied against a State of Tyranny 45

The Turn to the New Greek Theater: Theater's Paralogos Emboldened by the Theatro tou Paralogou 53

Youth, Dissidence, and the Stage of Emergency: Breaking Down Fences and Defenses 63

New Theater Launches and Countercultural Spaces: Exploring New Spaces for a Radical Critique 75

Stage Troupes and the Troops of the Stage: Performing Democracy in a State of Tyranny 88

2 "These bonds of freedom hurt": The Logos and Silence of Censorship and Self-Censorship 91

Hellas Hellenon Logokrimenon: Greece of the Censored Greeks 91

Silence against Censorship: The Book Index and Self-Imposed Silence 97

Preventive Censorship Legislation 106

Hortatory Censorship, Self-Censorship, and Censorship Unleashed 116

Prometheus Bound Again 120

Prometheus Unbound, Closing Act 125

Seferis's First and Last Intervention 133

Plots of Transgression in Plays of the New Greek Theater 136

Textual and Ideological Cleansing 136

Who's Afraid of Marietta Rialde? 139

Making Terror and Torment Visible: The Greek Performative Turn 140

A Modern Greek Case Study: The Trombone of Marios Pontikas 145

Production Data and Censorship Restrictions 145

Art as Alibi: One Man s Music Is Another Man's Misery 146

Restraining the Revue: Made to the Measure of the Moment 151

Conclusion: Monopolizing National Culture: Constructing Barriers and Taboos 154

3 Monopolizing National History: Performing Tyranny and Constructing Myths 159

Displays of Order: Constructing Tyrannical Meaning 159

Displays of Disorder: Deconstructing Meaning 161

Spectacle Is Power 162

What Happens in the Arena? Sporting Uniforms and Uniformity 172

Teaching Patriotic Self-sacrifice for the "Revolution of April 21, 1967" 183

Reflecting Back on Greek History in Rapid Motion 187

Our Grand Circus: Greek History in Commotion 189

"[M]oments from our past, mobilized to help us through a difficult moment of the present" 194

Remembering and Dismembering a Plot: Of Dreams and Deprivations, of Losers and... Losers 201

The Polytechnic, November 1973: Showdown and Regrouping 215

Conclusion: History as Creed, History as Activism 220

Postscript 225

4 Individual Responsibility before Tyranny as the Capitalist Enemy 227

The Nannies of Giorgos Skourtes: Money, Materialism, Tramps, and the Capitalist Boss 233

Strates Karras: The Tradecraft of Capitalist Oppression 243

The Aesthetics of Misfits and Failures in the Late Capitalist System 248

The Story of AH Retzo: Brechtian Theater in Greece under the Military Dictatorship 250

Theater as Process, Acculturating Brecht as Process 251

Brecht in Greece under the Junta 258

The Free Theater: Theater as Collaborative Action 265

The Story of The Story 272

"The world is burning and you are combing your hair":... kai sy chtenizesai 280

Conclusion: Chains and Choices 287.

ISBN:

9780198718321

0198718322

OCLC:

896850899