This first general history of Greek theatre from Hellenistic times to the foundation of the Modern Greek state in 1830 marks a radical departure from traditional methods of historiography. We like to think of history unfolding continuously, in an evolutionary form, but the story of Greek theatre is rather different. After traditional theatre ended in the sixth and seventh centuries, no traditional drama was written or performed on stage throughout the Greek-speaking world for centuries due to the Orthodox Church's hostile attitude toward spectacles. With the reinvention of theatre in Renaissance Italy, however, Greek theatre was revived in Crete under Venetian rule in the late sixteenth century. The following centuries saw the restoration of Greek theatre at various locations, albeit characterized by numerous ruptures and discontinuities in terms of geography, stylistics, thematic approaches and ideologies. These diverse developments were only 'normalized' with the estab...

The subject we are going to examine in our presentation is extremely wide, therefore we will limit it chronologically to the first half of the twentieth century, and selectively we will focus our attention to specific representative cases that are milestones in the stage interpretation of ancient drama on Modern Greek stage. Characteristically, we will study the first Konstantinos Christomanos and Thomas Oikonomou ancient drama productions at the beginning of the twentieth century, and we will extensively analyze Photos Politis’, Demetris Rondiris’, Angelos Sikelianos’, and Karolos Koun’s views as the most representative trends of ancient Greek drama stage interpretation on modern Greek stage.

Drama always consisted of an invaluable "database" for the culture and education of the ancient Greek spectators, who used to watch it as a performance that derived from the already existing literary types and forms (epic and lyric poetry) on which it was based and which included up to a certain degree; namely, in Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides' tragedies and Aristophanes' comedies, almost all the ideas, the messages, the moral values and the knowledge that constitute the so called "Ancient Greek Thought and Philosophy", coexist and consist of the values of the ancient Greek culture as a whole. However, these do not represent the accumulation of some valuable material, but the creative conjunction and composition of qualitative and quantitative data in an astonishing analogy and harmony that expresses the basic principles and virtues of the ancient Greek Thought such as Moderation, Harmony, Symmetry, Equilibrium and the correspondence between form and co...

Western civilisation is said to have begun in Ancient Greece. The fifth century BCE was the golden age of the city of Athens, with art, the economy and the new notion of democracy thriving. The Ancient Greeks developed words to describe the world around them, such as anarchy, astronomy, comedy, diplomacy, drama, economics, mathematics, music, philosophy, poetry, theatre, tyranny and even zoology. Their alphabet was taken from the Phoenicians, but unlike the Phoenicians, they used it to write history, philosophy, poetry and plays. These plays and the theatrical conventions invented alongside them reveal the lives, values and relationships of Athenian citizens; and the impact of Ancient Greek theatre can still be seen over two and a half thousand years later.

A collection of twelve essays, several never published elsewhere, on various of ancient Greek theatre: the use of 'parts' and rehearsal scripts, metatheatre, the recurrent comparison of women with visual artworks, childbirth plots in tragedy, comedy and satyr play, and a reappraisal of Inventing the Barbarian fifteen years on. This book was not well marketed and is hard to find.

In the recent years, attention paid to the spread of Athenian drama outside Attica led some scholars to examine the case of the Macedonian kingdom. In attempting to judge the validity of their conclusions – Philip II and Alexander the Great profoundly transformed theatrical activity by detaching it from its religious roots for the first time - I decided to focus on Alexander’s use of drama during his oriental expedition (334-323). First, I tried to determine, as precisely as possible, the number of dramatic contests or performances he initiated, in order to describe the context of each of them, and study their own organization. As we know nothing of the plays produced along Alexander’s conquests, neither their names, with one exception: a “small” satyr drama (dramation) entitled Agen, which survived in a few verses, I made use of this source as a basis for considering the nature of the plays that could have been set up at the travelling royal court. Relying on the collected data, the conclusions, and the hypotheses supported by such information, I tried then to explain the monarch’s deep interest in drama, but also its increase and transformation as his kingdom expanded. Two different periods, at the beginning and at the end of his conquests, are to be distinguished in Alexander’s utilization of theatre. From 333 to March/April 331, the king set up dramatic contests in order to compete with Athens and to be viewed as the new champion of Greek theatrical activity and culture. In the second time period, which coincides with the conqueror’s return from India, theatre becomes a vehicle for highlighting the image of the sovereign as a New Dionysus, endowed with all the qualities attributed to the god. The staging of the satyr play Agen in such a context is particularly telling, this dramatic genre being the most intimately linked with Dionysus. Consequently, if there were innovations in the theatrical practice during Alexander’s lifetime, they were certainly not based on the disappearance of the pre-existing connections of scenic contests with the cult of divinities or heroes. All of those we know to have been decreed by Alexander were indeed held after victory and preceded by sacrifice(s). At the itinerant court of the Macedonian king, dramatic competitions more than ever played a role that was every bit as political as it was cultural and religious. The true innovations actually were, on the one hand, the birth of the royal Dionysism which created the ideological link between victory, theatre, and monarchic power; and on the other hand, the introduction of actor’s performances in festive contexts, like banquets - that previously enjoyed the sole participation of musicians, jugglers, and such entertainers.

"A pioneering analysis of the relationship between ancient Greek drama and the social realities of the world of its spectators" OUP 2006