The Complete Eradication of the Live Actor from the Tragic Stage: Pre- and Post-Human(-ist) Confluences in Contemporary Productions of Greek Tragedy

Fri. Nov. 22 04:00 PM - Fri. Nov. 22 05:00 PM

November 22, 2024 | 3D01 | 4:00-5:00pm
Dr. Paul Monaghan, University of Winnipeg

From theatre’s apparent beginnings in the late Archaic Age of Ancient Greece to the twenty-first century, the living body of the human actor has been seen as the central and defining feature of the medium, the source of theatre’s uniqueness as well as its limitations. The corporeality of the live actor, however, has impelled innovators to call for the complete eradication of the human actor from the stage. This presentation locates the origins of this depersonalizing attempt in the ambiguity of the masked actor at the very foundation of tragedy in ancient Greece and traces how posthumanist moves to supplant the human centre of theatre are, in fact, perhaps connected to the origins of drama in ancient Greece.