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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

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References

Notes

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

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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.

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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.