Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 July 2007
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.
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