...λήθης φάρμακ'[α]... = “Remedies for Forgetfulness”. The Use of Fragments of Ancient Greek Drama in Contemporary Performance

Abstract

One of the most powerful ways to remedy the forgetfulness that obscures ancient fragmentary drama, in other words to “establish remedies for forgetfulness” as Palamedes claims to have done for the Greeks in the fr. 578 from the homonymous but lost tragedy by Euripides, is to expose the ancient material to the circumstances of contemporary performance. The surviving fragments of ancient Greek dramas are pieces of text which by definition are out of context since they are dislocated parts of a traumatised ancient play: the connection between text and Trauma is considered to be both literal and metaphorical. Yet, there are elements of theatricality inherent to these fragments and this is why they have been used in contemporary performances in various ways and approaches. Theodoros Terzopoulos has used fragments of lost tragedies by Aeschylus to create the performance Epigonoi in 2003 which was first presented in Germany and then toured internationally. From a chorus of five men the suffering bodies of Achilles, Actaeon, Ajax, Heracles and Philoctetes stand out and expose the tragic fate of those who collide with the divine, while the female character of Europe watches the consequences of war, herself a victim of it. In this paper the use of ancient tragic fragments for the creation of contemporary performances will be discussed and evaluated whether it is an appropriate pathway to follow against letting ancient fragmentary drama be forgotten. After presenting and analysing Terzopoulos' Epigonoi, the performativity of fragments will be argued along with their suitability as theatrical material for contemporary dramaturgy that explores the issue of fragmentation in life and in the narrative and also the issue of Trauma itself.