Forgotten Theater, Theater of the Forgotten: Classical Tragedy on Modern Greek Prison Islands

• Published in: Journal of modern Greek studies 2005-10, Vol.23 (2), p.335-395
• Main Author: Van Steen, Gonda Aline Hector
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Aeschylus (522-456 BC); Ancient Greek; Civil war; Concentration camps; Drama; Greek language; History; Prisoners; Sophocles (496?-406 BC); Theater
• ISSN: 0738-1727; 1086-3265; 1086-3265
• DOI: 10.1353/mgs.2005.0024

From the late 1940s to the early 1950s, a little-known theater practice took root on the remote Greek prison islands of the Civil War. Classicizing productions and readings of ancient Greek tragedy were staged by the detainees of various internment camps—male and female, young or old, educated or illiterate, communist or not. These performances, seen in their sociopolitical context, voiced concerns about patriotism, victory, defeat, recognition and memory. Among other Greek and foreign plays, the inmates produced Sophocles's Philoctetes and Antigone and Aeschylus's Prometheus Bound and Persians. These productions are eye-openers for anyone studying the theater of that period as well as wider issues of theatricality. The inmates generated performative and protest statements that, despite the constraints of censorship and constant surveillance, went well beyond the scripts, their staging and performance.