Tragedy and tragic expressions in C21 postdramatic theatre contexts

Abstract

It is a widely accepted notion that we inhabit a postdramatic age whereby the importance of the dramatic within tragic modes has been questioned and problematised. Aristotelian criteria and its cumulative dramatic heritage, no longer seems to exert an influence or act as a ‘regulating principle’ in performance today (Lehmann 2006: 22). The common ground that seems to have brought this change in performance is society’s dependence on media and what Guy Debord defines as ‘the society of spectacle’ (1983: 3). Hans-Thies Lehmann’s recent work on tragedy and dramatic elements of theatre and performance repositions contemporary performance as a conglomerate that includes both dramatic and postdramatic elements (2016: 3–4). Lehmann posits that parameters need to be asserted ‘between predramatic, dramatic and postdramatic’ to access the ‘authentically tragic experience’ (4). This research will attempt to question the purpose of such distinct categories and will posit that the dramatic elements that inform tragedy still retain their original form. If this argument is true, therefore, the tragic continuum has not been broken. In addition to addressing this continuation, this study will question whether the tragic form changed to such an extent that it warrants a new definition following the postdramatic paradigm. Through the exploration of contemporary tragedy, it is hoped that these categorical aspects of form can be blurred to heighten the evolutionary nature of society and its relation to the tragic form. Selected work from Penelope Skinner and Philip Ridley will assist in answering the question whether social parameters, through which tragedy is perceived today, has truly evolved beyond recognition. By applying traditional (historic) modes of analysis with the consciousness of new interdisciplinary paradigms, it will be argued that one can attempt the approximation of some level truth, or tragic authenticity, relevant to the contemporary condition.