The Trojan War on the Contemporary Western Stage: Transversal Readings

Theatre replays the past in the present. What does it tell us of the Trojan War, that symbolic event in Greek culture? This paper offers a reflection on the imaginary and the portrayal of the Trojan War on the contemporary western stage based on the last twenty years’ drama criticism in the newspaper Le Monde, on published and unpublished pieces over the same period and on essays about the original phenomenon and, more generally, its handing down. The subject has usually been approached with some measure of realism: a mimetic treatment has little interest for audiences, but an oneiric, poetic, mythological approach may spark an enthusiastic response. This more symbolic aesthetic makes the Trojan War an archetypal conflict which inspires a theatrical search for answers but also a message of hope: what should we conclude/how can we reconcile them both