Between Actors and Archons: Mediating Knowledges of Greek Tragedy in/as Performance

This chapter considers how multiple kinds of knowledge that shape understanding of Greek tragedy in performance (in, e.g., histories) and as performance (in, e.g., theatre practices) are mediated. It looks at two examples of knowledge mediators in the 21st-century UK Classics ecology: the University of Oxford’s Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama and the theatre company Actors of Dionysus. By examining the interplay between the knowledge of theatre makers—especially actors—and academics, it explores how these organisations facilitate the flow of knowledge about Greek tragedy in/as modern performance in the ecology. The overall aim is to reassert the value of attending to the embodied knowledge of the actor, among other theatre artists, which may differ in kind from the knowledge traditionally valued by academics (especially in the field of Classics) but is nevertheless essential to understand Greek tragedy’s relationship to performance in the modern world.