Les Kurbas Theatre, Lviv, Ukraine, 2022. Photo: Adriano Miranda
Attending performances of ancient Greek plays in ancient Greek theatres is an experience that always gets me thinking. I find particularly moving the stream of people heading towards the theatre to watch for the umpteenth time the same stories that tell us of love, hate, respect, arrogance, thirst for power, war, justice, revenge. Stories written many centuries ago about human nature and all that is good and bad about it. And then, once I look around me at all the people filling up the theatre, and also seeing them leave after the performance, I often wonder “So what? What now?”. To what extent people use the “food for thought” provided by the play to think about contemporary life, about themselves and others, their place in the world and what could be their contribution towards a better world? When I consider contemporary Greek society (and other societies), the way we take care (or don’t take care) of each other, I am reminded that the power does not lie in the play alone, but also, and perhaps even more, in the individual and what that person will (or will not) do with what was given to them.
