Aristotle, theater and text

The catchy title sets the tone: in this book, Florence Dupont maintains that Aristotle has “ vampirized Western theater by conceiving tragedy as an autonomous text and not as a live performance intended to be represented. The Greek philosopher has thus created an aesthetic paradigm which has gradually imposed itself during history and which remains dominant in contemporary times.

To defend his remarks, the author recalls that at the origin, the Athenian tragedies took place within the framework of ritual festivals, called the great Dionysies. Theatrical manifestations were institutionalized events which had meaning and occurrences only in the ritualized context of the life of the city. However, it is precisely with this inscription in practice that the conceptualization of Aristotle breaks. Its Poetic Develops a theory of unprecedented tragedy detached from any anchoring in reality. At the heart of the system is the notion of muthoswhich refers to the idea of ​​a narrative story or frame. From now on, the tragedy presents itself as a coherent sequence of actions, and it is this sequence which is supposed to produce the catharsisnamely the purification of the passions of the recipients of the work. The central point of Florence Dupont’s analysis is due to this primacy of muthos In Aristotle, a primacy that leads to a textual and non -spectacular approach to tragedy and an abstract theater of readers. With the Poeticit is therefore the model of a disembodied theater, unrelated to the dimension of concrete scenic performance, which is promoted … and for a long time.

According to the author, in fact, the Western theater has remained taken in the rets of Aristotelianism. A free historical journey of certain classic, modern and contemporary conceptions suggests the prevail of this grip. At XVIII^e A century, authors like Goldoni or Diderot devalued the popular forms of the theater to better impose the need for mastery of the play of actors and strict respect for the text. At XIX^e century, the rise of the director’s figure, master of the interpretation of the deep meaning of the work to represent, renewed the idea of ​​a ‘noble’ theater perceived in its literary vocation. At XX^e century, finally, a playwright like Brecht remains dependent on the heritage of Aristotle with his concept of “ fable “, Which designates the narrative organization of the play allowing spectators to become aware of its political and social scope. According to Florence Dupont, the Brechtian fable only replaces the muthos Aristotelian. And this invocation of the fable remains topical insofar as it was mobilized by the creator Olivier Py during the controversial Avignon festival of 2005.

The work is thus carried by the desire to get rid of “ Ambient Aristotelism “, By showing the possibility and validity of another approach to the theater, an approach focused on the playful and interactive performance of the performance achieved on stage. The theater should no longer be apprehended as the neutral representation of a story, but as a “ party »Obedging in precise codes and actively involving authors, actors and spectators. In this perspective, Florence Dupont attaches to “ Non -Aristotelian forms »From the theater, in the first place the Roman comedies of Plautus and Térence. These comedies are not intended to unroll a story, but to establish a playing space where the actors take freedom from the text and where the spectators participate by expressing their reactions. It is born from this communion a real spectacle which breathes into the theater an additional soul.

Ultimately, by trying to break with the Aristotelian shackles, Florence Dupont pleads in favor of a living theater, where the desired goal is not the cult of the text, but the pleasure of the representation playing. The result is a recurring praise of popular theatrical forms, from the commedia dell’arte to Vaudeville, and a pronounced mistrust of intellectualizing drifts of this artistic genre. This position, in its very radicality, has the merit of relaunching the eternal debate: must the theater be considered as a ‘serious’ art or as an entertainment addressing essentially to an audience ?