Will Act for Change?: Putting the History Back Into Performance History

: 255-269 WILL ACT FOR CHANGE? PUTTING THE HISTORY BACK INTO PERFORMANCE HISTORY GONDA VAN STEEN, RESPONDENT The classics can console. But not enough. (Derek Walcott, Sea Grapes) It is an honor to be asked to respond to a set of thought-provoking articles on the subject of "Performing Ideology," and thus to make a small contribution to the hard work that has gone into collecting, presenting, revising, and editing these papers. My gratitude goes to all of those who played a formative role in the long and intense process of producing this issue, and also to the many participants in the APA/CAMP Three-Year Colloquium, "Performing Ideology: Classicism, Modernity, and Social Context," who helped to shape the panels through their participation, questions, and reactions. The theme of the colloquium's first panel, "Classical Drama as Political Drama," made "performing ideology" specific. Clearly, the theme was not set up to be a simple definition, nor was it intended as an equation, of classical drama being political drama. Rather, it was a suggestion meant to invite multiple responses. The selected panelists have delivered just that: multiplicity, from Aeschylus to Theodorakis, from Hecuba to Lysistrata, and from the crowded London playhouse to the overcrowded American big house. Without entering into a particularly detailed discussion of the diverse articles, let me add a mere few points for further inquiry. POLITICS OF THE SIXTIES ­ POLITICAL ANTIGONES AND OTHER TRAGIC HEROINES What is political drama? What does it mean to "perform ideology?" This is certainly not the right place to produce--inevitably inept--definitions or characterizations. But allow me to draw some inferences from these and other recent studies and books, in which the choices may speak for themselves. An excellent starting point may be, for one, Dionysus Since 69: Greek Tragedy at the Dawn of the Third Millennium, edited by Edith Hall,...