Between Jerusalem and Athens: Israeli Theatre and the Classical Tradition

How does a theatrical tradition emerge in the fields of dramatic writing and artistic performance? How can a culture in which theatre played no part in the past create a theatrical tradition in the modern world? How do political and social conditions affect the encounter between cultures, and what role do they play in creating a theatre with a distinctive identity? This volume attempts to answer these and other questions in the first in-depth study of the reception of ancient Greek drama in Israeli theatre over the last 70 years. Exploring how engagement with classical culture has shaped the evolution of Israel’s theatrical identity, it draws on both dramatic and aesthetic issues - from mise en scene to ’post dramatic’ performance - and offers ground-breaking analysis of a wide range of translations and adaptations of Greek drama, as well as new writing inspired by Greek antiquity. The detailed discussion of how the performances of these works were created and staged at key points in the development of Israeli culture not only sheds new light on the reception of ancient Greek drama in an important theatrical and cultural context, but also offers a new and illuminating perspective on artistic responses to the fateful political, social, and cultural events in Israel’s recent history.