Stage of Emergency: Theater and Public Performance under the Greek Military Dictatorship of 1967-1974 (Classical Presences) - Tapa dura

To sum up, Gonda Van Steen's book restages the history of New Greek Theatre by conducting a "cultural history of the dictatorship" (p. 304). Her work is valuable not only because it traces out a legacy of practices and thematic and aesthetic mechanisms that constitute the theatre of the last quarter of the twentieth century as she asserts in the last paragraph of her book. It is also valuable because, as I suggest above, the impact and legacy of this cultural production might be detected in other arts like cinema. Finally, it is also politically valuable since it provides proof for a moment in history when an art form had the dynamic and the momentum to shape social consciousness, to promote democratic solutions, to be a transformative power. In that sense, the book also stands as an excavation of our contemporary political imaginary. (Afroditi Nikolaidou, FILMICON: Journal of Greek Film Studies)

This volume offers a critique of cultural and intellectual life in Greece during the dictatorship of 1967-1974, discussing how Greek playwrights, directors, and actors reconceived the role of culture in a state of crisis and engaged with questions of theater's relationship to politics and community. In the early 1970s, several bold new plays appeared, resonating with the concerns of Greek public and private life. The reinvigorated Greek stage displayed an extraordinary degree of historical consciousness and embraced revisionist cultural critique as well, leading to a drastic re-shaping of the Greek theatrical landscape.

Stage of Emergency is the first study to focus on these particular theatrical developments of the so-called junta era, shedding light not only on the messages and impact of the plays themselves, but also on the politics of culture and censorship affecting the Greek public during this period.