Theatrocracy is a book about the power of the theatre, how it can
affect the people who experience it, and the societies within which
it is embedded. It takes as its model the earliest theatrical form
we possess complete plays from, the classical Greek theatre of the
fifth century BCE, and offers a new approach to understanding how
ancient drama operated in performance and became such an
influential social, cultural, and political force, inspiring and
being influenced by revolutionary developments in political
engagement and citizen discourse. Key performative elements of
Greek theatre are analyzed from the perspective of the cognitive
sciences as embodied, live, enacted events, with new approaches to
narrative, space, masks, movement, music, words, emotions, and
empathy. This groundbreaking study combines research from the
fields of the affective sciences - the study of human emotions -
including cognitive theory, neuroscience, psychology, artificial
intelligence, psychiatry, and cognitive archaeology, with
classical, theatre, and performance studies. This book revisits
what Plato found so unsettling about drama - its ability to produce
a theatrocracy, a "government" of spectators - and argues that this
was not a negative but an essential element of Athenian theatre. It
shows that Athenian drama provided a place of alterity where
audiences were exposed to different viewpoints and radical
perspectives. This perspective was, and is, vital in a freethinking
democratic society where people are expected to vote on matters of
state. In order to achieve this goal, the theatre offered a
dissociative and absorbing experience that enhanced emotionality,
deepened understanding, and promoted empathy. There was, and still
is, an urgent imperative for theatre.
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