A Forum on Theatre and Tragedy: A Response to September 11, 2001

In the immediate aftermath of September 11th, I invited a number of theatre and performance scholars to respond to the concept of tragedy in the context of these world-changing events. The following forum showcases the generosity of a wide range of scholars who signed on to this project with enthusiasm and conviction. More than ever, I believe that our intellectual labor can make a difference. The forum demonstrates much more than the vitality of our field; it positions us as an intellectual community joining together to do our part to address the tragic realities we must now confront.

David Román

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When I saw the north tower in flames--about five minutes after the first plane hit--I thought, "God, it's going to take a lot of time and money to fix that." A small community of watchers gathered in the street. Two women recounted that they had heard the low-flying plane speed by, then saw it crash. Others joined us. "Were there people trapped inside?" it finally occurred to us to ask. Traffic stopped. Then the second plane. Another explosion. More people. Even then we didn't start speculating about deliberate terrorist attacks. That happened only after word of the Pentagon filtered onto the street. We stood transfixed, watching, witnesses without a narrative, part of a tragic chorus that stumbled onto the wrong set. The city stopped. The phones went dead, cars vanished, stores closed, the towers folded. Stunned, people wandered around the streets looking for loved ones. Yet everything was quiet except for the sirens of ambulances, fire-trucks, police cars. A few newly-heroic protagonists, like Giuliani, emerged from the rubble to cordon off the catastrophe, trying to limit it to ground zero. Yet it spread. Some hours later I heard that the attack we had witnessed was now being called "war," albeit a "different kind of war." The world was suddenly being re-shuffled into those who stood by "us" and those who turned against "us."

Tragedy, as an aesthetic category, turns around the challenge of containment. Can Oedipus curb the tide of devastation that has wrecked Thebes? Hamlet's inability to act decisively leads to generalized death and the loss of the kingdom. Yet, tragedy is not just about containment; it functions as a structure of containment. Tragedy cuts catastrophe down to size. It orders events into comprehensible scenarios. Aristotle specifies that tragic events are of a certain magnitude, carry serious implications, and have an air of inevitability about them; protagonists have a "defined moral character"; and the plot leads to recognition in the spectator. The massive potential for destruction depicted in tragedy is contained by the form itself--for tragedy delivers the devastation in a miniaturized and complete package, neatly organized with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Ultimately, tragedy assures us, the crisis will be resolved and balance restored. The fear and pity we, as spectators, feel will be purified by the action.

The events of September 11th, however, make me think that we're not only looking at a different kind of war but also a different kind of tragedy. When people refer to the "September 11th tragedy," they usually refer to that awesome spectacle of pity and fear so brilliantly executed by the suicide pilots and so efficiently delivered nationally and globally by the US media. They refer to the hijacked planes and the thousands of victims, whose smiling faces and life-stories appear on Xeroxed sheets taped to phone booths, mailboxes, and hospital walls. Bush, hastily re-cast as...