Tragedy in the Time of Plague

Like a salt-encrusted shipwrecked sailor who after swimming and swimming at last crawls ashore glad to have survived danger, I look back on the two years of the rough waves of Covid-19. Constant restraints and few recompenses. Far from least of the deprivations was the total closure of theatres. For me this has, though, brought a refreshed awareness of the sensualities of live theatre, the innumerable minute impacts of the physicalities of performance, the somatic responses of the audience, and our shared raptness. Of course, the livestreamed plays and recordings were far better than nothing—some were brilliant and memorable—but it was and is nonsense to claim that they were just a good as live performance, let alone that they could even supplant the experience. I have just sat through nearly four hours of Ivo van Hove's grueling sequence of episodes from six Greek tragedies, The Age of Rage.² The blazing flames, the smells, the solidity of metal, the heft and footfalls of the vigorous choral dances choreographed by Wim Vandekeybus… These had to be experienced "in the flesh" (marvelous phrase!). And the caught breath, uneasy tension, along with the intent silence of the large audience was very much part of the actual performance. It also renewed the question: why do we subject ourselves to such things?

The more narrow and academic question that first broke through my initial pandemic-induced lethargy was one which, so far as I am aware, has hardly ever been raised. When Athens suffered its terrible plague between 430 and 426 bce, did theatrical performances go on all the same? Even if it is really the case that there was little or no notion of contagion,³ were the huge gatherings not curtailed or postponed during this terrible time? And if the tragedies did continue to be played and watched, what was it that was so important about them even in time of plague?

First some very briefly sketched background. Most of this will be well-known to most readers of Arion, but some settings need to be in place before the core question comes into focus. During the 440s and 430s the city-state of Athens had enjoyed a golden age of increasing prosperity and power, at the same time flourishing as a cultural magnet for ideas and the creative arts, including the great "local" genres of tragedy and comedy. In 431, under the influence of their charismatic leader Pericles, they embarked on war with the great rival power of Sparta—the so-called "Peloponnesian War." Even though the Spartans were able to invade and seriously damage the surrounding countryside of Attica, there was within the safety of the walls a mood of long-term optimism. Then in early summer of 430 the totally unpredictable plague struck the crowded and war-disrupted city. It lasted for two years and then recurred in the winter of 427–6 for a further year. The symptoms were horrific—far, far worse than our coronavirus. The fever burnt so terribly that sufferers could not bear to have any clothing on them and would throw themselves into cisterns in agonies of thirst. After about a week the disease moved into the bowels and victims were fatally weakened. The death-rate was terrifyingly high: it is calculated that the plague killed about 25% of the entire population. Pericles himself succumbed in the second year.

We know about this plague from the personal and authoritative account by the pioneering historian Thucydides (2.47–54). He was there and fell ill himself, but survived, observing that those who had had the plague did not contract it a second time. He gives a long and gruesome account of the sequence of symptoms. There have been many theories about what disease this was, but it may well be that it was a pathogen that no longer exists.⁴ There are, nonetheless, some striking analogies with our recent experiences. Thucydides relates that the disease was said to have originated far away, in Africa, and that it came to Athens through the trading port of Piraeus. There...