The ARCH Project: Archival Research & Cultural Heritage

in George Rodosthenous (ed.), Theatre as Voyeurism. The Pleasures of Watching, London: Palgrave-Macmillan

2015, 50-68

 

Theatre from its very inception was created of voyeuristic material. Aristotle in his Poetics, the first theoretical text written on theatre, refers to the pleasure enjoyed by the viewers «τὰς εἰκόνας ὁρῶντες» (as they watch likenesses, Arist. Po. 1448b). The etymology of the word «θέατρον» (theatre) leads us to the term «θέα» (view), meaning look, contemplation, while theatron is «ὁ τόπος ἐν ᾧ θεάται τις», signifying the place where someone both watches and is being watched. This reference to the origins of the theatre is not coincidental. In Ancient Greek drama the role of the spectator and the power of the gaze were of primary importance, in the same manner as in the theatre of Romeo Castellucci and his artistic company Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio, on which this article focuses. Posing the question “what is the meaning of watching?”, Romeo Castellucci advocates a dramaturgy of the gaze, attempting to activate the ability of watching, as well as being watched.