Waiting for the Barbarians

Welcome to the third episode of ISTAP Studio Academy.

This three podcast miniseries is dedicated to the ISTAP twenty twenty-six conference team Waiting for the Barbarians.

Students Anaïs Anica, Aryaman and Mal Fleury from the University College of Groningen talk with Dr. Eleftheria Ioannidou, an associate professor of theatre and performance studies at University of Groningen.

Her research explores the twentieth century reception of Greek theatre and drama with a particular emphasis on national identity, politics and ideology.

So the play's preoccupation with the emergence of democracy, the question of how a civilized community establishes justice, did not interest them, so the performance read simply something entirely different into the text.

So what matters is, I would say, more the act of, of staging, the claim to this tradition that comes through the very act of staging and, um, the kind of collective imaginings that the performance enacts and gives form to, gives a body to.

Now on to the, uh, the play that we're, uh, looking at, um, as part of our research, Waiting for the Barbarians.

Um, this play, uh, draws this line between, uh, a civilized people and an imagined enemy.