Betrachtungen über die Macht des Staates und die Macht des Theaters
Reflections on the Power of the State and the Power of Theatre

Summary/Abstract: The present study reflects on the idea of power in relation with diverse political and philosophical systems. A fundamnetal difference exists between the ethic state, governed by the idea of universal right, and the tyrannical state, maintained through fear, terror and physical suppresssion. The idea of an ethic state, postulated by Aristoteles and Plato, is present in their philosophical works, but also in Greek drama. The dialectic relation between tirany and democratic government is well represented in the Greek drama – in Sophocles’ Electra and Antigona, as both of them represent the restoring of the moral order in the state, while Aristophanes brings in his comedies a harsh parody on democracy.Theatre borrows the freedom of the fool in order to say the truth on stage and thus the millenary truth of the theatre survives the ephemeral political paradigms.

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