Abstract

GOMEZ CORTELL, Clara. Between Reality and Fiction, Reason and Madness: the Choral Drama as Individual and Social Therapy. Nova tellus [online]. 2017, vol.35, n.2, pp.9-44. ISSN 0185-3058.  https://doi.org/10.19130/iifl.nt.2017.35.2.766.

From the overtly political means and functions of the ancient Greek tragedy, modern western drama styles and genres have openly assumed or adapted some of the methods of the dramatic spectacle that integrate (in different ways) within themselves the Aristotelian ideal of kátharsis. They do this under varying forms and for different purposes -some of them avoid and reject katharsis directly- and sometimes they even go beyond Horatio’s ideal of prodesse et delectare, heading towards a personal (and social) therapeutic purpose in some dramatic forms in which the limits between reality and fiction or care and insanity begin to be blurred and lost, until the fourth Wall itself ceases to exist. The aim of this study is to briefly inspect the dramatic reality that connects the origins of western drama through carnival festive forms and develops into the most artistically advanced avant-gardes, as they combine dramatic text, song, music and dance into a whole: the work of art.

Keywords : Greek Tragedy and Western Drama; Choral Drama; Lope de Vega; Beys; Sade; Charcot; Brecht; Avant-gardes; “The Fourth Wall”; Dramatic Therapy.

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