it’s probably a 1 minute read…from oskar eustis of the ny public…writing about the tandem births of drama and democracy in athens…mere years from each other…seems kinda relevant on the eve of the election…so i thought i’d share:
“…as soon as thespis turned and spoke to someone else, as soon as he invented dialogue, everything changed….the storyteller – who has had this authorial, god-like, unified perspective – isn’t right anymore…his point of view is not the authorial point of view…he is one of two points of view that are on stage…at that juncture we realize that truth resides not in the storyteller—truth resides somehow in the dialogue, in the space between two people…you’re imagining that you’re in my shoes: you empathize with me, and then empathize with whoever I’m talking to…that act – that empathetic leap of imagination – is the democratic act…in order for a democracy to work you have to believe that nobody has a monopoly on the truth…that there is no such thing as an absolute truth – otherwise the whole idea of democracy is nonsensical…all it would be is a compromise…in order to really believe in democracy, you have to believe that truth resides in the dialogue between different points of view…"
“…as soon as thespis turned and spoke to someone else, as soon as he invented dialogue, everything changed….the storyteller – who has had this authorial, god-like, unified perspective – isn’t right anymore…his point of view is not the authorial point of view…he is one of two points of view that are on stage…at that juncture we realize that truth resides not in the storyteller—truth resides somehow in the dialogue, in the space between two people…you’re imagining that you’re in my shoes: you empathize with me, and then empathize with whoever I’m talking to…that act – that empathetic leap of imagination – is the democratic act…in order for a democracy to work you have to believe that nobody has a monopoly on the truth…that there is no such thing as an absolute truth – otherwise the whole idea of democracy is nonsensical…all it would be is a compromise…in order to really believe in democracy, you have to believe that truth resides in the dialogue between different points of view…"
this from my friend Tim Altmeyer, actor extraordinaire and prof. at The University of Florida
