The present article attempts to offer an overall estimation of the productions of ancient Greek Tragedy in the Greek postwar scene, from the point of view of the director’s approach. The article focuses on two prevailing tensions in the directorial approaches of ancient Greek tragedy during the period 1945-2005. The first one derives from the tradition of the Greek National Theatre and lays its emphasis on the priority of the tragic text, whereas the second one derives from the ritual theatre of Karolos Koun with its stress on the Oriental Greek tradition. The turning point for the presentation of Greek tragedy in Greece was the decade of the 1980’s. During that period those two tensions progressed and culminated. In their modernised version, the first tension was revived mostly through scenery and costumes while the second was enriched with direct references to the Asian and Far Eastern theatre. The contemporary directorial approaches to ancient Greek tragedy in Greece are dominated by the body theatre and intercultural interpretations, professed mainly by Theodoros Terzopoulos, as well as the post-modern theatrical quest as it is systematically expressed by Michael Marmarinos.
