Catarsi reloaded. L’Elena sinestetica e ironica di Davide Livermore

Considering the close link between art forms and social well-being, the essay focuses on the catharsis induced by the tragic performance, as a theatrical device to achieve a sensory and cognitive well-being. Starting from a survey of the Aristotelian concept of catharsis aimed at understanding the positivity of tragedy, its efficacy in representing a painful story that is resolved in a physical and mental pleasure, the analysis centres on the catharsis produced by the show Elena directed by Davide Livermore in 2019. In staging Euripides’ drama, the Turin-born director carries out an operation of great renewal of the classical model, which claims a high use of contemporary media and codes. The ‘mythical’ dimension of Elena is updated through an idea of simultaneous opera, in which different visual and performative codes are interwoven, and is used a hybrid dramaturgical register, including pathos and comedy. Leveraging on a precise contemporary theoretical frame, which convoys the postdramatic theatre theorized by Hans-Thies Lehmann and the speculation on the ludic forms of ‘low intensity myths’ by Peppino Ortoleva, the essay reconstructs and interprets the director’s scenic writing and its effects on the audience. The result of the analysis demonstrates that, by a resemantization of the tragic imagery, Livermore actualizes and reloads the Aristotelian catharsis, in the sign of a new synesthetic and ironic cathartic process, trigger of renewed emotions and knowledges for today’s spectators.