Inventing the ‘Barbarians’: Foreign Directors of Ancient Drama on Greek Soil

This paper examines how Greek theatre criticism has responded to foreign directors’ interpretations of ancient Greek drama from the turn of the twenty-first century to the late 2010s, exploring how debates around cultural authority, authenticity, and ownership have shaped the reception of these productions. The analysis traces recurring patterns of anxiety and negotiation within critical discourse, revealing how questions of national identity are projected onto aesthetic evaluation. Rather than depicting a linear evolution, the study traces changing rhetorical topoi that correspond to broader cultural and institutional developments in Greek theatre and its audiences. Through the lens of a reversed Orientalist dynamic, the article argues that Western directors are often constructed as the cultural ‘other’ – perceived as misreading, displacing, breaching or over-intellectualizing the essence of Greek tragedy. Its contribution lies in demonstrating how these mechanisms of exclusion operate within modern Greek critical discourse, revealing the persistence of identity politics even in ostensibly aesthetic debates. These responses, oscillating between cultural defensiveness and fascination with the foreign, illuminate how Greek criticism continues to define its own position between artistic autonomy and inherited tradition.