Fisher, Tony (2026) Tragic Politics and Post Tragedy. Theatre Research International, 51 (2). ISSN 1474-0672 (In Press)

Abstract

This article analyses tragedy’s politics in light of the contemporary ‘post-tragic condition’. The post-tragic condition describes a period where a sense of progressive futurity appears foreclosed; instead, the present moment is experienced in terms of what Lauren Berlant describes as an ‘impasse’. The article develops its analysis by examining tragic theatre in two distinct but related contexts: the period of anti-colonial tragic theatre, with examples from India and Africa – a period when, the essay argues, tragic politics remained oriented by the possibility of a progressive political horizon; and, post-1989, when that horizon receded - characterised by a sense of postcolonial melancholia, and - in terms of theatre - the emergence of postdramatic form. The article concludes by considering where things stand today regarding the prospects of a post-tragic but committed theatre, rooted in the imperative to rethink tragedy’s politics in light of the present crises of the planetary conjuncture.