From Textual Destruction To Iconoclasm

Italian theatre director,playwright,and theatre sound and visual designer Romeo Castellucci(1960-)is one of the most visually identifiable and active avant-garde theatre directors in contemporary Europe.Along with members of his family,he co-founded the theatrical collective La Società Raffaello Sanzio(1981-2006),engaging in a range of collaborative works over a 25-year period,including stage performances,theatre theory,and social interventions.Castellucci’s works are often approached and developed from a rebellious standpoint.This article begins by examining his theatrical practice and manifesto from the 1980 s,discussing the specific ways and theoretical dialectics of his anti-traditional practice and exploring its connection to Greek tragedy from a political aesthetic perspective.In terms of the rebellion against the text,the discussion focuses on the shift from literaturedominated traditional theatre to the juxtaposition of various media in the theatre and specific fields,in order to reclaim the expressive authority of the diverse forms of language in the theatre.As for the rebellion against the simulation of reality,it refers to a departure from the reproduction of reality through perspective,and advocates the reproduction of intrinsic perspective,which is a kind of theatrical cubism.In addition,the destruction of idols in La Società Raffaello Sanzio is both an aesthetic practice and a methodology.Through an overview of the theatrical practice and methodological awareness of Romeo Castellucci and the Società Raffaello Sanzio,this article revisits the political tradition of Greek tragedy,responds to the goals of practice and theory from the perspective of theatre function,and discusses the public and political nature of theatre.