Aias, or Ajax Telemonius, or simply Ajax the Great, was regarded at the end of the Trojan War as the second-best Greek warrior, second only to Achilles. Following the failed attempt to murder Ulysses and his army, Ajax fell from grace and took his own life. But his half-brother, Teucer, despite the dishonour of suicide and the opposition of Agamemnon and Menelaus, decided to pay him the honours he was due.
Who, like Ajax, driven by primal instincts such as the urge for revenge for an injustice, has not fallen victim to illusions caused either by their own weaknesses, by the intervention of others, or by an event or a particular social context? The information age – or rather, the age of the discrediting of information and the fog that so often shrouds its sources – is, today, the ideal context for the development and propagation of political discourses, social measures and ideologies that are cruel, unjust, anti-democratic and regressive. Thus, the path is gradually being paved for the total eclipse of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and human dignity, and of the rights of all sentient living beings; and, as a result, profoundly inhumane acts are permitted, normalised and disseminated globally. How can we confront this era, this time, this threat of the complete and abysmal degradation of our civilisational values?
We are, therefore, facing constant attacks on democracy and the progress of civilisation. The absence of dialogue, extremism and the deafening clamour of our times are gaining strength and perpetuating their assault by undermining critical thinking and, consequently, sound judgement. Restrictions on freedom of expression, disinformation – or the manipulation of information – and its exploitation for political and economic ends undermine the very heart of democracy. What are we to do in the face of this entrenched social madness, in the face of the social hysteria manifested in consumerism and unbridled speed? Sophocles’ Ajax is a reflection on the limits of power and is also, it seems to us, a response to totalitarian and all-encompassing threats. A response that springs from the very depths of our civilisation and the cradle of democracy.
Drawing on the text of Ajax, probably Sophocles’s oldest tragedy, this production—which premieres at the TMJB—takes a theatrical approach to the text and the figure of Sophocles, interweaving them with testimonies, narratives and artistic interventions to create an original and incisive work. What we set out to do, given the context in which we live, is to present a form of theatre that is profoundly human and that looks back at us. A theatre that looks us straight in the eye.
