The War with the Living Earth and the Theatre of Catastrophe

The article gives a new reading of the famous Ode to Man from Sophocles’ Antigone by placing the conflict between humans and Earth in the unexpected light of anthropogenic climate change. Using an interdisciplinary approach, the text draws from the achievements of classical studies, but also especially of some of the latest authors trying to think through the philosophical and worldview stakes of the anthropocene. Theses are given towards a vision of a new theatre of catastrophe. It is urged that catastrophe is the concept where theatre under which we must think the perils of the new climatic regime, and at the same time the concept that allows them to productively interact with theatre’s potential to create new meaning.