Anaïs Mitchell and the Rebirth of Greek Tragedy

Eve Noblezada and Reeve Carney as Eurydice and Orpheus in Hadestown: the Musical

The word “catharsis” enters English from Greek through Aristotle, mostly his book Poetics. Therein, Aristotle uses the word “katharsis” to describe the effect he believes tragic drama has on audiences, raising negative emotions and, by expressing them, leaving them behind in the theater. For the most part, only classics scholars, gastroenterologists, and theatre kids know the word has its origins in medical terminology.

In ancient Greek, “katharsis” meant the removal of harmful substances from the body, especially in large quantities. In Aristotle’s day (and remember, his father was a physician), this might have meant medical leeching or emetics. It also signified heavy menstruation, though Aristotle, a consummate misogynist, probably never considered that. Most likely, he meant a metaphor to powerful laxative drugs and their effects on the gut.

You read that right. By “catharsis,” Aristotle probably meant that large, oft-postponed shit you take and, having taken, find yourself able to think clearly, feel deeply, and judge accurately. Aristotle believed that audiences watching Athenian tragedies, which were religious ceremonies, felt their feelings so intensely that it cleared mental blocks and burdens on the soul. He figured tragedy made audiences take a metaphorical shit, and having shat, emerge spiritually cleansed.

All that is prelude to say: I hope Hadestown, Anaïs Mitchell’s musical retelling of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth, presages a new generation of artistic tragedy. Many audiences, especially in the provinces, may never see a stage production, because the show’s need for multiple levels and trick floors make it impractical for regional and community theatres. But its recent big-screen distribution has made this play into a legitimate phenomenon.

I won’t recapitulate the plot. Writers from Plato and Virgil, to Rainier Maria Rilke and Sarah Ruhl, have reinvented it for their times, as Mitchell does here. I’m more interested in process and effect. Hadestown has all the Aristotlean characteristics of a successful tragedy: plot, character, theme, language, music, and “spectacle.” And, to judge by the stunned silence among the exiting audience at my showing, it clearly purges the emotions.

This production differs from most theatre in its specificity. Orpheus is still a gifted musician, but no longer a hero, he works despised jobs while seeking his break. Eurydice, beautiful but poor, is no longer snake-bitten; she chooses Hades, because at least there’s work. And Hades (the god and place alike) are now metaphors for carnivorous capitalism, the economic machine that consumes dreams and reduces humans to anonymous parts.

Plato and Aristotle, depicted by Raphael

We, the audience, see ourselves in this Dionysian ecstasy. Not everyone is a poet like Orpheus, surely; but we’ve all known the indignity of accepting work beneath our capabilities because rent is due. Like Eurydice, we’ve known the push-pull between economic necessity and moral integrity. And while we all haven’t been rapacious industrialists like Hades, we’ve all known and worked for someone who, like Hades, is disfigured inside and out.

For years, I insisted I disliked musicals. But recent experiences have shown me that I actually dislike Broadway musicals toned down for production in educational theatres, a theatrical subgenre too many of us know innately. School musicals are perhaps notorious for their thematically neutered structure and precious, virtuoso-driven music. Little could seem further from lived experiences of poverty, inequality, and discordant rhythm.

Mitchell doesn’t blanche to coach audiences to see ourselves in her characters, then hurt the characters. The suffering Eurydice suffers when Orpheus can’t hear her, and she must make a decision alone—why, we’ve all felt that misery when we discover we face life’s violent circumstances, sooner or later, alone. The doubt Orpheus feels, walking out of hell, is doubt we’ve all experienced that our lives are founded on lies.

Finally, Mitchell appends a final scene missing from the ancient sources. Without spoilers, we whether the characters lack free will, and whether they chose their tragedy, or the tragedy was an inevitable outcome. I’ve written before that whether writers and critics see plot or character as more important in storytelling, seemingly depends on whether they believe humans have free will. But we live now in times where such certainty seems quaint.

Hadestown is a tragedy because, like the ancient Athenian tragedies, it isn’t timeless. It uses mythology its audience already knows, but repurposes it for its intended audience. Millennia from now, Mitchell’s references to our real world may seem as abstract as those embedded in Sophocles do to us. But it’s a tragedy, in Aristotle’s sense, specifically because it hits us, the viewers, where we live. We feel because we already do.

Anthony Fauci and the Impolitics of Doubt

President Taco and Dr. Fauci have clearly differed on how to face the problem.

I struggle watching the Senate grilling America’s former chief immunologist, Dr. Anthony Fauci, for the same reason I avoid Farrelly Brothers-style doofus comedies: because it pains me to watch hapless dorks struggle. While Senators, particularly Rand Paul, fling bad-faith questions, Dr. Fauci responds by avoiding answers. This isn’t a partisan blowout, as I’d expected beforehand; it’s a disgrace to everyone who loves public policy and hard science.

Much news coverage has focused on Fauci’s diary. Senator Paul leaked reams of Fauci’s personal papers ahead of the hearing, presumably expecting the contents to embarrass Fauci and his supporters. They certainly should embarrass him for writing style—the man uses the telegraphic style and lush punctuation of a 13-year-old girl in an Elmore Leonard novel. But the contents, and the Senate's reaction to them, have proved altogether more interesting.

From the beginning of the pandemic, I compared the responses to religion. To President Taco, and most Republicans, “science” is whatever dribbles from a scientist’s mouth. Scientists are like prophets, their pronouncements are oracular truth, and our only responsibility is to make their parables useful. Watching scientists grasp at straws, change their minds, and struggle for unifying narratives, looks like secularized waffling to those who seek certainty.

I still believe that. However, I’ve come to believe the response isn’t unique to science. A certain kind of public personality believes that truth must be certain, and should never vary from first to last. Changing one’s mind, thinking of truth as conditional, and adjusting one’s language to meet the circumstances, come across to the literal-minded as vacillation and dishonesty. The small-c conservative mind seeks certainty where none exists.

Think back to recent political events. (I’m old enough that “recent” is a fungible term; bear with me.) Remember the brouhaha surrounding John Kerry’s notorious 2004 statement that “actually did vote for [a military appropriations bill] before I voted against it.” This probably submarined his presidential aspirations. Barry Glassner writes about the criticism Bill Clinton received for taking both sides of several political issues.

If Dr. Fauci can change his mind in light of new scientific evidence, it perforce follows that anybody else can, too. Senator Paul himself has stuck with the narrative that Fauci is personally responsible for the economic sinkhole the pandemic caused, if not the pandemic himself. Paul’s narrative persists despite a paucity of evidence, partly because Paul probably believes it, but also because he daren’t be seen publicly changing his mind.

Republicans, who are broadly more religious than the opposition, yearn for the moral certainty of Moses in their political leaders. Moses challenged Pharaoh, and David challenged Saul, both confident that they had God’s imprimatur. This absolute, unwavering confidence can look commanding to people confused or overwhelmed by the rapid social changes which have become hallmarks of modernity. Why can’t we all be as certain as Jesus?

My friends and veteran readers know where I’m headed here. The confidence of religion is, itself, irreligious. Moses initially tried to beg off G-d’s calling; so did Jeremiah and Isaiah. Jesus himself prayed, immediately before his arrest, to avoid what he knew came next. John, in his first epistle, warns against excessive faith: “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God” (1 John 4:1).

Doubt, not certainty, is the condition of life in this material world. Science is never “done;” it must constantly revise itself as new evidence arises. Lawmakers must pass the best bills available now, knowing they or their successors will repeal those bills later as conditions, economics, or public morals evolve. Prophets speak to a specific time and place, and their truths, however absolute, must face contingent interpretations.

Say what you will about Dr. Fauci’s over 100 recourses to the Fifth Amendment. (I’d suggest Fauci, a 38-year career civil servant, knew the game well enough to simply avoid common pitfalls.) For our purposes, what matters most is Fauci’s willingness to acknowledge scientific uncertainty without reaching for a pat narrative. He didn’t need to reconcile his doubt, because for him, doubt is simply natural.

Anthony Fauci makes modern lawmakers, media pundits, and other vendors of pat solutions nervous. Because, simply, he reveals that it’s okay to doubt, to question, to change your mind. Politicians squirm at this, because unshakeable certainty looks better in campaign ads. But the more command you have of the facts, the more nuanced your read, and the more vulnerable you are to doubt. Fauci says that’s okay, and that frightens grey-faced nabobs.

Kingdom Politics vs. Imperial Power

John Dominic Crossan, God and Empire: Jesus Against Rome, Then and Now

Jesus of Nazareth, the man believers call Christ, existed in a time and place. Too many Christians read the Gospels like a fairy tale, a pleasant lesson unmoored from historical context. But, as former Servite Catholic priest and DePaul professor John Dominic Crossan writes, Jesus’ mission took place in the direct shadow of Roman bloodlust and Herodian greed. Jesus’ message contains references to human power, and postulates an alternative kingdom, without hierarchies crushing the multitudes.

Like most Crossan books, this isn’t casual reading. An alumnus of schools in America, Ireland, Rome, and Jerusalem, Crossan approaches biblical exegesis with an erudite background, and his arguments are long, intricate, and extensively source-noted. His chapters are unusually long for mass-market religious books. Yet for his intended audience of serious-minded, literate Christians, he provides a worthwhile argument about political Christianity, grounded in Jesus’ first-century context, and the ways Jesus’ world resembles ours, and doesn’t.

First-century occupied Israel saw several feuds between competing kingdoms. Rome and its local allies, the temple priesthood, made and unmade Israelite kings. The Herodians and Hasmoneans had their partisans for the Jerusalem throne. Meanwhile, synagogues encouraged regular Jews to ignore the kings, and insist on their uniquely Jewish identity. All these feuding kingdoms asserted their primacy, demanding loyalty from farmers and laborers whose lives would be equally crushed, no matter which king wore the crown.

Against these earthly kingdoms, Jesus postulated the Kingdom of God, where hierarchies are inverted, servants are rulers, and the first shall be last. The Emperor Augustus claimed to be the son of God, savior of the nations, and bringer of peace on earth; Jesus (or anyway his followers) pilfered these titles for an alternate Kingdom. Nor were these parallels accidental, or so Crossan says. Jesus’ Kingdom deliberately reversed imperial claims on human lives and souls.

This is, of course, the short version. Crossan breaks down, in intricate detail, Romes’s history of peace through victory. Crossan believes Jesus offers an alternate vision he calls “peace through justice.” (He carefully defines “justice,” a word that, like “freedom,” changes definitions by context. Crossan is a stickler for close definitions.) Crossan finds multiple places where, to those well informed on first-century history, Jesus’ message recorded in the Gospels deliberately pokes Rome in the eye.

John Dominic Crossan

Crossan’s argument approach suffers some limitations. His level of intense detail is only possible in writing, and restating his claims out loud would bog down in verbosity. Crossan’s arguments are thus not particularly useful in correcting your right-wing uncle who sees Jesus as a conservative nationalist. Crossan’s source-heavy style is persuasive to readers who already essentially agree, but need meat on their arguments’ bones. They’re unlikely to persuade people evangelized mainly by basic cable TV.

Further, his approach is thoroughly Catholic. By this I mean he’s heavily catechistic, and focused on doing, not believing. In Crossan’s telling, Jesus invokes Kingdom law now, on Earth, not in some future glorious return. This approach contradicts Lutheran and Calvinist eschatology (I’m overgeneralizing, but not by much), but also contradicts the Apostle Paul, who expected Jesus’ Second Coming imminently. Crossan says Jesus awaits neither Heaven nor Armageddon, but we reside in the Kingdom immediately.

It bears stating that Crossan’s argument requires Jesus’ physical existence in a historical context. Crossan repeats the phrase “the historical Jesus.” Astute religious readers will recognize this linchpin of the Jesus Seminar, an organization that attempts to blow the later mythological dust off Jesus, the person. Like his organization, Crossan believes Jesus was a divinely inspired human, not necessarily the divine immanence, and his text reveals Crossan questions the Resurrection, and disbelieves the Second Coming.

This may seem confusing to both outsiders and rank-and-file Christians. Crossan is Catholic, but pooh-poohs doctrine. He’s Christian, but could take or leave the Resurrection. He frequently writes “we Christians,” while contradicting Christian belief dating back to the ancient ecumenical councils. Therefore he rejects the moral certainty that often infuses Christian writing, and frequently admits his exegesis is subjective. He invites readers to use discretion and discernment, not to simply believe him, or indeed anybody.

Yet I find this approach invigorating. By embracing Christianity shorn of dogmatism, he challenges us to examine which beliefs are innately Christian, and which are cultural baggage. You almost certainly won’t agree with everything Crossan says. But he makes a persuasive case that Jesus’ message reflects an anti-imperial core, one which remains painfully relevant today, in Nova Roma. If we take Jesus seriously, Crossan asks, we must decide: which kingdom do we occupy, right now?

For another book by John Dominic Crossan:
The Bible as Literature vs. The Gospel as History

Christian Politics Doesn’t Have to Be This Way

John Fugelsang, Separation of Church and Hate: A Sane Person's Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists, and Flock-Fleecing Frauds

Let us pray.

Lord, we come before you today in a state of grief. Not only grief for our broken world, the poverty we allow to fester, the disease we fail to heal, the human lives we let slip through the cracks. But also grief for the religious language that others use to justify this rampant injustice. So many people actively making things worse claim to work in your name, Lord. We have seen your mercy perverted into violence and empire.

But in our grief, Lord, you’ve also motivated many among us to recommit ourselves to what your message really means. Actor, comedian, and talk show panelist John Fugelsang is merely one among that number, though this world’s systems have surely provided him a larger platform than others have enjoyed. In these hours of religiously motivated bigotry, he’s chosen to dedicate his platform to challenging the hatred he’s seen perpetrated in Christianity’s name.

Fugelsang isn’t a Biblical scholar himself. His parents were both professional Catholic religious before they left their vocations to get married. But they never relinquished their dedication to the Beatitudes, the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats, and the Catholic social teachings in support of “the least of these.” They taught him from infancy that Christianity is a responsibility to serve the dispossessed, not a shield against consequence or justification to self-righteousness.

He pitches Biblical literacy, including context and history, against those who see Christianity as “a clique rather than a calling.” Religion has the power to bring people together, but the same nominal religion can give people a sense of holy mission, or an in-group they feel compelled to defend. Which choice they make defines how public-facing Christians relate to the poor, disfranchised, and foreigners among them.

This book is structured not only to debunk widely held Christian falsehoods, but also to help readers challenge those falsehoods in others. Fugelsang anticipates readers debating their racist, nationalist, or otherwise intransigent relatives in casual settings where we’ll have to answer pat talking points quickly. His counterarguments are detailed and sourced, but brief, easy to memorize and quick to deploy against the most common thought-terminating cliches.

Fugelsang dedicates chapters to why the Bible isn’t anti-gay (notwithstanding certain Levitical passages), anti-feminist, or pro-gun. Against popular prooftexts and “clobber verses,” he presents a package of thorough Biblical literacy, grounded in history. He also insists on context, and reads popular orphan verses in their full text, demonstrating how, to the audience who first received the Bible, passages often mean the opposite of what modern nationalists claim.

John Fugelsang

Again, Fugelsang isn’t a religious scholar. He grounds his arguments in his spiritual autobiography, and makes many claims based on practical lived experience. But he never relies on mere anecdote. He consults many scholars to ensure he has the full historical and religious background for every claim he makes. This includes consulting Jewish scholars to ensure he doesn’t read the Tanakh through Christian-tinted glasses, a common fallacy.

Many quoted scholars are, like Fugelsang himself, media figures with high public profiles. He repeatedly cites Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, Pastor John Pavlovitz, and Professor Kristen Kobes du Mez. Were I to cite one law with Fugelsang’s reasoning, it would be this reliance on high-profile media figures, whose theology sometimes reflects their demi-celebrity status. It’s possible to be factually right, but still disconnected from the worm’s-eye view.

But his sources’ media-savvy responses also make their arguments concise enough for informal argument. When there isn’t time for lengthy perorations and exhaustive detail, speed and brevity are sometimes necessary. Fugelsang organizes his claims well enough that, when somebody says something factually incorrect or spiritually ignorant, readers can say: “That’s wrong, and here’s why.” It’s good to be correct, but better to be correct and comprehensible.

As a comedian, Fugelsang does use earthy humor in his book. (“Earthy” being a euphemism for occasional cusswords.) But he reserves most of his humor for his autobiographical passages and personal ruminations. He takes his spiritual positions seriously, and never lets his stage performance come between him and his message. His writing is useful, informative, and fast-moving enough to never bog down in unnecessary scholarly language.

Writers like Fugelsang give me confidence, Lord, that Christianity doesn’t have to belong to the bigots and nationalists. Your message of mercy and generosity remains persuasive to many Christians today, Lord, specifically because it’s missing from our political and media leadership. The worst Americans have hijacked your message, Lord, but Fugelsang reassures me that this hijacking is neither inevitable nor permanent.

Amen.

White Supremacy Has Shown Its Real Face

The now-infamous photo of an unidentified woman surrounded by
Patriot Front members, captured by Reuters stringer Cheney Orr

By now we’ve all seen the photo taken on July 4^th, 2026, of a lone Black woman on a Washington, DC, commuter train. She’s surrounded by White men in matching polo shirts, balaclavas, ballcaps, and wraparound shades: Patriot Front members heading for a White supremacist march through the capital streets. The woman looks not quite into the camera, not quite at us, the picture of determination and despair.

From the photo’s publication, it struck me that not one White person looked at the Black woman. Though their philosophy relies on the presumption that they are better than her, or at least more deserving of life’s protections, they apparently can’t face her while pushing that agenda. Even on the commute, they remain in uniform, shrouded in comfy anonymity. Imagine  construction workers refusing to remove their hard hats and PPE.

I’ve written about this before, but it bears restatement. Harper Lee presented lynchings, the once-common act of racial supremacy through violence, as an overflowing of po’ White trash hatred in a moment of moralistic outrage. Lee’s “Old Sarum boys” rushed the county prison fueled by indignation and moonshine—but, importantly, they retreated as soon as Scout Finch recognized one and called him by name. Losing anonymity broke their momentum.

Except that’s not how it happened. Anybody who’s read American race history knows that lynchings were almost always planned, usually for days in advance, and frequently took place in broad daylight. Perpetrators photographed themselves with the victims, both before and after the murder, and often sold the resulting pictures as penny postcards. Perpetrators of racial violence didn’t feel obliged to conceal their identities.

This wasn’t coincidental. As theologian James Cone wrote, American lynchings served the same role as Roman crucifixions, an official reminder that the dominant population didn’t just run the country, they owned the underclass. Perpetrators showed their faces, both during and after the violence, not only because they feared no consequences, but to ensure the targeted population knew they feared no consequences. Racial oppressors were brazenly, monumentally unperturbed.

I already anticipate the counterargument: didn’t the KKK wear masks and sheets as uniforms? Yes and no. D.W. Griffith’s silent movie Birth of a Nation popularized the image, but that popularity was commodified by racist huckster D.C. Stephenson, according to journalist Timothy Egan. The Klan hood was an image sold to American racists by a former door-to-door salesman, who wanted to monetize American bigotry.

The Greensboro, North Carolina, sit-in at a Woolworth’s lunch counter, February
1960. Note that the participants on both sides aren’t afraid to show their faces. (Source)

My point is, racism used to happen in broad daylight. The counterprotesters who opposed the Woolworth’s counter sit-ins or the Freedom Riders, not only didn’t cover their faces, but they didn’t even mind being photographed. They openly put their faces and names to their violence; the white hood existed mainly for weekend pageantry. These historic bigots would’ve scoffed at needing to hide their faces from anyone, particularly a Black individual.

Saturday’s bigots, by contrast, concealed their whole faces. Other than the occasional nose poking out, all identifying characteristics are sanded off. The matching beige ballcaps with identical patches, the matching polos with Betsy Ross flag decals, the matching Oakley wraparounds: any of these men could be any other. They’ve erased their identities because, as participants discovered in Charlottesville in 2017, the consequences of being identified are now severe.

Indeed, because their faces and facial expressions are whitewashed away, there’s only one way of spotting how these men feel about their situation: none of them, not one, looks at the woman. They avoid even the possibility of meeting her gaze, even through the armor of their mirrored shades. People generally avoid meeting others’ eyes for two reasons. First, they might believe the other is more powerful or of higher standing.

Second, because they’re ashamed.

Patriot Front members might yearn for a beatified past where their melanin-deficient skin would’ve provided them with protection in America. But they know America’s cultural currents have moved on without them. Not that racism has receded; as Derrick Bell taught, racism has a nearly infinite ability to adapt itself to changing cultural conditions. But we’ve reached a point where their outright bigotry and cross-burning theatrics have become pathetic, not terrifying.

But more importantly, society hasn’t just changed; they’ve internalized that change. These men conceal their faces because they know they’ll never recover if they’re identified on camera. They know that we’re not afraid of them anymore, they’re afraid of us. They hide their faces where their ancestors didn’t, because they know they’re doing wrong. And that knowledge won’t just go away, not during their lifetimes anyway.