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English Issue 31-32/2024

Plato’s allegory of the cave cries out: What you see is an illusion, for you are imprisoned. Free yourself so that you can learn to truly see! This liberation could not be more powerful, for, according to Plato, it is about turning around the whole soul—periagoge holes tes psyches. The soul frees itself from the blindness that binds it and frees itself to the experience that enlightens it. I love the turnaround, the reversal: in jokes, it is the punch line; in drama, it celebrates redemption; and in tragedy, it proclaims fulfillment. The turnaround severs the knot, wrenches open the door, and leads me to myself, and you to yourself—it is the dramatic essence of the theater. Theater, from the Greek theastai, means “to look at.” Yes, to look at the turning point in order to learn to turn yourself around and to take all of us along with you, gladly. Perhaps this is why Rudolf Steiner’s last lecture cycles were devoted to the apocalypse, the greatest turning point for humanity, and dramatic art, the personal turnaround.

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