It is a wonderful cross-curricular essay about how the Greek theater of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripedes during the "Athenian century" (509 BCE - 404 BCE) differed from our "private, personal, anonymous" experience of current theater; being, rather, a purposeful civic experience designed to entertain, but also to set before the gathered citizenry complex situations they might learn from:
"...the point of Sophocles' play is not that Antigone is "right" and that Creon is "wrong," but rather that each character has a valid point to make. The problem - and the source of dramatic excitement - is that each is unable to see any validity in the other's views."
...
It is in this way - by sensitizing its audience to such bitter conundrums, to the agonizing choices that come with being both an individual and a citizen - that Athenian drama could educate those who saw it performed."
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