Members-only podcast episode
The Play’s the Thing: Matthew Vadnais on (Ancient) Theatre, Initiation, and the Esotericism of Public Performance
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‘What [Aristotle] is up to in the Poetics is, I would argue, an argument pretending to be a sober assessment.’
In our interview with Richard Seaford on the ancient mystery-cults some reference was made to Euripides’ play Bacchæ, as well as to Aristophanes’ Frogs. These plays (and the ‘culture wars’ surrounding them in ancient Athens) are crucial data for what went on in the ancient mysteries, Bacchic and Eleusinian in particular. In this episode we pull on those dramatic threads in greater detail from the perspective of theatre studies, exploring how aspects of the esoteric can be present in that most public of fora, the dramatic stage, and how an appreciation of this can help us understand the discourse of the esoteric and esotericism more broadly.
Dramatis Personæ (all dates BCE):
Æschylus (c. 525/524 – c. 456/455)
Euripides (c. 480 – c. 406)
Aristophanes (c. 446 – c. 386)
Plato of Athens (c. 428–423 – 348/347)
Aristotle of Stagyra (384 – 322)
Interview Bio:
Matt Vadnais teaches theater history at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. He is the author of All I Can Truly Deliver (del Sol, 2005) and has published essays regarding evidence of writing to ease the burdens of early modern performance practices in Shakespeare’s printed play texts.
Works Cited in this Episode:
Episode 26 with Peter Struck on symbols can be found here.
Episode 38 on the Esoteric Aristotle, Part I, can be found here.
Schechner, ‘an action twice performed’: Schechner, Richard. “Behavior, Performance, and Performance Space.” Perspecta, vol. 26, 1990, pp. 97–102. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1567156. Accessed 16 June 2026.
A Game at Chess by Thomas Middleton: first performed in London in 1624
Augusto Boal Theatre of the Oppressed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theatre_of_the_Oppressed
An eagle dropped a tortoise on Æschulus’ head: e.g. Pliny, H.N. 10.3.
Kell Drinkwater
June 26, 2026
If Dr. Vadnais is checking the comments here, I’d love to know where one can read more about the political readings of Hamlet, versus the psychological ones.
(And there’s definitely something related to say about the way religion and magic have been individualized and psychologized, which makes them less dangerous.)
Killer episode, makes me wish my high school English class had any of this wild and fascinating context about Greek drama!