Replicability of Classic Works in Modern Theater

Since the enlightening era, theater has served as a setting for reemergence and representation of philosophical notions. A historical interchangeability between philosophy and myths apparently motivated theater in the post-enlightening era to start to reflect myths and traditions in its dramatic structure one way or another. The present article aims to examine the technical replicability of classic works in modern theater following the critical views of Walter Benjamin. It also aims to be a review of the philosopher’s views. Though Benjamin never directly debates theater, his views cover so extensive an area in art that one can trace and redefine the 20th century’s theater based on his literature and thoughts. Benjamin not only seeks to reveal the debilitative aspects of the modern instrumentalist rationalism but also aims to criticize the dark side of the modern time as a modern subject. In this sense, modern author as knowing subject takes modern works as object of knowledge and seeks to review or replicate the works as dialectic matters between traditional sense and its modern sense in a way that modern human could realize it in a replicated sense. The main aim of the study is to bridge a given gap between a work of art and its audience. The aim may help establish a bond between traditional and sectarian values of art and eventually imbue the field of art with value of life, a value that Benjamin considers as inevitable for modern human to embrace.