Can theater save democracy? It’s not an idle question — it’s happened before

We live in an era when democracy stands in grave peril. Donald Trump and his sycophants are dismantling core institutions in the nation long considered the world’s leading democracy. Although this phenomenon may seem new and shocking, democracy’s broader condition has been frail for some time — and not just in the United States. Indeed, it is precisely the fragility of our institutions that renders Trump’s anti-democratic actions possible.

In today’s representative democracies, most citizens vote for and against proposals they scarcely understand. Ballots routinely present options that have not been adequately debated, weighed against alternatives or accurately contextualized. Some measures are phrased in such misleading fashion that voters end up endorsing outcomes they did not truly intend to support. Other proposals seem to come out of nowhere, forcing voters — who may have come prepared only to choose a president, governor, mayor or whatever — to also make judgments about county commissioners, school board members and so on, whose campaigns may never have attracted media attention or made an impression on ordinary voters. 

I have personally experienced these difficulties at the voting booth, confronted with measures I knew nothing about and propositions worded in such convoluted language that making a clear decision felt nearly impossible. Such uninformed, last-minute decision-making subverts the essence of democracy.

Democracy requires deliberation. As James Fishkin notes in his 2020 book “Democracy When the People Are Thinking,” voting without adequate information, debate and the opportunity of reflective choice is not democratic. Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson likewise argue that democracy needs robust forums for deliberation in order to ensure that voters fully understand the questions put before them and have time to consider the consequences of their votes. Beyond straightforward questions of information, citizens must be able to discuss multiple perspectives, weigh outcomes and deliberate thoroughly before casting their votes.

The widespread regret we now perceive among 2024 Trump voters suggests that, in many cases, their decisions lacked the necessary knowledge and consideration of likely consequences. As Hannah Arendt and Hanna Fenichel Pitkin have variously contended, voting is not, all by itself, foundational to democracy. Indeed, without careful deliberation about the consequences of policies, voting can even be anti-democratic.

Real democracy cannot thrive on mere access to information. It demands spaces where citizens collectively discuss the issues they will soon decide, weigh alternatives and think deeply about the implications of their choices. These spaces must exist well before elections, and indeed outside what we normally consider the political system.  

Culture as a pillar of democratic deliberation

Culture is the sphere in which people debate and determine who they are, what they value and the kinds of lives they wish to lead. Properly understood, culture is not a passive backdrop to “real life” but an active domain where communities articulate their shared meanings. A democratic culture allows for robust conversations about values, visions and policies. It becomes a vital pillar of democracy — though not, on its own, a sufficient guarantee of democratic health.

Today’s cultural forums rarely possess these qualities. They have largely shifted from sites of critical reflection, mutual engagement and vibrant debate into spaces that emphasize entertainment above all else. Among other things, that has eroded vital opportunities for community-building and thoughtful discourse. With these platforms weakening or disappearing, our capacity for democratic engagement has likewise weakened.

To understand the essential role culture can play in fostering democracy, it is instructive to look back at classical Athens, often considered the cradle of Western democracy. There, the dramatic competitions of the Dionysian festivals — especially the Great (or City) Dionysia — were more than mere religious or artistic performances. They were woven into the fabric of a democratic polis.

Many contemporary classicists emphasize that these festivals were “a central part of the life of democratic Athens,” to quote Robert Connor. In the late 6th and 5th centuries BCE, as Athens shaped and refined its democratic institutions, tragedy and then comedy became integral to how Athenians cultivated democratic values — a matter of deep culture as well as governmental structure. Attendance at the theater was understood both as a civic duty and a means of absorbing moral and political lessons through drama. At the City Dionysia, subject-allies’ tribute was displayed, war orphans were honored with a public parade and civic awards were conferred before the theater audience — turning the entire festival into a vivid reflection of Athenian society.

Tragedy as civic education and political reflection

Athenian tragedy frequently placed recognizable civic dilemmas in a mythic framework, prompting the audience to examine questions of justice, governance and communal values. As Geoffrey Bakewell observes, tragedy “was not merely entertainment but an essential part of the public administration of ancient Athens,” offering a cultural preparation for responsibilities in the Assembly, Council or courts. Plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides illuminated how pride, injustice and failed leadership could threaten a community. Aeschylus’ dictum from “Agamemnon” that “through suffering comes learning” captured a key lesson in cultivating empathy and communal judgment.

Certain tragedies explicitly underscored democratic ideals. Aeschylus’ “Oresteia” concludes with “Eumenides,” depicting the establishment of the Areopagus court to replace cycles of vengeance, thus mythologizing the roots of jury trials. Another Aeschylean drama, “The Suppliant Women,” shows King Pelasgus deferring to the Argive assembly when confronted with the Danaids’ plea for asylum. “Let the people together work a cure,” he proclaims, modeling the principle that decisions ultimately belonged to the people rather than a monarch.

Playwrights often staged formal debates (known as “agon” scenes) evocative of Athenian political practice. Sophocles’ “Antigone” and Euripides’ “Suppliant Women” dramatize tensions between personal morality, state power and democratic rights. As Paul Cartledge explains, mythic settings offered raw material for dramatists to explore how a community should bear its collective responsibilities.

Tragedy’s chorus typically represented a collective perspective, that of elders or ordinary citizens whose voices embodied a community’s hopes and anxieties. By the 4th century BCE, Athenian orators even quoted lines from the tragedians in court, knowing that jurors “liked quotations from tragedy,” in one scholar’s words. Philosophers recognized drama’s power too: Although Plato critiqued theater’s emotional pull, he admitted that “the comedy of Aristophanes” had deeply influenced Socrates’ public image. Aristotle later described tragedy’s capacity, through evoking pity and fear, to stir moral reflection in its audience.

Comedy as satire, dialogue and political will formation

While tragedy taught through mythic exemplars, Athenian comedy tackled current politics directly. Satire targeted specific public figures, policies and popular attitudes with a freedom known as “parrhesia,” or frank speech. As Bakewell suggests, if tragedy was integral to civic administration, so too was comedy’s outspokenness integral to democratic accountability.

Aristophanes’ “Frogs” exemplifies this civic function. It depicts Dionysus journeying to Hades to retrieve a poet who can help Athens in crisis, culminating in a contest between Aeschylus and Euripides. In that play, Aeschylus boasts that his earlier work, “The Persians,” helped strengthen the Athenians’ resolve against their enemies — highlighting the idea that art can serve to fortify communal will. The chorus, representing the voice of the Athenian people, responds in language that may sound strikingly contemporary in 2025:

But you here, whom nature made the wisest of all people, should drop your anger and make everyone who fights alongside us at sea a kinsman, a citizen. For if we are too proud, too puffed up with self-worth, especially now, when we’re encircled by the sea’s embrace, in future time we’ll look like total fools.

Comedies like “The Acharnians” and “Lysistrata” critiqued ongoing wars, while “The Knights” ridiculed demagogues such as Cleon. By lampooning powerful figures, comedy provided a constructive means for citizens to challenge leaders in a public, collective setting.

Influence on democratic institutions and discourse

By melding civic ritual with dramatic art, the yearly City Dionysia and related festivals fostered an essential cultural space for reflection and debate, a forum that shaped democratic deliberation. Some plays, such as Aeschylus’ “The Persians” or Euripides’ “The Trojan Women,” mirrored Athens’ real-time concerns by exploring the moral and human costs of war. Comedies urged spectators to question policies and personalities without fear of legal reprisal. The significance Athenians attached to drama is revealed, for instance, in the repeated performance of “Frogs” — an extraordinary honor — as well as the official Theoric Fund that subsidized theater tickets for poorer citizens, ensuring inclusivity reminiscent of the Assembly itself. 

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These festivals helped cultivate what Simon Goldhill terms Athens’ “civic discourse.” Tragedy offered moral lessons about leadership, justice and collective welfare, while comedy delivered irreverent critiques of politicians and popular mindsets. This shared cultural experience readied citizens to engage in actual political processes with sharper awareness. In the Theater of Dionysus, art and politics converged to nourish an informed, active citizenry capable of guiding Athenian democracy both on and off the stage.

Lessons for contemporary democracy

It is important to distinguish the active engagement with theater suggested by the Athenian examples from the passive consumption of news or social media. Theater offers a vivid platform where audiences can witness potential outcomes of different political choices. Through characters and plot, viewers see how policies, leadership decisions and collective actions might unfold. In this way, theater facilitates a careful weighing of what might happen if a society remains on its current trajectory or, conversely, if it chooses another path.

True theater is, therefore, not entertainment alone. Rather than simply distracting us from daily life, it can inform and deepen our collective deliberation. A purely entertainment-driven environment, by contrast, may erode democracy: When citizens are incessantly preoccupied with amusement and spectacle, they have fewer opportunities to analyze and discuss the societal challenges that confront them.

Democracy, in other words, is unlikely to thrive without theater and other kinds of  cultural spaces that promote critical engagement with political life. Without such platforms, politics itself risks becoming a crude form of theater in which voters effectively become actors or even marionettes, enacting scripts they do not fully understand and whose consequences they have scarcely considered.

When citizens are denied robust public forums that enable the constructive formation of political will, they are all too likely to vote against their own material interests. Devoid of communal deliberation, people become easy marks for manipulators who play to base fears or shallow emotional appeals. Theater, at least in its most functional form, compels us to experience and reflect upon potential outcomes of policy choices. It lays bare the consequences of certain actions or votes, reminding audiences of cause and effect in the civic realm.

Political polarization in our own era, marked by echo chambers and divisive rhetoric, further facilitates such manipulation. In order to deliberate thoughtfully, citizens must engage with those who hold different views and remain open to new insights. Only by considering, understanding and critically weighing multiple perspectives can a community arrive at well-reasoned conclusions.

Unfortunately, most contemporary democracies completely fail to foster that kind of public discussion. Although the institutional crisis of democracy has clearly been accelerated by Trump’s return to power, democracy has long been imperiled by the hollowing out of spaces where citizens can examine, compare and refine their political opinions.

Last month’s attempt by the mayor of Miami Beach to close down a local movie theater that was showing the documentary “No Other Land” underscores how deeply political authorities with autocratic tendencies fear critical cultural expressions. That film offers a critical perspective on the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, and banning it amounts to blatant censorship that strikes at one of democracy’s key pillars, free speech or “parrhesia,” as the Athenians knew it. 

In our own time, individuals struggle to find spaces for deliberation, communal learning and building consensus, and theater has largely been transformed into a diverting spectacle by and for cultural elites. This is damaging in many ways, first and foremost because citizens are deprived of opportunities to see the results of ideas played out and to examine the possible outcomes of authoritarianism, isolationism, nationalism or chauvinism.

Without theater — which today encompasses possibilities and forms the Athenians could not have imagined — democracy is deeply imperiled. This danger is already manifest: Many forums for public deliberation have been drastically curtailed. Citizens vote for people and policies they know little about, with little clarity about which outcomes they actually want or what is likely to happen. In many cases, political campaigns do not even propose coherent policy platforms; they merely appeal to voters’ pride, fear or anger, circumventing rational debate.

In the voting booth, we often make decisions without having weighed the pros and cons in any meaningful way. Deprived of any shared process for collective deliberation, we become easy targets for those who seek power above all else. The final stage in this erosion comes when the authorities move to outlaw opinions that deviate from their own. As the most recent actions of the Trump administration indicate — such as the apparent move to scrutinize social media opinions of immigrants or international visitors — we may already have reached that point. When the right to speak frankly is no longer protected even in theaters, in schools or universities and in private spaces, democracy dies.