Español The Poetics of Ruin in Dipo by Marcelo Bertuccio: Fragmentation and Void in the Rewriting of Classical Tragedy

Abstract

This article analyzes the notion of ruin as an aesthetic and structural principle in Dipo (2019), a play by Argentine playwright Marcelo Bertuccio. The drama is a contemporary rewriting of the seven surviving Greco-Roman tragedies that explore the myth of the Labdacids. From the field of classical reception studies, the article examines how the ruinous condition of ancient texts endures in the new play. Through intertextual analysis and the author’s testimony, the article observes that Dipo operates as both a theatrical and literary device that not only incorporates textual remains but also activates them creatively. The play recovers all ancient versions of the myth and connects them, fragments the names of the characters, displaces the collective voice of the Greek chorus, dispenses with the stage directions present in the source texts used by Bertuccio, and removes ancient references. This gives rise to a poetics of absence, fragmentation, and multiplicity. The article concludes that in Dipo, ruin does not function as a loss, but as a productive form that generates new meanings and legitimizes its inscription in the lineage of classical rewritings.