STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS: A GREEK TRAGEDY

     Last night, on February 5, 2019, people from around the world had the chance to see a new "Play" on TV. It was called "State of the Union (SOTU ) Address" and starred the American President, Donald Trump. Other characters of note included Speaker Nancy Pelosi and various senators who would be running for President in 2020, like Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Kirsten Gillibrand and Corey Booker. Other characters involved in the plot played important parts as well.  

     The stage was the House of Representatives, the genre combined both comedy and tragedy and the primary emphasis was spectacle. ( Naturally,  dialogue was salient as well because the "Play" was primarily political discourse.)

     Due to the medium's excellent technology, TV viewers could see the various characters clearly in the Chamber, and most important, see their reactions to the President's speech; it was almost as if we were characters in the House ourselves. Surprisingly enough, these above- mentioned aspects of SOTU could comprise what Aristotle labeled his six parts of Tragedy: Plot ( organization of incidents or in this case, speech topics); character ( ethos ); thought ( spoken words/ dialogue ); diction; melody ( quality of speech); and spectacle ( sensory elements, like costumes, scenery, resonance of  actor's voice, actor's gesture). While these categories are noted in order, and, therefore, Aristotle considered Spectacle the least important, this critic thought Spectacle was predominant. And although Aristotle would probably believe the "Play" was a tragedy, many people might disagree, describing it as a comedy because of the varied "lies" and actions propagated by the main character on and off the stage. 

     Showing that Spectacle is attention-getting is not hard. The freshman class of female Representatives, dressed in white and dancing in their spaces, certainly proves that costumes and gesturing were salient. The facial expressions of Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi, while somewhat subtle, were other obvious evidences of gesturing. They were behaviors that we TV viewers observed carefully. In fact, we often watched the characters' response to Trump's spoken words ( thought ) more closely than listening to the speech itself.

     Finally, the aspect of melody ( literally ) was present, too, although it was in the form of a song: The House sang "Happy Birthday" to one of Trump's guests, a congregant of the Pittsburgh Synagogue and shooting surviver.

     Speaking of what characters were there this year at the "Play," we couldn't help but notice who wasn't there at this sequel: John McCain, Al Franken, and  Jeff Sessions. 

     And lastly, speaking of Aristotle, he was the one who wrote, " The whole is more than the sum of its parts." How true.