The Greek Sense of Theatre: Tragedy and Comedy

185 Pages·2015·2.04 MB·English

by  J Michael Walton

The Greek Sense of Theatre
In The Greek Sense of Theatre: tragedy and comedy reviewed, J. Michael
Walton proposes that we consider surviving Greek drama of the fifth and
fourth centuries BC as performance-based, with a visual emphasis overlooked
in much classical scholarship. Greek plays have survived as written texts, vir-
tually without stage direction, and because the conditions of the first perfor-
mance were never recorded, it tends to be assumed that language was the most
important feature of the Greek drama. Walton seeks to disprove this idea,
expanding this new edition to include the comedies of Aristophanes and
Menander as well as the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides.
J. Michael Walton is Emeritus Professor of Drama at the University of Hull.
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The Greek Sense of Theatre
Tragedy and Comedy Reviewed
Third edition
J. Michael Walton
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Thiseditionpublished2015byRoutledge
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©1984,1996,2015J.MichaelWalton
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Firstpublished1984byMethuenandCoLtd
Secondeditionpublised1996byRoutledge
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AcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary
LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationData
Walton,J.Michael,1939-author.
TheGreekSenseofTheatre:TragedyandComedyReviewed/J.Michael
Walton.--Thirdedition.
pagescm
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
Originalcopyright:1996.
1.Theater--Greece--History--To500.2.Greekdrama(Tragedy)--Historyand
criticism.3.Greekdrama(Comedy)--Historyandcriticism.4.Mythology,
Greek,inliterature.I.Title.
PA3201.W3492015
792.0938--dc23
2014044300
ISBN:978-1-138-85731-5(hbk)
ISBN:978-1-138-85733-9(pbk)
ISBN:978-1-315-71876-7(ebk)
TypesetinSabon
byTaylor&FrancisBooks
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Contents
List of figures viii
Proagôn ix
Prologue xiv
PART I
The Athenians and their theatre 1
1 The critic 3
2 The playgoers 18
3 The stage 26
4 The performers 40
PART II
The playmakers: Tragedy 57
5 Aeschylus 59
6 Sophocles 77
7 Euripides: the tragedies 95
8 Euripides: the comedies 114
PART III
The playmakers: Comedy 131
9 Old Comedy: Aristophanes 133
10 New Comedy: Menander 148
Epilogue 156
Select bibliography 159
Index 162
fi
List of gures
1.1 ElectrabyEdwardGordonCraig,1913(CourtesyoftheCraigEstate) 4
3.1 Euripides, Children of Heracles, c. 400 BC (Museo Nazionale della
Siritide, Policoro, 35302. Courtesy of the Policor Soprintendente
per i Beni Archeologici della Basilicata) 27
3.2 Euripides, Iphigeneia Among the Taurians, c. 300 BC
© RMN – Grand Palais (Musée du Louvre)/Gerárd Blot 28
3.3 Aeschylus, Libation-Bearers, c. 350 BC © RMN – Grand Palais
(Musée du Louvre)/Gerárd Blot 29
3.4 Sophocles, Electra, c. 350 BC (Wien 689 SK195, 69. Courtesy of the
Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien) 30
3.5 Euripides, Alcestis, c. 340 BC (Basel Loan S 21. Courtesy of the
Antikenmuseum Basel und Sammlung Ludwig) 30
3.6 Aristophanes, Women at the Thesmophoria, c. 380 BC, a parody of
Euripides Telephus (Tarentine red-figure bell-krater, Würzburg H
5697. Courtesy of the Martin von Wagner Antikenabteilung) 31
3.7 TheGreektheatreaccordingtoVitruvius,DeArchitectura,BookVII 32
4.1 Actor holding a mask (Würzburg H 4781. Courtesy of the Martin
von Wagner Antikenabteilung) 49
4.2 Actorsdressingforaproduction(Artobject thePhialePainter,also
known as the Boston Phiale Painter, ceramic red-figure,
two-handled pelike 24.1 x 18cm, with actors preparing for a
performance. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Henry Lillie Pierce
Fund 98.883) 50
4.3 Wall painting from Pompeii of a comic scene (Pompeii Lvi 11 upon
authorizationoftheMinistryforCulturalHeritageandEnvironment) 51
4.4 Mosaic of a scene from Samia (The Woman from Samos)
(Courtesy of the New Archaeological Museum of Mytilene, and
K’Ephorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities, the House of
Menander, Mytilene) 52
Proagôn
Theproagônwasanoccasionpriortotheopeningofthemaindramaticfestival
in Athens when the playwright/director could offer a preview or trailer of his
upcoming group of plays. This was usually an opportunity to inform the
potential audience what changes he had made in his own version of an old
myth.Itseemstoofferasuitabletitlefortheintroductiontoanewandextended
edition of a book most of which was first published more than thirty years ago
as The Greek Sense of Theatre: Tragedy Reviewed.
The groundwork went back further, to 1972, when I was a visiting professor
in the Theatre Department of the University of Denver and worked with the
choreographer and expert in masked acting, Jerry B. Rumley, on a production
ofEuripides’BacchaeintheWilliamArrowsmithtranslation.Awarenessatthat
time of the performance dimension of Greek plays, at least in critical circles,
wasusuallydominatedbyaconcentrationonthespokenword.Thepublication
of my first two books and the pressures of working in a new Drama Depart-
ment with a practical as well as a historical bias delayed The Greek Sense of
Theatre: Tragedy Reviewed until 1984.
That first edition, when it did see the light of day, attempted to present a case
forGreektragedybeingconsideredasavisualratherthananauralmedium.The
bookendedwithapleafortheextendingoftherepertoiretoinclude more Greek
tragedies and for contemporary directors to take account in their staging of the
dualimperativesofanancienttheatricalsensibilityandthedemandsofamodern
audience. Therehad,beforethistime, been pioneering inroads byacademics into
the stagecraft of Greek drama, of course, stretching back, among others, as far
asJ. W.Donaldson,A.E.Haigh andSir William Jebb inthe nineteenth century;
in the twentieth, Roy C. Flickinger, Edith Hamilton, Lillian B. Lawler and
William Arrowsmith in America; Sir Arthur Pickard-Cambridge, Peter Arnott,
Oliver Taplin and David Seale in England; and Nicolaos C. Hourmouziades in
Greece: all of whom provided some classical building blocks for what would in
time turn into specific issues of staging and the complex fields of Performance
and Reception Studies. There was still little attempt to locate Greek Tragedy
within the wider compass of theatre history or to consider in detail the implica-
tions of writing for the mask. A re-evaluation was due, not only of the dramatic
dimensionofthesurvivingtexts,complexandpoeticastheyremain,butalsoof