Exactly how the three best tragedies and comedies were chosen is another topic up for debate, but we do know a lottery allowed one judge to be pulled from each deme. Also chosen at random was the order in which the plays were presented. The voting process is cloudier, but the use of representatives and of a lottery suggests the judging allowed for both a sense of democracy and divine intervention.
Production
During the summer leading up to each of the festivals, a public official (elected more so for religious duties than dramatic ones) would select the plays to be featured during Lenaea and the Great Dionysius. Also chosen were chorẻgoi, the equivalent of modern-day producers, who were charged with paying for all costs associated with their assigned production; the position served as a special tax on the very wealthy. Not only did being a chorẻgoi mean one had some deep pockets, but it’s possible the selected citizen had some say in the writing and direction of the plays, since he was now also in the running for being recognized with an ivy wreath alongside the winning playwright. If he was pronounced a winner, the chorẻgoi was also, fittingly, expected to pay for and host a celebratory after-party for the cast.
Staging
Ruins allow us to know that theaters were usually situated on a hill, allowing for amphitheater seating. The Theatre of Dionysus is estimated to have held fifteen to twenty thousand spectators that would have looked down upon the rounded orchestra section, where most of the stage action would occur. Whether there was a raised, wooden stage is debatable, but we do know of two often-used mechanisms: the crane, which would be used for gods to enter the scene (or, comically, for Socrates to have his head in the clouds) and the “wheel out,” a rolling platform used in order to show an event taking place in a different location than the one presented on the main stage.
The large scale of these outside spaces meant those performing had to have exceptionally strong voices for speaking and singing. Even with the loudest of actors on stage, it was necessary to use large gestures and elaborate costumes in order to capture the attention of those in the furthest seats from the stage. Lines that describe a character’s appearance or emotions are often written into plays, which helped those not sitting close to understand the action of the play. Having no more than four speaking characters (all played by males) on stage at once also helped to cut down on the confusion of who was speaking when.
Paintings on vases left behind tell us that costumes for the theater were not only large and spectacular, but also prescribed by genre. Tragedies called for long robes and somber masks, while comedies meant shorter, padded attire that accentuated body parts: large rumps, stomachs, and phalluses were part of most comic characters’ appearance, along with grotesque masks.
The Audience
The composition of the large audiences that filled Greek theaters is up for debate. While some boldly state that “women, children, [and] even slaves” sat beside Athens citizens, many limit the audience to only Greek men and boys, placing women at home and slaves only as stagehands (Jeffrey Henderson in Mueller 11). We do know that a marble front-row gave judges and the priest of Dionysus a VIP section from which to view the show.
Whoever was in the audience, they were expected to be active participants, which is one way to keep the audience entertained when sitting through up to five shows a day. In Wasps, for example, Aristophanes writes for the actors on stage to ask the audience to call out what disease a character might have before providing the answer (Robson 28). Giving weight to the idea that women were in attendance, several of Aristophanes’ plays also include actors addressing the audience as including men and women, an idea that makes the Greek theater all the more an exceptional public space worthy of study and an area of rhetoric that may have had the most truly diverse of audiences.
Image Sources
"Dionysus' Theater." University of Athens Department of Chemistry. University of Athens. n.d. Web. 17 Nov. 2013.
"Early Greek Comedy and Satyr Plays." Utah State University. Utah State University. 2010. Web. 17 Nov. 2013.
"Greek Theater of Dionysos in Athens." Columbia College. Columbia College. 2013. Web. 17 Nov. 2013.
"Illustration of a Greek theater." Arts and Humanities Through the Eras. Ed. Edward I. Bleiberg, et al. Vol. 2: Ancient Greece and Rome 1200 B.C.E.-476 C.E. Detroit: Gale, 2005. World History in Context. Web. 17 Nov. 2013.
Works Consulted
Aristotle. On Rhetoric. Trans. George A. Kennedy. Oxford UP: Oxford, 2007. Print.
Mueller, Carl R. Aristophanes in an Hour. Hanover: In an Hour Books, 2009. Print.
Robson, James. Aristophanes: An Introduction. London: Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd., 2009. Print.
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