Ancient Greek Theater
Rising at early dawn, the whole city thronged to the sacred precinct to witness the performance of not only one play but of three, and not only for one day but for three days in succession. The theatre at Athens had a happy location. Shielded from the north wind by "the Acropolis it was so situated that the afternoon breeze from the Saronic Gulf blew directly into the faces of the audience. The occasion was the great festival of Dionysus, and the time March, when everybody longed to be out of doors. The seating capacity of the theatre — though not the largest in Greece — was 17,000 or more. The "building" was as far removed from magnificence as Shakespeare's theatre from the Grand Opera House in Paris; there were no plush chairs, no boxes, but merely seats of wood (later of stone), without backs, except in the front row. The audience wore festal attire. A myrtle wreath sufficed to designate the capacity in which the spectator was present as a participant in the festival.
As the sun was hot and there was no awning, or canopy, the men wore broad-rimmed hats. The array of smart and. fashionable dresses so conspicuous in a modern theatre was wholly absent. Thousands had to be contented with a threadbare tunic. All the resident Athenians were in attendance, even boys and slaves; strangers, too, were present, cither as official guests or as interested spectators. The tickets were purchased at one of the offices in the city at six cents apiece. The state made a special appropriation for thousands of the poor: their tickets of admission were purchased with money from the public treasury.
The 67 seats in the front row contained inscriptions indicating to what honored occupant they belonged: priests, the nine archons, the judges, foreign ambassadors and soldier's orphans. In the center of this row was a marble chair with arms. This was the seat of the priest of Dionysus. The people were his guests. In the early period he would send boys with baskets containing food and wine to distribute among his guests. But later the audience grew too large, since the population increased rapidly, and visitors came more and more from the islands and from the mainland Consequently, the people brought their lunches with them; a loaf of bread, a few onions and some garlic bulbs. Sometimes wine was furnished at the expense of the choregus.
Though the audience was large and composed of various classes, it was extremely critical. They applauded by shouting and by clapping;, if the performance was good: they did not hesitate to give loud expression to their feelings, or refrain from shedding tears, at the pathetic parts; but if the acting was bad, if an actor broke down, or mispronounced a word, they were quick to express their disapprobation by hissing, hooting, or even standing upon their seats. If an actor fell far below their expectation, a disturbance might arise: missiles were hurled, a fine imposed, or even corporal punishment inflicted.
Directly in front of the lowest seats, was a circular orchestra, over 60 feet in diameter, originally of beaten earth, but later paved with polygonal stones. In the centre of this was the thymele, or altar of the god, on the steps of which the flute-player took his seat. Back of die orchestra was a wall, about 10 feet high, with columns which could represent the facade of a palace or the front of a temple. At this point, in the earliest period was erected a booth, which was originally used as a dressing room. This was called skew (tent), scene. Later the term was applied to the whole congeries of buildings, and later still to the stage itself; sometimes to the wall back of the stage. The actors and the chorus performed their respective parts on the common level of the orchestra, the narrow stage back of and above the orchestra being reserved for the appearance of the gods. There was probably no curtain. Aristotle thought it a mistake to try to produce tragical effects by elaborate machinery. The scenery in the time of Aeschylus was probably as simple as that in a performance of a Shakespearian drama by the Ben Greet players.
But in the Hellenistic age Greek enginery made transformations that would beggar the most gigantic efforts of modern times. From the time of Alexander the Great every important Greek town had its theatre. There was a great appeal to the imagination. But movable scenery was abundant: altars, monuments, cliffs, household utensils. The two entrances (on the sides) were called parodoi. Through these the chorus, the retinues (and sometimes the actors) made their appearance. The word for actor is hypocrites. In the classical age the number did not exceed three for any play, with the possible exception of the 'CEdipus Coloneus' of Sophocles; and they were always men, even for the feminine roles. Hence a change of costume for the various parts was necessary.
The traditional view is that the actors wore masks in the 5th century; but this has been assailed by some scholars. Later the wearing of masks is unquestionable. There were more than 27 famous actors before the time of Alexander. Some of them became celebrated as orators, statesmen or ambassadors. No disrepute attached to the profession, as at Rome. The actor's remuneration was an affair of the state. All financial arrangements were made by the archon, who assigned each role.
The musical instrument was something like our clarionet, and was soft in tone, sustaining rather than interfering with the voice. The Athenians were exceedingly fastidious in matters of pronunciation. The voice had to be loud, but also clear and full of feeling and expression, and the articulation distinct. There were no prompters. The movements of the body were very expressive. The leader of the chorus (coryphaeus) recited the anapests of the parodos and exodus, and the anapaestic verse in general, declaimed the iambic trimeter of ordinary dialogue, and sang the kommoi (odes of wild lament). All the stasima (choral songs in the orchestra) were danced. In the strophe the chorus danced to the right, in the antistrophe to the left; but in the epodos they stood still. The groups of scenes between two stasima were called episodes. The dance consisted merely in graceful movements of the body, though each kind of drama had its peculiar style: in the satyric after-piece the dance was rapid, tumultuous, farcical.
The costumes of the actors were as characteristic of the Greek drama as the shape and arrangement of the theatre itself. In tragedy the dress was conventional, but in comedy that of ordinary life. The tunic was long, loose and full, with sleeves to the waist and richly embroidered with vertical and horizontal stripes. Around the tunic a high girdle richly ornamented was worn. The colors were usually bright, but also grey, green, blue and black. Under the tunic was some kind of padding to increase the size of the actor. The outer garment was called himation, which was of two varieties, rectangular and semicircular. They were splendidly embroidered in gold. Weapons were carried and garlands worn. The staff is frequently mentioned. Under the actor's shoes (cothurni) were high square painted soles, though this is now disputed in some quarters. The musicians wore long robes and garlands.
A Greek drama differed in many ways from a modern play. In the first place, it was oratorical, rather than conversational, statuesque rather than picturesque. Today a play presents a scene in a drawing-room; the characters talk as in ordinary life and seem to be oblivious of the presence of the audience^ and in their endeavor to become realistic they lower their voices to such an extent that they are frequently not heard by the audience. In Athens the actor spoke in a louder voice and out toward the audience. Facial expressions, which mean so much in a modern theatre, were out of the question (even if masks were not worn), for the actor was so far removed from the majority of the spectators; yet there was some compensation in the clearness with which the voice carried in an auditorium of such splendid acoustic properties, in the expressive movements of the body, arid in the ideal beauty and heroic solemnity which were impressed on the characters and on the play as a whole. The color and cut of the hair was always significant; auburn hair meant beauty; curly hair, strength; black hair, sorrow; and red hair, rascality.
The Greeks were southerners, and southerners are more highly endowed with dramatic talent than northern nations. The Greek was nearer nature than we; he did not try to suppress his emotions; his bank of imagination was almost inexhaustible; he felt the same agony, the same ecstasy that children feel, and he had the same plenitude of belief. Tears would start unbidden to his eyes, as he listened to the portrayal of the grief of Demeter separated from her daughter, or of Antigone dragged away to be entombed in a living grave. So the theatre exercised a great influence in forming the lives and characters of the people. The literary quality of the Greek dramas was so high that it has never been excelled, and so they formed in the hearers a power of acute observation and of sane literary judgment, and coming at such long intervals, in an age when the attention was not distracted by the hasty reading of newspapers, they left an extraordinarily deep and lasting impression.
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