THE INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CONDITIONS[308]
Whether the use of masks in Greek drama originated in the mere desire
for a disguise or in some ritualistic observance has not been definitely
established. At any rate their employment was peculiarly well adapted
to the genius of the ancient theater. First of all they enabled a small
number of actors to carry a much larger number of parts (see p. 173,
above). Secondly, the mouthpiece is claimed by some to have magnified the
sound of the actor’s voice, and thus helped to counteract the outstanding
fact in the physical arrangement of ancient theaters, viz., their huge
size (see p. 121, above). But in particular I wish to stress their
bearing upon another feature of the classic drama—the hugeness of ancient
theaters, together with the lack of opera glasses, made impossible an
effect which modern audiences highly appreciate. I refer to the delicate
play of expression on the mobile faces of the performers. In antiquity
such refinements could scarcely have been seen outside of the orchestra.
A partial substitute was occasionally found in a change of mask during
the performance. This became possible if a character was off-stage at
the time when his physical or mental state was supposed to be modified
by some misfortune or accident. Thus when some one’s eyes are dashed
out behind the scenes, as in Sophocles’ _Oedipus the King_, Euripides’
_Hecabe_ and _Cyclops_, etc., the mask with which he appears after this
event would naturally be different from that previously worn. Similarly
in Euripides’ _Hippolytus_ that hero, young and handsome, proudly leaves
the stage at vs. 1102. At vs. 1342 he is borne back in a dying condition,
battered and torn by his runaway team. It is plausible to suppose that
this change is reflected by a modification of his mask and costume.
Still another type is seen in Euripides’ _Phoenician Maids_. A seer has
demanded that Creon’s son be slain to redeem the fatherland, but at vs.
990 Creon departs with the assurance that Menoeceus will seek safety in
flight. When he reappears at vs. 1308 his brow is said to be clouded by
the news that his son had changed his mind and immolated himself for his
country’s good.
At best such a change of masks was but a clumsy and inadequate evasion
of the difficulty; yet even this was out of the question whenever the
catastrophe befell the character while on the scene. In these cases the
dramatists sometimes try to explain the immobility of the actor’s mask.
An unusually successful instance occurs in Sophocles’ _Electra_. Electra
had believed her brother dead, and now she unexpectedly holds him in
her arms, alive and well. But not a spark of joy can scintillate across
her wooden features either then or later. Her subsequent passivity is
motivated by Orestes’ request that she continue her lamentations and not
allow their mother to read her secret in her radiant face (vss. 1296
ff.). Electra replies that ‘old hatred of her mother is too ingrained
to allow her countenance to be seen wreathed in smiles, but that her
tears will be tears of joy,’ which has the merit of explaining also the
present unresponsiveness of her features. Sometimes the actor’s face is
hidden at times when strong emotions might be expected to play thereon.
For example, in Euripides’ _Orestes_, Electra and the chorus stand in the
orchestra and look toward the palace within which Helen is being slain
and from which her dying cries issue. Inasmuch as their backs are turned
to the audience, the spectators are free to suppose that their faces are
working with excitement and horror. This fiction will be destroyed as
soon as the performers wheel around toward the front again. Accordingly
Electra is made to say:
Belovèd dames, into the jaws of death
Hermione cometh! Let our outcry cease:
For into the net’s meshes, lo, she falls.
Fair quarry this shall be, so she be trapped.
Back to your stations step with quiet look,
With hue that gives no token of deeds done:
And I will wear a trouble-clouded eye,
As who of deeds accomplished knoweth nought.
[Vss. 1313 ff.; Way’s translation]
Electra’s “trouble-clouded eye” does not refer to sorrow at Helen’s death
but at her brother’s evil plight, and has characterized her mask from the
beginning of the play.
Being largely balked in this matter, the Greeks characteristically
turned the limitation to good account. The mask-makers did not attempt
to fashion a detailed portrait—that would have suffered from the
same difficulty as the naked human physiognomy; like our newspaper
cartoonists, they reduced each character to the fewest possible traits,
which were suggested in bold strokes and were easily recognizable by even
the most remote spectator. Under close inspection representations of
ancient masks seem grotesque and even absurd (Figs. 4, 8, 17-21, 66, and
68 f.), but it must be remembered that distance would to a great extent
obliterate this impression. Moreover, such masks were admirably adapted
to, and at the same time reinforced, the Greek tendency to depict types
rather than individuals (see pp. 213 and 266 f.). On the modern stage
masks are practically unknown. We must not allow that fact to prejudice
us against their possible effectiveness. So respectable an authority as
Mr. Gordon Craig declares “the expression of the human face as used by
the theaters of the last few centuries” to be “spasmodic and ridiculous,”
that “the mask is the only right medium of portraying the expressions
of the soul as shown through the expressions of the face,” and that
they “will be used in place of the human face in the near future”; and
Mr. Cornford testifies to the baffling, tantalizing effect of a similar
device at the Elizabethan Stage Society’s representation of Marlowe’s
_Doctor Faustus_.[309]
The size of ancient theaters exercised an influence also in another
direction. In the absence of arches and domes or modern steel girders
it was impossible to roof over such a structure without a multitude of
supports to obstruct the view and hearing. Accordingly, the proceedings
were exposed to every caprice of the weather. For example, in the time
of Demetrius Poliorcetes an unseasonable cold spell and frost broke up
the procession. On the other hand the lack of an adequate and easily
controlled artificial illuminant such as gas or electricity would have
prevented the satisfactory lighting of a roofed theater, could they have
built one. Therefore, like the Elizabethans, their dramas were presented
in the daytime, and the constant harmony between lighting effects and
dramatic situation, which to us is a commonplace, was entirely beyond
their powers. But since it was also beyond their ken, it doubtless did
not bother them especially, and like much else was safely left to the
well-trained imaginations of the spectators. Thus dramatic characters
frequently address the heavenly constellations in broad daylight,
and ostensibly the entire action of the _Rhesus_ and much of that in
Euripides’ _Cyclops_ fall within the hours of night. Nevertheless, we
know that the playwrights were sometimes self-conscious concerning this
discrepancy. In Aristophanes’ _Frogs_ most of the action is supposed to
be laid in Hades, and ancient opinion was unanimous in considering that a
place of gloom. Since the poet could not count upon the sun going behind
a cloud to suit his convenience, he undertook to put the audience on
their guard against the incongruity. Toward the beginning of the play,
when Dionysus is seeking directions for his journey to the lower world
and the scene is still upon earth, Heracles tells him: “Next a breathing
sound of flutes will compass you about and you will see a light most
fair, _even as here_” (vss. 154 f.). Furthermore, shortly after the
action is transferred to the realm of Pluto, the matter is once more
called to the spectators’ attention by the chorus of initiates singing
(vss. 454 f.): “We alone have a sun and gracious light.”
So far as I have observed, the tragedians never stooped to apologize for
this absurdity, but they were willing, whenever possible, to accommodate
themselves to actual conditions. The dramatic exercises are said to have
begun at sunrise. Consequently, it is not surprising that the action
of tragedies like Aeschylus’ _Agamemnon_ and Euripides’ _Iphigenia at
Aulis_, which stood first in the series presented on the same day,
should open before daybreak. I must add, however, that such scenes
occur also in comedies and in tragedies which did not stand first in
their series, both of which must have been presented in the full light
of day. These instances of incongruity are to be explained by stating
that the arrangements and physical conditions which caused the Greek
playwrights usually to crowd the action of their dramas within a period
of twenty-four hours (see p. 250, below) would also lead them to make the
dramatic day as long as possible by beginning the action of their plays
at early morning.
Lessing and others have unfavorably contrasted Voltaire’s employment of
ghosts with Shakespeare’s practice. The comparison rests principally upon
two points: that the ghost of Hamlet’s father complied with “recognized
ghostly conditions” by appearing in the stillness of night and speaking
to but one, unaccompanied person, while the ghost of Ninus in _Sémiramis_
outraged accepted beliefs by stalking out of his tomb in broad daylight
and making his appearance before a large assembly. Now it is interesting
to observe that Greek practice is liable to these same criticisms. Thus
in Aeschylus’ _Persians_ (vss. 681 ff.) the ghost of Darius appears
in the full light of day and before his queen and no less than twelve
councilors. In Euripides’ _Hecabe_ (vss. 1 ff.) the difficulties are
somewhat obviated by placing the appearance of Polydorus’ ghost in the
prologue, before any other actor or the chorus has come in; and perhaps
Hecabe’s words in vss. 68 f., “O mirk of the night,” etc., are intended
to suggest that the preceding scene took place in darkness. In any case,
whatever make-believe the dramatists might choose to practice, the
considerations just mentioned, together with the almost constant presence
of the chorus, normally compelled apparitions appearing in Greek drama to
violate two provisions in the standard code of ghostly etiquette.
[Illustration: FIG. 70.—Ground Plan of the Theater at Thoricus in Attica
See p. 227, n. 1]
It is well known that in the earliest extant Greek plays, viz., the
_Suppliants_, _Persians_, and _Prometheus Bound_ of Aeschylus, the scene
is laid in the open countryside with not a house in sight and with no
scenic accessories except an altar, tomb, or rock, respectively. But that
this circumstance was explicable by the character of the Athenian theater
did not become evident until Dr. Dörpfeld’s excavations on that site in
1886, 1889, and 1895 (see pp. 65 ff., above, and Figs. 32 and 32_a_).
From 499 B.C. until about 465 B.C. the theater at Athens consisted of
an orchestral circle nearly eighty feet in diameter and somewhat south
of the present orchestra, and an auditorium arranged partly about it
on the Acropolis slope. Immediately behind the orchestra there was no
scene-building or back scene, but a six-foot declivity. Only within the
orchestra itself, at the center or to one side, might there be erected
for temporary use some such theatrical “property” as an altar or tomb.
Consequently it was inevitable that playwrights of the early fifth
century in choosing an imaginary scene for their plays should react to
these physical conditions and localize the dramatic action in more or
less deserted spots. Even as late as Aeschylus’ _Seven against Thebes_
(467 B.C.), although the scene no longer is laid in the countryside but
on the Theban Acropolis, yet this is still a place without inhabitants
or houses. It should be noted that at this period the exclusive mode of
ingress and egress was by the side entrances, the parodi; under normal
conditions, any movement into the orchestra or out of it, at the rear,
was entirely precluded by the declivity. That such a primitive theater
would suffice for the needs of that or even a later period is proved by
the remains of the structure at Thoricus (Figs. 70 f.),[310] which was
never brought to a higher state of development (see p. 103, above), and
by the fact that even at a later period dramatists sometimes voluntarily
reverted to this unpretentious stage setting. For example, in Sophocles’
_Oedipus at Colonus_ the background represented the untrodden grove of
the Eumenides, so that practically all the entrances and exits were
restricted to the parodi. An exceptional rear exit is afforded by
Aeschylus’ _Prometheus Bound_, and an exceptional rear entrance by the
next play in the trilogy, the _Prometheus Unbound_. We have already seen
(see pp. 166 f. and 174, above) how in the former play the hero, being
represented by a dummy, cannot speak until Hephaestus leaves the scene by
a side entrance and makes his way behind the rock upon which Prometheus
is bound. In the absence of a scene-building, the six-foot declivity
must have been utilized to conceal the second half of this movement.
Now the _Prometheus Bound_ ends as the Titan and his crag sink into
the depths; at the beginning of the _Prometheus Unbound_ this crag has
emerged from the abyss. What was the reason for this maneuver? Obviously
to enable an actor to be substituted for the lay figure of Prometheus.
So long as the hero was fixed in his place, an actor concealed behind
him experienced little difficulty in speaking his lines for him; but as
the time drew near for his release a living impersonator was required.
How was this substitution managed? I conceive that a wooden frame-work,
rudely suggesting a rock, was propped up at the outer extremity of the
orchestra. At the moment of the catastrophe the supports were removed and
the structure allowed to collapse into the declivity. After an interval
sufficient for the exchange had elapsed, the rocky background was once
more raised into its place and braced.
[Illustration: FIG. 71
AUDITORIUM AND ORCHESTRA OF THE THEATER AT THORICUS
See p. 227, n. 1]
About 465 B.C. an advance step in theatrical conditions was taken
when a scene-building was erected immediately behind the orchestra,
where the declivity had previously been (see p. 66, above). This first
scene-building must have been very simple, probably of only one story,
without either parascenia or proscenium (Fig. 74), and capable of being
readily rebuilt so as to be accommodated to the needs of different plays.
The extant dramas show that from the first the new background was pierced
by at least one door and that the number was soon raised to three, though
they were not all used in every production. The different doorways were
conventionally thought of as leading into as many separate houses or
buildings. Thus, whereas the actors had hitherto been able to enter and
depart only through the two parodi, from one to three additional means
of entrance were now provided. Moreover, the mere fact of having a
background was no small advantage. For example, it enabled Aeschylus to
introduce a distinct improvement in dramatic technique. Heretofore scenes
of violence must either have been boldly enacted before the spectators’
eyes or reported by a messenger. Since the sacrosanctity of the actor
while engaged in a performance and the Greeks’ aesthetic sense interfered
with the first alternative (see pp. 127-32, above), doubtless the second
had usually been resorted to. Now Aeschylus is said to have invented the
very effective device of having a character killed behind the scenes
during the play. In view of the physical conditions it will be understood
that the failure of Aeschylus’ predecessors to avail themselves of this
expedient was due to no lack of inventive genius on their part but simply
to the entire absence in their time of a back scene to use for the
purpose. It is not known just how long it took Aeschylus to discover this
possibility in the new arrangements; but it was certainly not later than
the _Agamemnon_ (458 B.C.), in which the king’s agonized death cries from
behind the scenes (vss. 1343 and 1345) still have power to affect even
modern audiences. Further modifications of this artifice have already
been mentioned on p. 128.
One of the most troublesome problems that confront a playwright is
inventing plausible motives to explain the entrances and exits of his
characters. The fundamental nature of this problem appears from the words
of a modern dramatist, Mr. Alfred Sutro: “Before I start writing the
dialogue of a play, I make sure that I shall have an absolutely free hand
over the entrances and exits: in other words, that there is ample and
legitimate reason for each character appearing in any particular scene,
and ample motive for his leaving it.” Now in the interior scene, and
especially in the box set, moderns have a marvelously flexible instrument
for shifting personages on and off the scene; yet few can avoid abusing
this resource and can repeat Mr. Bernard Shaw’s boast: “My people get on
and off the stage without requiring four doors to a room which in real
life would have only one.”[311] To the ancient writer the difficulty was
still greater. Prior to 465 B.C., when some uninhabited spot was perforce
chosen as the scene of action and the two parodi were the sole means of
ingress, it was fairly easy to motivate a person’s _first_ entrance and
withdrawal; but a reappearance proved a more difficult matter, and each
additional character complicated the problem still further. Consequently,
the ancient playwrights not infrequently frankly abandoned all search for
a solution and considered that to leave a character standing in idleness
during a whole scene or choral ode was less awkward and improbable
than any motive which they could provide for his exit and re-entrance.
Thus in Aeschylus’ _Suppliants_, Danaus enters the orchestra with the
chorus consisting of his daughters and remains at the altar, without a
single word to say, during their parodus of a hundred and seventy-five
lines. After a short scene the king of Argos appears, and then for
over two hundred lines (vss. 234-479) Danaus is again ignored (see pp.
163 f., above). In this play the town of Argos is thought of as lying
some distance away from the scene of action. Only an important errand
would take Danaus there, and evidently the poet experienced difficulty
in inventing as many errands as dramatic propriety required. Similarly
at vss. 181 ff. of Aeschylus’ _Seven against Thebes_, Eteocles rebukes
the chorus for their fears and lamentations; yet apparently he has been
standing there during their whole parodus (vss. 78-180) without a single
word of protest! But it was not characteristic of the Greek genius
tamely to submit to hindrances, and accordingly we are not surprised
that Aeschylus actually secured a striking dramatic effect by leaving
characters like Niobe and Achilles for considerable intervals speechless
and immovable on the scene. When finally uttered, their startling cries
of anguish were greatly enhanced by their previous long-continued
silence. It may not be amiss to note that Molière obtained similar
suspense by means quite opposite. In _Tartuffe_, contrary to all the
accepted rules, the principal character does not appear upon the scene
until after the beginning of the third act. But the conversation and
disputes of the other dramatic personages have so inflamed our curiosity
concerning him that we can scarcely wait to catch a glimpse of him, and
his entrance finally is thrice as effective as if it had come earlier in
the play.
The erection of a scene-building about 465 B.C. somewhat relieved the
difficulty of the playwrights’ problem. First of all the places of
entrance were increased 50 per cent or more. Secondly, the new entrances
were nearer the orchestra than were the parodi and enabled an actor to
come in or depart more quickly. Thirdly, the presence of buildings almost
required the scene to be laid in a town or city and correspondingly
multiplied the possible motives for visiting it. And finally, since
the doorways often represented the homes of certain of the dramatic
characters, no elaborate motivation was needed to explain their passing
in and out at frequent intervals. When his work was done, the useless
actor could be temporarily eliminated with neatness and dispatch. These
considerations and the introduction of the third actor at about the same
time (see p. 167, above) soon doubled the amount of coming and going in
the plays (cf. Mooney, _op. cit._, p. 54). The influence of the former
factor appears in Euripides’ _Suppliants_, the action of which takes
place before a temple. It so happens, however, that the temple doors
in this case are not used for entrances and exits. Consequently of all
Euripides’ tragedies this one has the least passing to and fro. On the
other hand the influence of the second factor is seen in the fact that
this piece and Sophocles’ _Oedipus at Colonus_ (see p. 227, above), both
making practically no use of their back scene but both employing three
actors, are higher in “action” than the corresponding plays of Aeschylus,
which belong to the two-actor period.
Nevertheless, when all is said, the erection of a scene-building still
left the ancient dramatists far behind the moderns in the easy and
plausible motivation of their characters’ movements, and no further
advance (from this point of view) was subsequently made in the theatrical
arrangements. All the dramatic personages still had to come to the same
(usually a public) place; they could not dodge in at one door and out
at another at their creator’s caprice, but whether entering or leaving
had to walk a considerable distance in plain view of the spectators.
Consequently the silent actor is found after 465 B.C. as well as before.
Thus in Euripides’ _Suppliants_ one or more characters are being
neglected at almost every point. But in my opinion this phenomenon is no
longer due primarily to the inadequacy of the theatrical arrangements but
to other considerations. For example, the limited number of actors often
resulted in prolonged or awkward silence on the part of a character who
was being impersonated by a mute (see pp. 174-82, above). Again, in the
_Alcestis_, after Heracles has brought the queen back from her grave,
she utters never a word. Euripides himself explains this on the ground
that she may not speak until her consecration to the gods of the lower
world be undone and the third day come (vss. 1144 ff.). This is a clever
pretext but not the real reason. Nor do I think, as some do, that in this
instance the limitation of actors is responsible, since only two actors
speak in this scene and the play belongs to the three-actor period.
Alcestis’ silence springs rather from the impossibility of placing in
her mouth a message worthy of her experiences, one which “telling what
it is to die had surely added praise to praise.” Still again the silence
frequently arises from inability to master the technique of the trialogue
(see pp. 169 f.) or from the nature of the plot. In any trial scene it
is almost inevitable that both the judge and the accused should remain
inactive for considerable intervals. Thus in Aeschylus’ _Eumenides_ the
silence of Athena (vss. 585-673 and 711-33) and of Orestes (vss. 244-63,
307-435, 490-585, and 614-743) is scarcely more noteworthy than that of
the Duke and Antonio in Act IV of _The Merchant of Venice_. When his case
was about to be decided, Orestes terminated a silence of one hundred and
thirty lines by the thrilling ejaculation, “O Phoebus Apollo, what shall
the judgment be!” (vs. 744)—another example of the dexterity with which
the Greek poets could transmute base metal into pure gold.
It need not be said that the same difficulty of plausible motivation
puzzled the comic as well as the tragic writers of antiquity, and they
extricated themselves with no less ingenuity in their own way. For the
further unfolding of the plot in Plautus’ _Pseudolus_ it became necessary
that that crafty slave should explain to his accomplices certain
developments which had already been represented on the scene. Actually
to repeat the facts would have been tedious to the spectators, while
to motive an exit for all the parties concerned until the information
could be imparted and then to motive their re-entrance might have proved
difficult and certainly would have caused an awkward pause in the action.
The poet therefore chose the bolder course of dropping for the moment
all dramatic illusion and at the same time of slyly poking fun at the
conventions of his art: “This play is being performed for the sake of
these spectators. They have been here, and are aware of developments.
I’ll tell _you_ about them afterwards”(!) (vss. 720 f.).
We have already referred to the fact that topographical conditions
in Athens gave rise to a convention regarding the significance of the
parodi (see p. 208, above). As the spectator sat on the south slope of
the Acropolis at Athens, with the orchestra and scene-buildings before
him, the harbor of the Piraeus and the market place lay toward his right
and the open country on his left (Fig. 29). And since the theater was
roofless and the performances given in daylight, these relationships were
visible and must at all times have been present to the consciousness of
the audience. The matter was, therefore, one of more consequence than in
the modern theater, where many spectators, being unable to see points
of orientation outside, would be puzzled to indicate the points of the
compass. In the Athenian theater, on the contrary, if the scene were laid
locally no poet or stage manager could have allowed a character from the
Piraeus to enter by the left (east) parodus without committing a patent
absurdity. In such a case there was, at the beginning, no convention; the
plays simply reacted to actual local conditions. But the fifth-century
plays were rarely laid in Athens, and in them comparatively little is
said of harbor, market place, or countryside, whether at Athens or
elsewhere. Apart from a rigid convention, there would be no point in
staging Aeschylus’ _Suppliants_, the scene of which is laid just outside
the city of Argos, or Aristophanes’ _Birds_, whose scene is supposed to
be in the clouds, in such a way as to conform to Athenian topography. In
fact, incidental allusions in the fifth-century plays, the comparative
infrequency in them of references to harbor, country, and market place,
and minor infelicities arising from any attempt to foist this convention
upon them, would all seem to indicate that these plays had been written
without much regard for local geography. But with increasing frequency
Athens became the imaginary scene of comedies, and the relationships
which had become a fixed rule for them were transferred to tragedy also,
and soon to other theaters whose setting bore little or no resemblance to
that of the theater of Dionysus Eleuthereus. Certainly by the time of New
Comedy the convention was firmly established, and except for characters
leaving or entering the houses in the background almost every exit or
entrance was oriented for the audience with reference to country, harbor,
or market place. When Greek comedy was transplanted to Italian soil
the convention was taken over, too, and reappears, possibly with some
modification, in the plays of Plautus and Terence.
Regardless of the convention, however, and the period of its origin
there is one blemish which careful stage managers nowadays seek to
avoid. When a door closes upon a departing character, it should not be
immediately opened again to admit another character, whom the first
character must have brushed against in the hall. A slight pause is
somehow provided to enable the two characters to avoid meeting and to
give the sense of space beyond the room on the stage. Now in Euripides’
_Alcestis_ a violation of this common-sense principle of stage craft
seems to occur. At vs. 747 Admetus and the chorus have departed bearing
the body of Alcestis to its last resting place. In the ensuing scene
Heracles at last learns the identity of the deceased and at vs. 860
rushes out to wrestle with the king of the dead beside the grave. _In the
very next verse_ Admetus returns. According to the Hellenistic convention
Heracles must have departed and Admetus have re-entered through the
parodus at the audience’s left. But which parodus was employed does
not in this case greatly matter. The point is that since Heracles was
bound for the spot from which Admetus was returning, they must have used
_the same parodus_. Nevertheless, later developments show that they
did not meet; indeed, certain telling features of the dénouement would
have been spoiled if they had. Yet how could they avoid doing so? The
play furnishes no reply. So far as I can see the only way in which the
difficulty can be obviated is by supposing that vss. 747-860 take place
before a slightly different part of the palace from the rest of the play.
Scholars, however, do not commonly accept a change of scene in this piece
(see pp. 250 f., below).
The space between the two parodi and leading past the scene-building
was usually thought of as representing a street or roadway (see p. 86,
above). In the Hellenistic theater at Athens a stone proscenium ran
across the front of the scene-building from one parascenium to the
other (see p. 70, above) (Fig. 38), and it is likely that a wooden
proscenium occupied the same space from about 430 B.C. It is true that
the stone foundation of the parascenia, which were probably erected
to serve as a framework for the proscenium, cannot go back of 415-421
B.C. at the earliest (see p. 67 and n. 1, above). But it is fair to
assume that parascenia entirely of wood were erected as an experiment
a few years before permanent foundations were provided for them, and
the proscenium colonnade seems to have been employed at least as early
as Euripides’ _Hippolytus_ (428 B.C.) and Aristophanes’ _Clouds_ (423
B.C.). Confirmation for this conclusion may be found in the fact that
the crane (μηχανή) was introduced at about this same time (see p. 289,
below). When the scene was laid before a private house or a palace, the
colonnade was in place as signifying its prothyron (πρόθυρον) or “porch.”
When the background was thought of as a temple the proscenium was its
_pronaos_ (πρόναος) or “portico.” Moreover, when a less conventional
setting was required, painted panels (πίνακες) could be inserted in the
intercolumniations in order to suggest the desired locality, and in some
theaters the proscenium columns were shaped so as to hold such panels
more firmly in place (Fig. 72).[312] Thus the action in Sophocles’
_Oedipus at Colonus_ takes place before a grove, and that in Plautus’
_The Fisherman’s Rope_, along a beach. The interruption of natural
scenery by columns at regular intervals would be disturbing to us; that
it did not seem so to the Greeks was due not only to their ignorance of
modern scenery but also to the sketchy shorthand which they practiced in
other fields of art. On ancient vases, for example, a whole forest is
frequently represented by a single tree. A similar convention obtains in
the drama of modern Persia, where “the desert is represented by a handful
of sand on the platform, the river Tigris by a leather basin full of
water.”[313] Sophocles is said to have invented scene painting during the
lifetime of Aeschylus (see p. 66, above), but this must be interpreted
as meaning that he had the panels applied directly to the front of the
scene-building, the proscenium being not yet introduced. It has also been
suggested, on the basis of certain vase paintings (Fig. 73),[314] that an
actual porch (prothyron) was sometimes built extending from the center of
the proscenium or taking the place of a proscenium and extending from the
center of the scene-building’s front wall. But perhaps these paintings
are only conventionalized representations of the proscenium colonnade
itself. In any case it is important to observe that no background
corresponding to the scene-building is indicated on the vases.
[Illustration: FIG. 72.—Horizontal Sections of Proscenium Columns at
Megalopolis and Eretria (1), Epidaurus (2), Delos (3), and Oropus (4).
See p. 236, n. 1]
[Illustration: FIG. 73.—A Fourth-Century Vase in Munich Representing the
Vengeance of Medea.
See p. 236, n. 3]
Now it will be noted that these theatrical arrangements made no
provision for an interior scene. The dramatic action was necessarily
laid in the open air, usually before a palace, private house, or temple.
Though occasional plays, like Mr. Louis Parker’s _Pomander Walk_, show
that the thing can still be managed, in general modern dramatists would
be paralyzed by such a requirement. Nor is it correct to state that
the classical poets “seldom had occasion to show an interior scene.”
The truth is precisely the opposite: having no way in which to show an
interior they were constrained to rest content with alfresco scenes. Yet
the situation was not so desperate as it would seem. Corneille pointed
out that Greek kings could meet and speak in public without a breach
of etiquette.[315] At the French court, and consequently on the French
stage, such conduct would have been intolerable. In the second place
the mildness of a southern climate justified some practices which might
appear strange to more northern peoples. Many things which we would
consider must be kept strictly within doors would sometimes take place in
the street. Semi-privacy was afforded by porches and porticoes, that is,
theatrically speaking, by the colonnade of the proscenium. Our nearest
parallel would be sun parlors or screened porches and even these fall
short. Doubtless this difference in weather conditions has something to
do with the fact that modern playwrights of the classic school, who,
though freed from the material restrictions of the ancients, have yet
slavishly imitated them in so much else, have not followed them in this
partiality for outdoor scenes. Allowance must also be made for the fact
that in comedy the characters uniformly belonged to the lower strata of
society. Accordingly we need feel little surprise that in Aristophanes’
_Clouds_ (vss. 1 ff.) Strepsiades and his son are disclosed sleeping
before their home in the open air, though we have no reason to believe
that they are either actual or prospective victims of tuberculosis. In
Euripides’ _Orestes_ (vss. 1 ff.) the matricide, wasted by illness, lies
on his couch before the palace in Argos under his sister’s care. In
Plautus’ _The Churl_ (vss. 448 ff.), Phronesium reclines on a bed before
the house, pretending that she has given birth to a child. In Plautus’
_The Haunted House_ (vss. 248 ff.), Philematium asks her maid for a
mirror, jewel box, etc., and a scene of prinking ensues in the open air.
Scenes of outdoor feasting and carousing are too numerous to deserve
individual mention. I cannot accept the contention that the action of
such scenes takes place in an “imaginary interior.” They are frankly out
of doors; in this connection such expressions as “outside the house,”
“before the doors,” etc., are frequent. These scenes were enacted in the
colonnade of the proscenium and are correctly copied from ancient life.
Of course I concede that in real life they would take place indoors as
often as out, or even more often; but they were common enough as open-air
scenes to justify the playwrights in constantly transcribing them in this
fashion.
But the significance of the considerations mentioned in the last
paragraph must not be overestimated. The difficulty arising from physical
conditions in the theater was cumulative. In other words the placing
of any particular scene in the open air was generally justifiable by
ancient habits of living and not difficult to motivate; but to place
_every_ scene in _every_ play out of doors and under these conditions to
invent a plausible motive for every entrance taxed the dramatists’ powers
to the utmost and sometimes exceeded them.[316] No wonder, then, that
occasionally they abandoned all attempts to explain their characters’
movements and coolly allowed them to leave their dwellings and to speak,
without apology or excuse, of the most confidential matters in a public
place. Many instances of this license, however, seem to have been
conditioned by definite rules. For example, if a character leaves his
house while engaged in conversation with another, no reason is given for
their entrance, i.e., for their not having concluded the conversation
where it was begun. Examples of this technique do not occur until about
400 B.C. (see p. 310, below, and the instances there cited). Secondly,
no entrance motive is provided when a character is to take part in a
dialogue with another who is already on the scene and whose own entrance
has been motived. Thus in Euripides’ _Alcestis_, Heracles enters at vs.
476 in order to seek hospitality at Admetus’ palace; at vs. 506 the
chorus announces the king’s emergence, which is entirely unmotived. Six
other examples of this technique occur in Greek tragedy.
Nevertheless, in general the ancient playwrights displayed an amazing
fertility of invention in explaining why their characters came out
of doors and spoke in so public a place of matters which might more
naturally have been reserved for greater privacy. Thus in Euripides’
_Alcestis_, Apollo explains his leaving Admetus’ palace on the ground of
the pollution which a corpse would bring upon all within the house (vss.
22 f.) and Alcestis herself, though in a dying condition, fares forth to
look for the last time upon the sun in heaven (vs. 206). Oedipus is so
concerned in the afflictions of his subjects that he cannot endure the
thought of making inquiries through a servant but comes forth to learn
the situation in person (Sophocles’ _Oedipus the King_, vss. 6 f.);
Carion is driven out of doors by the smoke of sacrifice upon the domestic
altar (Aristophanes’ _Plutus_, vss. 821 f.); Polyphemus leaves his cave
intending to visit his brothers for a carousal (cf. Euripides’ _Cyclops_,
vss. 445 f. and 507 ff.). In Euripides’ _Andromache_, Hermione’s nurse,
worn out in the attempt to save her mistress from self-destruction,
hurries out and appeals to the chorus for assistance; a moment later
Hermione herself escapes from the restraining clutches of her attendants
and rushes upon the stage (vss. 816 ff.). Agathon cannot compose his
odes in the winter time unless he bask in the sunlight (Aristophanes’
_Women at the Thesmophoria_, vss. 67 f.). In Plautus’ _The Haunted House_
(vss. 1 ff.) one slave is driven out of doors by another as the result
of a quarrel. The lovelorn Phaedra teases for light and air (Euripides’
_Hippolytus_, vss. 178 ff.). Medea’s nurse apologizes for soliloquizing
before the house with the excuse that the sorrows within have stifled
her and caused her to seek relief by proclaiming them to earth and sky
(cf. Euripides’ _Medea_, vss. 56 ff. and pp. 307 f., below). And Antigone
informs her sister that she has summoned her out of doors in order to
speak with her alone (Sophocles’ _Antigone_, vss. 18 f.), as if that were
the most natural place in the world for a tête-à-tête. In connection with
this last instance it must be remembered that the interior of ancient
houses was arranged differently than ours and was more favorable for
eavesdropping (cf. Terence’s _Phormio_, vss. 862-69).
The difficulty inherent in the exclusive use of exterior scenes appears
very strikingly in Euripides’ _Cyclops_. Here the action would naturally
take place in Polyphemus’ cave, as it does in Homer’s _Odyssey_; but,
theatrical conditions making that impossible, the scene is laid before
the cave’s mouth. Contrary to verisimilitude, therefore, the poet is
obliged to allow Odysseus to pass in and out without let or hindrance.
Why, then, does he make no attempt to escape? Euripides anticipated this
query and explained Odysseus’ remaining by regard for his companions’
safety (vss. 479 ff.). But why was it not equally feasible for his
comrades to leave the cave and for all to be saved together? The poet can
think of no better motive than that Odysseus’ pride and sense of honor
caused him to desire to take vengeance on Polyphemus for having murdered
some of his followers (vss. 694 f.).
Being unable actually to represent an interior scene the Greek
playwrights gladly availed themselves of several substitutes. The most
common of these was the messenger’s speech (see p. 164, above), by which
occurrences that had taken place indoors were related to the chorus or
to actors before the house. Another substitute was found in the cries
of characters murdered behind the scenes (see pp. 128 and 229, above).
A third method consisted in throwing open the doors in the background
and revealing a scene of murder done within (see p. 128, above). We are
told further that sometimes, when the doors were flung open, a platform,
with a tableau mounted upon it, was pushed forward for a few moments
(see the discussion of the _eccylema_ on pp. 284-89, below). A fourth
evasion of the restriction occurs in Euripides’ _Hippolytus_, vss. 565
ff. Phaedra from her couch in the proscenium colonnade hears the voices
of her confidential slave and Hippolytus engaged in conversation within
doors. She invites the chorus in the orchestra near by to join her in
listening at the door—a proposal which for obvious dramatic reasons the
choreutae cannot accept; but her own cries and exclamations of despair as
she listens stir the audience much more profoundly than the conversation
itself could have done. Thus the main portion of the dialogue between
Hippolytus and the slave is supposed to take place indoors. It is
concluded before the house, the two interlocutors entering the stage at
vs. 600.
Still again, the dramatists of New Comedy were fond of representing a
character in the act of passing through a doorway and shouting back
parting injunctions to those within—an artifice which is sufficiently
transparent and is justly ridiculed in Terence’s _Andrian Girl_. A nurse
has been summoned in a confinement case and issues her final instructions
while leaving the house. Simo, who thinks no child has been born and that
it is all a trick to deceive him, turns fiercely upon the scheming slave
at his side: “Who that knows you would not believe this to be the product
of your brain? She did not tell what must be done for the mother in her
presence; but after taking her departure she screams from the street to
the attendants within. O Davus, do you scorn me so? Pray do I seem so
suitable a victim for you to beguile with such transparent stratagems?
You ought to work out the details of your plots more exactly, so that I
might at least _seem_ to be feared in case I learned the truth” (vss. 489
ff.). Be it noted, however, that such a stickler for realism as Ibsen
occasionally made use of this same device (cf. _Pillars of Society_, Acts
II and III). A close parallel occurs in Aristophanes’ _Acharnians_, vss.
1003 ff.
As a final illustration of the artificiality of the exterior scene I may
refer to the manner in which characters are brusquely called out of their
homes to meet the demands of the dramatic situation. Thus in Euripides’
_Iphigenia at Aulis_ a messenger enters and unceremoniously shouts to his
queen within doors:
Daughter of Tyndareus, Clytemnestra, come
Forth from the tent, that thou mayst hear my tale.
[Vss. 1532 f.; Way’s translation],
and in Euripides’ _Children of Heracles_, Iolaus calls:
Alcmene, mother of a hero-son,
Come forth, give ear to these most welcome words.
[Vss. 642 f.; Way’s translation]
To judge by such a dramatic expedient, the front walls of ancient houses
must have been pretty thin![317] It is interesting to contrast the uproar
which is required in Shakespeare’s _Othello_ (Act I, scene 1) before
Brabantio can be brought to his window. Perhaps the most amusing instance
of this convention occurs in Plautus’ _Braggart Captain_. In that play
a slave had to be deluded into believing that two women of identical
appearance lived in adjoining houses. Accordingly he is first sent into
one house and then into the other, while directions are shouted to the
one woman in question to move back and forth by means of a secret passage
so as always to meet him (vss. 523 ff.). This of course presupposes that
the walls will be thin enough for the woman to hear through but too thick
for the slave to do so!
The publicity thus inevitably attending conversations of the most private
nature was rendered still more incongruous by the constant presence of
the chorus; but this topic has already been treated on pages 154-57,
above.
Whether the fifth-century theater was provided with a drop curtain has
often been discussed. I am inclined to think there is no conclusive
evidence for the constant and regular use of one. The considerations
upon which the argument mainly rests are a priori. That is to say, in
several Greek plays the actors must arrange themselves and be in position
before the action begins. This is the situation in Euripides’ _Orestes_
and Aristophanes’ _Clouds_ (see p. 238, above). Did Orestes take to
his sick bed in full view of the assembled audience? But he is said
(cf. vs. 39) already to have been there for five days! And though the
action of the _Clouds_ begins just before dawn, Strepsiades and his son
are supposed to have lain before the house all night. In such matters
we must not permit our own prepossessions to mislead us. In mediaeval
drama though a character was in view of the audience he could be thought
of as, in effect, behind the scenes until his part began. Similarly in
oriental theaters today performers are treated as if they could put
on the mask of invisibility. The only standing concession which I can
make to modern feeling consists in granting that the proscenium columns
partially screened the actors from the audience while they were taking
their places. In my opinion the nearest approach to the use of a curtain
occurs in Sophocles’ _Ajax_ and is quite exceptional. That hero committed
suicide on the stage, and his body was found in a woodland glen (νάπος,
vs. 892) near the seashore. I suppose that one of the side doors in the
front of the scene-building[318] was left open to represent the entrance
to the glen, and that around and behind it were set panels painted
to suggest the woodland coast and the glen (see pp. 235 f., above).
Into this opening Ajax collapsed as he fell upon his sword. At vs.
915, Tecmessa “conceals him wholly with this enfolding robe.” Possibly
this means that the cloth was fastened about the corpse and across the
doorway, thus enabling a mute or a lay figure to be substituted for the
corpse and releasing this actor to appear as Teucer in the remainder of
the play (see p. 174, above). Whatever the means employed, it is certain
that a substitution was effected.
It has often been maintained that the abrupt endings of so many modern
plays is due to the fact that we possess a drop curtain which can be
brought down upon the action with a bang, and that the quieter endings
of, for example, Elizabethan plays arise from their being written for
curtainless theaters. I do not entirely disapprove of this suggestion,
but wish to point out that the difference originates, at least in part,
also in a difference in taste at different times and among different
peoples. It is true that the Greeks probably had no drop curtain and
that their dramas usually end upon a note of calm. But the same kind of
close is normal in other fields of their literature, where the presence
or absence of a curtain did not enter into consideration. For example,
there is a distinct tendency for modern orators to close speeches with a
peroration which is intended to sweep auditors off their feet. Not so in
Greek oratory. “Wherever pity, terror, anger, or any passionate feeling
is uttered or invited, this tumult is resolved in a final calm; and where
such tumult has place in the peroration, it subsides before the last
sentences of all.”[319] The same situation obtains likewise in the case
of the Greek epic as in Homer’s _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_.
The unities, sir, are a completeness—a kind of a universal
dovetailedness with regard to place and time—a sort of a
general oneness, if I may be allowed to use so strong an
expression. I take those to be the dramatic unities, so far as
I have been enabled to bestow attention upon them, and I have
read much upon the subject, and thought much.—CHARLES DICKENS.