Ancient Athenian Tragedy
Origins, Context, Practice
Tragedy: Ritualized Secularism
• Dual Focus (Barlow)
• Mythic, archetypal
• Contemporary, topical
• Ambivalent affirmation
Theater at Epidaurus
13-Sep-11
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Agenda
•
Opening discussion
•
The Fasti
•
Tragic Origins
•
Athenian Tragedy
•
Athenian Theater, Tragic Drama
• Your Comments
• Background, Evidence, Illustration
• Cult, komos, Phallic Procession
• Occasion and Context
• Where, What, How
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Opening discussion
Your Comments
Issues…
• Confused!
• Athenian drama through a
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•
•
•
modern lens
Plays as critique?
• Artistic liberties?
Citizen role?
Political/social aspects?
• Emergence of urban culture
Religious aspects?
• Why gods (esp. Dionysus)?
• Cultic elements
• Competitive aspects
• Choosing of khorēgoi
• How people heard the
•
•
•
actors
3-actor rule?
Theater
• Lighting?
• Rebuilding?
• Paucity of remains?
Festival: changes?
• (Proto)satyrs?
• Plays that illustrate?
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The Fasti
Background, Evidence, Illustration
BBC Map of Ancient Greece
Chronology: Athenian Drama
• 561-527 BCE Peisistratus’ tyranny
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City/Greater Dionysia
Tragic competition, 535/4 or 508 or 501 (?)
• 535-531? Thespis and tragedy
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•
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• Actor-“answerer” (hupokrites)
ca. 520-510 Satyr plays introduced
486 First known comic competition
508/7 Democracy
453 Athenian empire
449 actor’s prize, Greater Dionysia
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Tragic mask
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Chronology: Athenian Tragedians
• 525-455 BCE Aeschylus
• 1st victory 484
• 2nd actor added
• ca. 496-ca. 406 Sophocles
• 1st victory 468
• 3rd actor added
• 484?-406 BCE Euripides
• 1st victory 441
• Solo arias (“monodies”)
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Tragic mask
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Choregic commemorative inscription
honoring khorēgoi Auteas and Philoxenides,
313–312 BC
Fasti (inscribed drama record, Athens)
1. Name of that year’s presiding archon
2.
3.
4.
5.
(“archon eponymous”).
Name of victorious tribe, boys’ dithyramb.
Name of victorious tribe, men’s dithyramb.
Name of victorious khoregos and didaskalos
(“director”) in comedy.
Victorious khoregos and didaskalos, tragedy.
•
449/447 (?) BCE, victorious actor in tragedy.
komos (plural komoi)
Tragic Origins
Cult, komos, Phallic Procession
Dionysus with Satyrs,
Athenian cup (“Brygos painter”)
circa 510 BCE
Proto-Dramatic Performance
Kōmos, Satyrs
Phallic procession
Komasts: archaic Corinthian vase
Satyrs, Maenads, Dionysus. Athenian, early 500s BCE
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Procession of the Phallus Pole
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Return of Hephaistos
Dionysus
Hephaestus
padded, phallic
costume
Proto-Drama (?): komos-like Performance of the Return of Hephaestus
Protocorinthian vase painting , 600-575 BCE
Dionysian Masks
Red-Figure Athenian Vase,
500s BCE
Red-Figure Athenian Vase,
500s BCE
Tragic chorus: masked, dancing, singing (ancient vase)
Athenian Tragedy
Occasion and Context
Athenian Dramatic Festivals
• Rural Dionysia (Dec.)
• Lenaea (late Jan/Feb, from
440/430-)
• citizens
• Anthisteria (Feb)
• City/Greater Dionysia (late March)
Dionysus
• anyone
• (theoric fund)
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Greater Dionysia: Program
Dramatic preliminaries
“Showtime”
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•
Prefest
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• Men’s choruses of 50
• Boys’ choruses of 50
chorus assignments
Proagōn
“Introduction”
Pompē
Ceremonies
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Dithyramb — 10
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•
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Comedies — 5
Tragedy — 3 tetralogies
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Tragic Tetralogy
Four plays, one playwright
Aeschylus’ Oresteia (458 BCE)
1.
2.
3.
4.
1.
2.
3.
4.
Tragedy
Tragedy
Tragedy
Satyr drama
Agamemnon
Libation Bearers
Eumenides
Proteus
Citizen judging
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Athenian Theater, Tragic Drama
Where, What, How
Athenian Acropolis
N
Parthenon
Odeon
Roman Theater of Herodes Atticus
Theater of Dionysus
Temple of Dionysus
Eleutherius
Theater of Dionysus ca. 420 BCE
theatron (“viewing place,”
auditorium, theater)
wooden bleachers
stone seats (dignitaries)
orkhēstra
(“dancing space” for
chorus)
kerkis (“wedge”
seating section)
altar
entry (parodos)
entry (parodos)
Low wooden stage with, steps,
skene (from ca. 420 BCE)
skene (stage building)
Theater of Dionysus, Athens (from East)
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Production: Personnel & Gear
Personnel
• poet
• poiētēs, “maker”
• producer
• khorēgos
• director
• didaskalos, “teacher”
• actors
• hupokritai
• chorus, “chorus leader”
• khoros, koruphaios
• piper
• aulētēs
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Gear, etc.
• Masks
• Costumes
• Music
• Props
• Scenery
• Special effects
• mekhanē
• ekkuklēma
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