V. The Performers and Their Work
A tragic performance was carried out by actors, extra performers, flute-player, and chorus. All these were men.
Extra performers, though they take up very little space in our text, were important to the spectacle. Mutes were often needed. Not only did these figure as attendants, crowds, and the like; they are sometimes important to the plot though they do not happen to speak. The jury of Areopagites in Eumenides is vital; children such as Eurysaces in Ajax, and the sons[184] of Medea, are important. Other extra performers were those who had very small speaking or singing parts, such as Eumelus in Alcestis. This would seem to mean a fourth actor, but, so slight was the part always[185] allotted, that it is not an unreasonable statement that there were never more than three actors. Thirdly, an extra chorus was occasionally needed for a short scene, as the Propompi in Eumenides and the Huntsmen in Hippolytus. Any such extra performer was called a parachoregema (παραχορήγημα, “extra supply”) and was paid by the choregus, as the name shows. (The regular chorus was paid by the State.) At times a chorus sang behind the scenes and was then called a “parascenion”; this function would, if possible, be performed by members of the regular chorus.
Instrumental music was supplied by a single flute-player, paid by the choregus. He was stationed in the orchestra, very likely upon the step of the thymele, and accompanied all songs. At times a harpist was added to the flute-player; Sophocles had great success with that instrument in his own Thamyris. At the end of a play the flute-player led the chorus out of the orchestra. The music itself is a subject complicated and obscure. Practically none of it has survived, and the details are naturally difficult to determine; but some main facts are clear. Though there was much singing and dancing the music composed by the tragedians was vastly more simple than that of a modern opera. All choral singing was in unison, and as a rule the words dominated the music.[186] The result was that an audience followed the language of an ode with ease, nor is it likely that such lyrics as those of the Agamemnon or the Colonus-song, not to mention many others, which are masterpieces of literature, would have been written were they fated to be drowned by elaborate music. Nevertheless a distinct change took place even in the fifth century, owing chiefly to the eminent composer Timotheus, whose innovations were of course looked upon by conservative taste as corrupt; the comic playwright Pherecrates grumbles about the way in which his notes scurry hither and thither like ants in a nest,[187] a charge repeated almost in the same words by Aristophanes against Agathon. Euripides followed the new manner, and his novelties are brilliantly caricatured in the Frogs: the elaborate but thin libretto and the trills.[188] The increasing use of monodies, or solos by an actor, which we find in Euripides—the exotic but effective performance of the Phrygian slave in Orestes is a conspicuous instance—also points to the growing importance of musical virtuosity. Greek music was composed in certain modes (νόμοι), the precise difference between which is not clear, though the ethical distinctions are known. The Dorian mode was austere and majestic, the Lydian and Mixolydian plaintive, the Phrygian passionate.
We come now to the actors. These three performers were able to present more than three persons, since they could change mask and costume behind the scenes. One of them far outshone the others in importance—the “protagonist” (πρωταγωνιστής, “first competitor”). He alone was allotted to the poet by the archon; the “deuteragonist” and “tritagonist,” he selected himself; he alone could be a competitor for the acting prize. The most important rôle was of course performed by him. In many dramas this was a vast responsibility; Hamlet himself—the proverbial instance—is not more vital to his play than Prometheus, Œdipus, or Medea to theirs. The other two divided the minor parts among them; it was the custom to give a tritagonist the rôle of a king when only spectacularly important—the Doge in The Merchant of Venice would have been just the part. In earlier dramas it is plain which rôle would be given to the protagonist; there is no mistaking the pre-eminence of Clytæmnestra in Agamemnon or of Philoctetes. But in some later works it is not clear who is the outstanding character. In the Bacchæ Dionysus and Pentheus, in the Orestes Electra and her brother, have parts of fairly equal importance. In such cases the protagonist would take an important rôle and a minor rôle. Change of costume took little time, as examination of structure sometimes shows.[189]
This restriction of the “company” to three actors had important influence upon both plot and presentation. As for plot, however many persons a dramatist used, he clearly could not bring more than three of them forward together. But the power to do even this was frugally used: there are but few instances of a genuine three-cornered conversation; one of the three in turn is generally silent. In the Recognition-scene of the Tauric Iphigenia, Orestes, Pylades, and Iphigenia are all present, but though the éclaircissement fills about two hundred lines, the only part of it in which all three share is but twenty lines in length. This frugality indicates that the simplicity of Greek tragedy is a result not only of external conditions, but of the poets’ deliberate choice. As for presentation, the restriction to three actors would result in excellent playing of minor parts: a thoroughly competent performer would discharge such short but important rôles as that of the Butler in Alcestis and the Herald in Agamemnon. Anyone who has been depressed by wooden Macduffs and Bassanios will realize the value of this method.
A Greek actor combined the functions of a modern actor and of an operatic performer. Lyrics performed by actor and chorus together were called “commi” (κομμοί): the most elaborate instance is the great and lengthy invocation of Agamemnon’s shade in the Choephorœ. A solo by an actor was known as a “monody”; Euripides is particularly fond of these; Ion’s song is perhaps the most attractive. Finally, two or three actors might sing alternately to each other without the chorus; no name for this has been preserved. Certain other passages were neither sung nor spoken, but delivered in recitative: in tragedy these were the dialogue-trochaics and anapæsts. Iambics were spoken (or “declaimed”). Obviously the voice is of great importance to an actor’s proficiency, above all in a vast open-air theatre, but Greek writers lay even more stress upon it than we should have expected. Both volume and subtlety were demanded. This is illustrated by a famous story.[190] An actor named Hegelochus ruined the sick-bed scene in Orestes by a slip in pronunciation. Orestes, on recovering from delirium, says (v. 279):—
ἐκ κυμάτων γὰρ αὖθις αὖ γαλήν’ ὁρῶ
“after the billows once more I see a calm”. The unlucky player instead of saying γαλήν’ said γαλῆν, “once more do I see a weasel coming out of the waves”. The theatre burst into laughter, for correct pronunciation was far more insisted upon than in the English theatre of to-day.[191] The status of the acting profession rose steadily as time went on. At first the poet acted as protagonist, but this practice was dropped by Sophocles, owing to the weakness of his voice. From that time acting was free to develop as a separate profession. In the middle of the fifth century a prize for acting was instituted, and the actor’s name began to be added in the official records of victories. In the fourth century the importance of the player increased still more. We have seen that he was so vital to the success of a playwright that for fairness’ sake the three protagonists each acted in a single tragedy of each poet. We often hear of brilliant acting successes. In the fourth century an Actors’ Guild was formed at Athens and continued in existence for centuries. Its object was to protect the remarkable privileges held by the “artists of Dionysus”. They were looked upon as great servants of religion, and were not only in high social esteem but possessed definite privileges, especially the right of safe-conduct through hostile states and exemption from military service. About the beginning of the third century before Christ the Amphictyonic Council, at the instance of the Guild itself, renewed a decree, the terms of which have fortunately been preserved,[192] affirming the immunity of person and property granted to the Athenian actors.
The chorus, we have seen, was originally the only celebrant of the Dionysiac festival. As the importance of the actors increased it became less and less vital to the performance. Its numbers, its connexion with the plot, and the length and relevance of its songs, all steadily diminished.