The Greek theater and its drama

by Roy C. Flickinger

In contradistinction to tragic practice Aristophanes in the last quarter of the fifth century employed not merely three but occasionally even four comic actors in ensemble scenes. For example, in the Lysistrata, vss. 78-246, Calonice, Myrrhina, Lysistrata, and Lampito engage in a running fire of conversation quite in the modern manner. Again, in the Frogs, vss. 1411 ff., Dionysus, Aeschylus, Euripides, and Pluto all have speaking parts, although the last two do not address one another. In the same play (vs. 555) Dionysus utters three words while three other participants in the dialogue are present. Under similar circumstances Pseudartabus interposes two verses (100 and 104) in the Acharnians, and Triballus parts of five verses (1615, 1628 f., and 1678 f.) in the Birds. In these passages the comic coryphaei have no speaking parts. Trialogues are not so rare in Old Comedy as to justify an enumeration of the instances, and they are sometimes embellished by the participation of the coryphaei. Nevertheless, the old tandem arrangement is still the more common one when three characters are present.

We thus pass from one problem to another: Why this disparity between the technique of tragedy and comedy? Must we suppose that the comic dramatists were more clever artists than their tragic confrères? By no means. Comedy was more mobile and reacted more quickly to the actual conditions of contemporaneous life; tragedy was more conventional, never could free itself entirely from the power of tradition, and could only slowly modify that tradition. The situation is clearly revealed in the field of meter. In the iambic trimeters written by Aeschylus a trisyllabic substitution (tribrach, anapaest, or dactyl) for the pure disyllabic iambus occurs only once in about twenty-five verses. In the earliest plays of Euripides such resolutions appear once in sixteen verses but gradually increase to a maximum of one in every alternate verse.[273] On the contrary, in the comedies of Aristophanes they are found in almost every line. Now we are not to suppose that Euripides required a lifetime in order to learn how to use resolutions with freedom or that he was never able to gain the facility of Aristophanes. Nor are we to suppose that Sophocles, whose iambics resemble those of Aeschylus, was never able to master this expedient. In both cases we see merely the power which convention and tradition exercised over tragedy. And the same influences made themselves felt in the comparatively archaic technique of tragic dialogue and tended to keep the tragic playwrights from making full use of their resources.

But were the resources of the tragic writers as great as those of the comedians? We have seen how the first, second, and third actors were added to Greek tragedy. Is there reason to believe that the tragedians of Athens ever followed the comedians in employing a larger number? Until recently a negative reply to this has been accepted without serious question, but in 1908 Professor Rees challenged the tradition. Three years later the old view was defended by Dr. Kaffenberger. Although neither has been able fully to establish his contentions, yet the discussion has helped to clear the air, defined the issues more sharply, and really settled certain important points. For one thing, since 1844 it has generally been taken for granted that three actors were the maximum for Old Comedy as well as for tragedy. But the passages just cited from Aristophanes would seem to be decisive against this view, and all the objections to the presentation of Greek tragedy by only three actors apply with still greater force to Old Comedy. Even Dr. Kaffenberger (op. cit., pp. 9 f.) accepts this conclusion, and it is an invaluable result of Professor Rees’s investigations that he has banished this phase of the subject from the field of controversy. Moreover, they are both agreed[274] that a fourth actor seems sometimes to be required also for New Comedy. It must be added, however, that Dr. Graf (op. cit., pp. 29 ff.) dissents. But in any case the question has been restricted, so far as the fifth century is concerned, to the practice in tragedy.

It can be said at once that if we are willing to grant that the Greeks made use of certain desperate expedients it is physically possible to stage all the extant tragedies with three actors. But these expedients are so offensive to modern feeling as to be tolerable only as a last resort. It will be best to begin at a point where comparative agreement is possible, viz., with Aeschylus’ earlier plays, which nearly everyone would admit were intended for two actors alone. Do they reveal any indication of this limitation?

In the analysis of Aeschylus’ Suppliants on [p. 164], the reader will remember that Danaus, having declared “I will return with helpers and defenders,” took his departure at vs. 775; after an ode, the suitors’ herald arrived on the scene (vs. 836) but was balked by the entrance of the Argive king (vs. 907). One would surely expect Danaus to accompany the king, but as a matter of fact he does not reappear until vs. 980. The reason for this is plain—Danaus and the herald are played by the same actor, and consequently the former can return only after the latter’s departure at vs. 953. Moreover, Aeschylus sought to gloss over the blemish by having Danaus refer in advance to the possibility of his being slow in spreading the alarm (vs. 730) and by having the chorus request the king to send their father back to them (vss. 968 ff.), as if his absence had been perfectly natural. This incident teaches us four things: (1) A single actor could carry several rôles; the simplicity and sameness of ancient costumes and the ease of slipping them off and on, together with the use of masks by the actors, made this practice more feasible than it is with us. Overzealous classicists have not merely asked us to tolerate this practice but even to admire its results. Thus, when one character returns to report the death of another the spectators are supposed to have been doubly moved if they could penetrate the messenger’s disguise and from the identity of stature, build, and voice recognize the ghost, as it were, of the departed visibly before them (!).[275] (2) This practice oftentimes necessitated the arbitrary withdrawal of a character from the scene of action and his enforced absence when he would naturally be present. (3) By inventing an inner reason for this the poet strove to conceal or gloss over his yielding to external need. (4) The intervals between the withdrawal of Danaus and the entrance of the herald (vss. 776-836) and vice versa (vss. 953-80) afford an inkling as to the length of time required for such shifts in rôles.

Further information is derived from Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound (see [pp. 166 f.], above). (5) Supernumeraries may be employed for silent parts, e.g., that of Bia. (6) A part may be divided between a lay figure and an actor, as in the case of Prometheus himself. From the nature of things, this expedient would not be frequently employed; but an analogous device (6a) is common, viz., to give the silent portions of a rôle to a mute and the speaking portions to an actor. (7) The stubborn silence of the mutes and supernumeraries employed according to principles (5) and (6a) is sometimes extremely embarrassing and difficult to motivate. (4a) The interval required for a “lightning” change from one character to another was much shorter than the Suppliants led us to suppose. Six verses and a slight pause in the action enabled the actor impersonating Hephaestus to withdraw by the side entrance after vs. 81 and to get in position to speak from behind the wooden figure of Prometheus at vs. 88. This conclusion is confirmed by certain evidence in Plautus’ translation of Greek comedies, which indicates that about thirteen lines would suffice.[276]

Still other principles are derivable from Aeschylus’ Persians. The ghost of Darius having requested his widow to meet their son Xerxes with a change of raiment, Atossa replies (vss. 849 ff.): “I shall endeavor to meet my son ... and,” turning to the chorus, “if he comes hither before me, do you comfort him and escort him to his palace.” These words are clearly intended to prepare us for her failure to appear in the dénouement, and in fact she does not appear. But since one of the two actors is disengaged in the final scene, at first glance there seems to be no external reason for her absence. It is evident that Aeschylus valued the parts of Atossa and Xerxes so highly that he wanted them both played by the better of his two actors, the protagonist. If Atossa had appeared with her son, she must have been impersonated by a different actor than in the opening scenes. The poet preferred to sacrifice verisimilitude somewhat rather than to “split” Atossa’s rôle in this fashion. Hence, we must conclude (8) that at any cost star parts were reserved for the leading actor, (9) that split rôles were to be avoided, and (10) that sometimes for purely technical reasons the dramatist would unnaturally keep a character off the stage entirely in certain scenes.

If we could be sure that the final scene of Aeschylus’ Seven against Thebes is genuine, it would be possible to deduce a final principle. The main support for the charge of interpolation is that this scene in a two-actor play apparently requires three actors. From vs. 961 to vs. 1004 Antigone and Ismene engage in a lyric duet; at vs. 1005 a herald enters and converses with Antigone. From this scene, which I am inclined to accept as genuine (see [p. 283], below), we must concede either that a supernumerary could occasionally bear a brief singing (or speaking) part or preferably that the herald, standing in the side entrance concealed from the spectators and already dressed for his own rôle, sang Ismene’s share of the duet while a mute went through the dumb show of her part before the audience; at the conclusion of the duet he promptly appeared in propria persona. Though the latter alternative is offensive to present-day taste, it is not unparalleled in the annals of the modern stage.[277] In any case one of these alternatives is the last principle (11) to be drawn from the two-actor drama.

Now these eleven principles are so manifestly operative in the other Greek tragedies as to raise an irresistible presumption that some restriction (to three or at most to four actors) applied also to them. It would obviously be out of place to pass every play in review here; I must content myself with a few typical illustrations and then consider the crucial cases.