Fig. 69.—Terra Cotta Mask in Berlin Representing a Courtesan in New Comedy.
The third compensation for the lack of a playbill was afforded by the use of masks (see [pp. 221 ff.], below). In Old Comedy contemporaneous personages were often introduced, and we are told that their masks were true enough to life for their identity to be recognizable before the actors had uttered a word. According to a late anecdote, at the presentation of Aristophanes’ Clouds, Socrates rose from his place and remained standing during the whole performance so that strangers in attendance might recognize the original of his double on the stage. In the Knights (vss. 230 ff.), Aristophanes explains the absence of a portrait-mask for Cleon on the ground that the mask-makers were too apprehensive of that demagogue’s vengeance to reproduce his features. But the playbill value of masks was seen more fully in the case of more or less conventionalized characters, especially in New Comedy (Figs. [68 f.]).[303] Pollux, a writer of the second century A.D., describes twenty-eight such masks for tragedy and forty-four for New Comedy. The hair, of varying amount, color, coiffure, and quality, seems to have been the chief criterion, but dress, complexion, facial features, etc., were also taken into account. The make-up of every stock character was fixed with some definiteness and must have been well known to all intelligent spectators. Thus the first glimpse of approaching actors enabled an ancient audience to identify the red-headed barbarian slave, the pale lovelorn youth, the boastful soldier, the voracious parasite, the scolding wife, the flatterer, the “French” cook, the maiden betrayed or in distress, the stern father, the designing courtesan, etc., much more easily than a playbill of the modern type would have done.
If our modern playgoer in ancient Athens were an American and so accustomed to staid conduct in a theatrical audience, he would be surprised at the turmoil of an Athenian performance. A Frenchman, familiar with the riots which greeted Victor Hugo’s Hernani or Bernstein’s Après Moi, would be better prepared for the situation. But in any case he would soon discover that a prize was to be awarded both in tragedy and in comedy, and that each poet had his friends, partisans, and claque. The comic poets at least made no attempt to conceal the fact that there was a prize and that they were “out” for it. In almost every play Aristophanes’ choruses advance reasons, sometimes serious, sometimes fantastic, for favoring their poet and giving him the victory. A few examples will suffice. In the Women in Council (vss. 1154 ff.) the chorus says:
But first, a slight suggestion to the judges.
Let the wise and philosophic choose me for my wisdom’s sake,
Those who joy in mirth and laughter choose me for the jests I make;
Then with hardly an exception every vote I’m bound to win....
Keep your oaths, and well and truly judge between the rival plays.