1°4 Greek theatreperformance
The stage?
It seems that the first plays were given in the prc-classical agora used
for all types of assembly, and the audience sat on the north-east slope
of the Acropolis." Around the time of the Persian invasion, an area
on the south side of the Acropolis was dedicated to the performa~lce
of dithyrambs and plays in honour of Dionysos - a simple space for
dancing between the sacrificial altar and the hillside. Amongst the
survivirig plays of Aeschylus, it is only The Oresteia at the end of his
career which requires a stage building, but all subsequent Greek
plays require a building with a door. It is a reasonable inference that
the circle used for the dithyramb on the first day of the festibal was
transformed on subsequent days by the erection within the performance
space of thc wooden building called the skgni?,literally a 'tent'.
Aeschylus would most likely have set his wooden building with its
central door within the dancing circle. Epidaurus off'ers a misleading
model when it defines a srrlall acting circlc at a tangent to the stage
building. If we look at earlier stone theatres like the one at
Megalopolis, a new model city erected in the 360s BC, we see that the
stage building was sited within the circle. Megalopolis is a par~icularlyintcrcsting
example because we can see the foundations of a
scene dock from which the original wooden building was slid into
place.l 2
Whether or not there was a stage is one of the most controversial
questions surrounding the performance of plays in the classical
period.13The surviving theatres of the Greek world have stages on
which the 'actors' performed, whilst the chorus danced in the
orchestra below, but they are all of later date. The important
exception is the 'theatre' surviving from classical times at Thorikos,
where there is no stage or room to erect one, and the space must
have been built for asserrlblies as much as for performances. Other
surviving theatres were built after actors had become international
stars touring the festival circuit. It was not feasible for a team of
fifteen dancers to tour the world, and if the local conlmunity was
able to providc choral dancers, those dancers would not have a
chance to rehearse with the actors, so the physical separation of
actors and chorus became an inevitability. The simplest way to
understand the process of evolulion is to assume that the acting area
on the roof of the stage building, formerly used for or figures
like Antigone in Phoenician Women (see above, p. 21), came to be used
I Space 105
Figure 1 1 The multipurpose performance space at Thorikos in the
classical period.
by all the 'actors'. The roofwas found to offcr acoustical advantages,
since the voice was reflected off the floor of the orchestra.
Tracing the evolution of Greek theatre is a hazardous business.
The only hard information we have about theatre before Aeschylus
is Aristotle's statement that the leader of the chorus entered into
dialogue with his fellow-dancers, and there was thus in the beginning
only a single actor.14 If the story is one of actors progressively
separating themselves from the chorus, thcn the task of the theatre
historian is to determine the exact extent of that separation in the
classical period. Actors were funded by the state, at least from qqg BC
when a competition was introduced for best tragic actor, whilst the
chorus were recruited and paid by the choregos, but this institutional
division was probably intended to prevent the buying up of talent,
and does not imply separate rehearsal (see above, p. 35). There was
no international circuit and the actors were available to work with
the chorus under the supervision of the playwright. The internal
evidence of the plays makes any kind of spatial separation seem most
unlikely. In the Su@lzants and Eumen~desof Aeschylus or The Su@lzants
of Euripides, the chorus functions as if it was one of the central
characters. In ?he L~batzonBearers, Orestes and Electra dance with
the chorus around the tomb over which the libations have been
poured. In a comedy like Lyszshata it would be a nonsense to separate
the half-chorus or woillen from their leader Lysistrata who leads
them into the Acropolis. Physical interaction is constant in Greek
drama. It does not take much experimentation to realize that in a
space like the Theatre of Dionysos the actor who comes too far
forward within the orchestral circle will have less power to command
the back of the auditorium; he will be too close to the spectators,
there will be less empty space around him to frame his form, and the
line of his voice will travel less clearly across the heads of the front
spectators as it approaches what acousticians call 'grazing incidence'.15
It is reasonable, therefore, to think of the 'up-stage' space
as a privileged or stronger area. There is not, however, any obvious
advantage in defining a stage - though a few steps to the door may
be a different matter. It is crucial to remember that the audience
faced south. The later stage building put a high wall behind the high
stage so the actors would be in permanent shadow and the
spectators' eyes could adjust accordingly, picking out more easily
details of mask and costume. So long as the stage building was a low
wooden hut, there was a danger that the actor could be placed
unsatisfactorily half in shadow half in sun if he stood too close to the
building. A stage required a monumental building behind it if it was
to sene a useful function in terms of focus.
Back in the nineteenth century, when the idea of performing any
play without a stage seemed unthinkable, no one questioned the
assumption that the actors and chorus ~erformedon different levels;
this accorded with an operatic view of Greek tragedy, the chorus
being regarded primarily as singers. In the course of the twentieth
century, following the excavations of Dorpfeld, the dominant
assumption has been that a low stage (for uhich we have no
archaeological evidence) stood in front of the stage building and was
the favoured location of the actors, though free movement between
stage and orchestra remained possible. Hall and Stein, in their
versions of The Oresteza which aimed at a high degree of spatial
Plate j The relationship of actor and chorus: exclusion. Euripides, Electra
directed by Costas Tsianos for the Thessaliko Theatro, with L. Korniordou
as Electra. 1989.
authenticity, adopted this solution and used two levels. The majority
of recent professional directors with no such aspirations seem to
Ilave considered that a single level allows maxin~umflexibility when
exploring the relationship of actors and chorus.
Academics and practitioners have become increasingly interested
ill the actor-chorus relationship, and it seems today rather perverse
lo postulate a structure which limits that flexibility.Today, in a more
01 less democratic age, what seems unique and particularly fascilldting
in the Greek dramatic form is its ability to explore the shifting
lclationship between an individual and a group. In llledea the chorus
lllitially show solidarity with Medea, and they distance themselves
crnotionally when she announces her plan to kill her children, but
drcline to betray her. By using a single wide acting space, Ninagawa
'a5 able to depict a series of different relationships between the
Protagonist and the sixteen women of his chorus:16 sometimes
108 Greek theatrepel;formance
Figure 12 The crowd of sappliants approaches Oedipus in Max Reinhardt's
production in the Zircus Schumann, Berlin.
Medea stood with them, sometimes apart, sometimes in confrontation.
No such effects were possible in the proscenium theatre
production starring Diana Rigg in igg3/q, for here the narrow space
prevented the chorus of three from being more than an emotional
and musical backing to the central performance. The relationship
between the individual and her society was lost. One of the strengths
of Brecht's Antigone, which set all the characters within a primitive
place of sacrifice, was the way it explored Creon's dependence on
the chorus of Theban elders, and the moral turpitude of those men
who would never voice their opposition to a proto-fascist leader (see
above, p. 63). This sociopolitical dimension is lost when the play
becomes a vehicle for the two star performers.
Reinhardt back in 1910-12 used three levels in his production of
Oedipus the Xing: Oedipus stood before his palace on the highest
rostrum; below and around him were a chorus of Theban elders,
and below them was a proletariat of 500 or more Thebans (only 300
Space "39
in the London production)." Reinhardt made an important political
statement when Oedipus abandoned his status as a heroic figure at
the end of the play and walked down to the level of the pit tojoin the
mass of humanity. The chorus on their intermediate level provided
vocal orchestration, voicing the thoughts of the dramatist or feelings
appropriate to an audience, but they could not offer serious political
advice. Reinhardt was interested in primitive impulses within crowds
and powerful men rather than the workings of Greek democracy.
Rter Hall's production of Oed$us the King at the Olivier Theatre in
1996, which aspired to a kind of classical formalism, demonstrates
the perils of vertical separation today (see above, p. 61).Reinhardt's
Nietzschean vision of superhuman individuals subject to primal
drives was by 1996 the stuff of history. In large measure the failure of
Hall's design concept, which isolated the characters on a high red
ramp, can be attributed to assumptions about space rooted in
nineteenth century scholarship. At the end of the twentieth century
the human being can no longer be regarded as an entity isolated
from its social environment. Greek tragedy cannot any longer be
conceived as the tale of a hero. It was and is the spatial correlative of
democracy that all individuals should be placed on the same level.
P E R F O R M I N G IN THE THEATRE O F DIONYSOS
The scale of Athenian theatre, played to an audience of 15,000 or
more, makes it more akin to pop concerts or sporting events than
any modern form of theatre. From the central door in the stage wall
to the furthest spectator the distance was over IOO metres in Athens,
, as opposed to 70 metres in the fuller semicircle at Epidaurus and
some 25 metres in Shakespeare's Globe. To speak or sing audibly
required formidable training if the voice was to carry over such a
distance. Men probably had better hearing than today, and there
\vas less ambient noise, but wind was always a danger. There were
no side walls to reflect the sound, and a frontal delivery was therefore
essential. The presence of the chorus underpinned the convention,
essential if the text was to reach its audience, that every speech was a
rllode of public address. The long speeches of Greek tragedy fit the
requirements of the space. Quick-fire has the formality of a crossexamination
in court (see above, p. 57). Antigone and Creon, for
I 10 Greek theatre perfoormar~ce
example, do not talk to cach other, but talk to the chorus and by
extension the audience in a bid for moral approval. Tragedy could
not permit interpersonal dialogue because intimacy simply is not
interesting to a spectator ~ o ometres distant. One can of course
create intimacy when performing Greek plays today in intimate
spaces, but the risk of such transposition is that the speeches will
seem unnaturally long, and the chorus irrelevant.
Considerations of distance are fundamental if we want to analyze
the visual image and use of the body All movements had to be
simple, clear and bold. The costumes of tragedy were long and
bright to create strong tableaux; the costumes of men in comedy
werc cxceptionally short to allow energetic movement and a wnse of
the whole anatomy. Masks covered the whole head, requiring the
spectator to project emotion on to the face and imagine movement
in the few simple features that the mask rendered \risible. The actor
brought the mask to life through configurations of the whole body.
Later Greek theatre was able to use subtle densely coded masks
because the actors stood in shadow, but in the classical period the
actors in Athens stood in the circle of the orchestra with the sun
behind them. To see the face in these silhouetted figures was almost
impossible, and Greek theatre relied rather upon the patterns which
bodies made on the ground. It would be brong to commiserate with
such a theatre for its limitations. We should think of the passions and
depth of meaning which fifteen distant bodies on a cricket pitch or
twenty-three bodies on a football pitch can offer a packed crowd,
and recall that Greek theatre was, amongst other things, a hardfought
contest in physical skills.
In lieu of the single body which the eye fixes upon in proscenium
or studio theatre, it was the collective body that held the attention in
Greek theatre. Inspired by his work in the large Greek theatre at
Syracuse,Jacqucs Lecoq writes:
The chorus is the essential elenie~llwhich unlquely allows the release of a
true tragic space. A chorus is not geometric, it is organic. As a collectibe
body, it possesses a centre of grav~ty,extensions. breath. It is a sort of
organism that can take different shapes according to the situation in which
it finds itself.
In a vivid metaphor, Silviu Purcarete describes the chorus as 'a
single organism made up of dozens of heads and arms, like a sort of
giant squid7.'"he blocking of the chorus is a subtle instrument for
Plate 8 The relationship of mask and body Classical masks designed
and made by Thanos Vovolis,used in a production o f The Dibbuk.
Stockholm. 1994.
112 Greek theatreperformance
directing attention to different sections of an empty space, and has a
similar function to modern stage lighting. Lecoq continues:
A chorus arrives on stage, to the sound of percussion which through
rhythm creates collectivity. It occupies the whole space, then withdraws to
one part of the arena. In so doing it frees a new space and offers a kind of
invitation to the hero. But who will come and fill this space? What
equilibrium can be found today between a chorus and a hero?'"
As Lecoq discerns, the Greek use of performance space differed
from today in its constant positioning of the individual in relation to
the group. In a small performance space, the shifting relationship of
an individual body to a collective body cannot be reproduced. The
ability of the play to engage with political issues is reduced. Modern
performance space reflects a reluctance to understand individual
identity as a function of social identity.
Many modern performers feel that performance in a huge space is
a constraint upon subtle delivery and the development of an actoraudience
relationship. Peter Brook, for example, regards 1,000 as a
sensible thresl~old.~~This is to miss what lent Greek theatre its
power. The spectator 100 metres away was part of a single crowd,
bonded by a space that created no vertical or horizontal boundaries,
and concealed no group from all the rest. If all 15,ooo-plus tightly
packed people were listening to the same words at the same time,
and shared the same broad response, the power of emotion generated
would have been quite unlike that created today in a studio theatre.
Communication was effected not simply via light and sound waves
but via an osmosis passing through the bodies of the spectators.
Patsy Rodenburg, voice coach at the National Theatre in London,
laments the dead acoustics of the Olivier auditorium, used for the
Greek productions of Peter Hall. The actor gets no sense of feedback
from the auditorium and has to reconstruct the audience's perception.
Another major drawback is the division of circle from stalls,
leaving the actors tempted always to play to the stalls below. 'In the
original Greek theatre .. . the space's perspective pulls the actor up
to make full contact with the whole house ... The design of the
Greek theatre centres the actor's body rather than suppressing it.'"
In the pseudo-Greek Olivier, inspired by Epidaurus, the commercial
logic which divides cheaper seats from dearer ones undermines the
power of the performance. The audience are not bonded because
comfortable seats divide shoulders from shoulders and knees from
backs, creating an individualized mode of viewing. Stage lighting
i
Space
and an acoustic destroyed by the roof prevent the actor sensing the
;,udience and therefore interacting with it in the moment of
,,erforrnance.
The natural world
~ o l a n dBarthes, in an essay on Greek theatre, attempts to develop
an aesthetic of open air performance: 'In the open air, the spectacle
cannot be a habit, it is vulnerable, perhaps irreplaceable: the
sIlectator's immersion in the complex polyphony of the open air
sun, rising wind, flying birds, noises of the city) restores to
the drama the singularity of the event.' The spectator has an acute
sense of being in the present, the passing day of the festival. He
&ares the same sense of space as the characters of the play, placed
on the threshold of tombs and palaces. The theatre is open to the sky
in order 'to amplify the news (i.e., fate) and not to smother the
plot'.22Viewed in the open, the play will thus be seen as a treatment
not of interpersonal relationships but of the relationship between
human beings and their environment, an environment which for the
Greeks necessarily included the gods. An event at Delphi, where
P~ametheuswas performed in 1927 (see below, pp. 183-9)) illustrates
these principles. As Prometheus referred to his liver being pecked by
eagles, two eagles flew down from the mountain, creating a sense in
the audience that Zeus was at work. Three years later, when
Aeschylus' Suppliants was performed in Delphi, rain coincided with
the crisis of the plot, and sunshine accompanied the triumphant
conclusion, again creating the sense that the performance was part
of a larger cosmic process.23 Performances at Epidaurus in high
surnrner under stage lighting do not provide the same opportunities
h r divine intervention.
Greek theatres were modifications of the landscape rather than
Impositions, and Greek architects always built their theatres with
attention to the view, unlike the Romans who enclosed the audience
within high walls. The audience on the slopes of the Athenian
Acropolis had a fine view of the hills to the south-east, and a few at
the top could also see the sea. Greek plays dealt with the limits of the
l'uman ability to control the world. Spectators sat inside the city
t l l e ~had created and looked at the wilderness beyond. From the
3ecurityof their seats, the) contemplated a world where nothing was
'"cure. In tragedy the city was viewed in its relation to the wilderness
Space Il5
Sacredspace
\\;-stern practitioners like Grotowski and Brook have pursued the
id,,:ll of a 'holy' theatre which rejects the fa~adesof orthodox
commercial theatre and adopts the condition of a 'poor' theatre.24
hlany have been impressed by the practices of the east. The .Na@a
sfl.ctl.a,for example, describes a complex of rituals performed when
In),illgout a temporary theatre in ancient India, and in the Noh
tll('iltre elaborate rules govern the preparation of the polished
cypress-~oodfloor. The theatre of the classical period meets the
pllysical conditions of a Grotowskian poor theatre, with its wooden
seating arranged around a hillside, an earth floor, and a painted
hut for its set. Actors working in 1992 on a trilogy in the
reek-style theatre of Minneapolis found it helpful to conceive that
they were working in a circle which was somehow 'sacred',25 and
this is a common experience in productions that attend to the ritual
dimension. It is important, therefore, to clarify how far the 'poor'
space was also a 'sacred' space.
The whole of Athens was experienced as a sacred place, and more
particularly the rock of the Acropolis since the origins of the
Athenian people were traced to that spot. The procession led the
audience on a journey to the ritual centre of their community, and
the actors performed on the earth of a city protected by Athene. The
performance circle lay inside the sanctuary of the god Dionysos,
wliilc the audience sat on the slope outside the precinct, and this
helped to define the nature of the actor-audience divide. Performers
i~oulddress as gods, engage in obscene behaviour and slander
fellow-citizensin a way that was only acceptable in a time and space
dedicated to a god. Behind the wooden stage building, the stone
temple was a visible reminder of the divine reality behind the illusion
of the play. The sacredness of the performance space was emphas
i ~ dby rituals in the same way as other public events: the blood of a
Young pig was sprinkled around the orchestra to ward off evil, and
libations were poured into the earth.'6 ~ h cperformance space was
contaminated by the blood and smell of slaughtered oxen, whose
pl;lcr of sacrifice was lower down the slope. Religious taboos may
?"plain why in plays the act of killing is never accomplished in front
of the audience, though non-violcnt death may occur. After the
C1a*sicalperiod, the new stoa, followed by the move of the actors on
to a high stage, effectively separated the temple from the playing
Space 117
ilrea, and this must have weakened the sense that the playing space
T,-asa sacred space.
Entering the space
Fjom the side
(;reek plays were written for specific spatial requirements, and I
hllall focus on one example. Euripides' Hippohtus tells how HippolJ.tus
learns that his stepmother Phaedra has fallen in love with him.
fie rejects Phaedra and all women, whilst Phaedra commits suicide,
leaving a message to incriminate Hippolytus. Theseus, Phaedra's
husband and Hippolytus' father, returns and calls a curse upon his
SOI1.
As Oliver Taplin recognized in a book which transformed the
study of ancient theatre, the most important dramatic effects in a
huge theatre were achieved through control of entries and exits.27
There were three main points of entry: through the single central
door of the skeni, or through the side approaches known as eisodoi.
To enter through an eisodos took a large amount of stage time and
the actor could be seen by some spectators long before others (see
plate 6). It is a rather exceptional moment when Theseus arrives
unannounced because the chorus are focussed on the suicide within
the sksn?. Normally text is required to cover entries. This is a typical
example, which I translate rather literally:
Well now, a servant of Hippolytus here I see
Urgently dark-faced to the house hastening. (1151-2)
Only two lines are allocated because the messenger is moving quickly.
'T'hc angle of the eisodos directs the actor towards the 'house' rather
than the centre of the orchestra. The chorus halt their dance ('well
now') and point in order to change the focus ('here'); they identify for
the audience who the new character is, and help them to interpret his
gait and project an emotion upon the distant mask. The first entry of
the chorus was always a special moment of spectacle, created in
H$,hohtus through the mime of washing long robes. Hippolytus
makes two imposing processional entries through an eisodos: first of
"11 with a group of hunters chanting and bearing a garland to crown
the statue of Artemis, and at the end, again to music, when his
wrecked body is carried on and he cries out in agony.
Because there were two more or less symmetrical eisodoi, Greek
theatre commonly set up a contrast, both geographical and symbolic,
between the two sides. Like many Greek cities, Troizen where
the play is set was built on the coast, protected by an impenetrable
hinterland. Accordingly one exit in Hzppolytus leads to the sea and
one to the mountains. The mountains symbolize the wilderness and
state of virginity which Hippolytus loves, whilst the sea symbolizes
both access to the civilized world of Athens and the passions of
sexual desire. This contrast was fixed by visual icons in the postclassical
period, but in the tinle of Euripides the audience simply
used its imagination, attaching different connotations to the two
eisodoi as the play developed. The massive presence of the exotic
Odeon on the audience's left (built after the time of Aeschylus) and
the more modest presence of the temple on the audience's right must
in practice have given a very different feel to the two sides.
From the house
Tragedy used only a single doorway in the stage wall, apparently in
the form of a double door opening inward^.^' This doorway created
a powerful point of focus, and is used for a long section of the play to
keep attention fixed on Phaedra's non-verbal reactions, as she listens
to the servant within telling Hippolytus of her love whilst the chorus
sing of love. She hears Hippolytus' violent response, and is still
beside the door when Hippolytus bursts out and delivers a long antifeminist
diatribe. The audience watch the silent mounting agony
that will culminate in suicide.
Phaedra's first entrance from the house is slow and imposing: she
is carried on a couch, the picture of an invalid, her body and head
covered. When Phaedra appears for the second time, it is as a corpse
on the 'eccyclema', a wheeled platform rolled forward through the
doorway. A dummy dressed as Phaedra lay upon it, with an
incriminating letter displayed in the hand, and the costume doubtless
disposed to suggest the victim of a rape. The house in Greek tragedy
is regularly associated with death, and the ecc~clemawas often
required to display a scene of horror. It should be understood as a
formal convention rather than a primitive attempt to depict an inner
room. As the corpse lies before the audience, Theseus speaks of hiswife
as the best beneath the sun and stars, and delivers a ~ublic
address to the city. Only an imagi~latio~lconditioned by naturalism
bothers to ask whether the corpse is supposed to be indoors or
outdoors.
Space "9
Plate 9 The power.of the doorway. Euripides, Electra, directed by
Costas Tsianos. 1989.
On a symbolic level, the themes of the play are bound up with a
tension between two spaces: the unseen world behind the skfne, and
the public world of the orchestra. The world indoors is, socioloqically
speaking, the world of women, and Phaedra, daughter of an
Amazon, rejects her forced seclusion. The statue of Aphrodite,
goddess of sex, is placed by the doors, whilst the statue of Artemis,
goddess of chastity, stands in the orchestra, for the first goddess is
njsociated with the bedroonl, the second with hunting in the wilderness.
Aphrodite by the doorway represents a body space with an
interior, a body space that can be penetrated, while Artemis, virgin
goddess of the open spaces, admits no one. As in most plays, death is
conceived as a farewell to the sun, and the death of the heroine takes
11laceindoors in the space of darkness. Repeated images of light and
dclrkwhich seem monotonous to the modern reader had a different
ct, for an audience warmed by the sun in early spring.
h o r n above
Entry could also be effected by using the roof of the skene, and gods
'"a)- have been given further elevation by a structure called the