The Attic theatre : $b a description of the stage and theatre of the Athenians, and of the dramatic performances at AthensHaigh, A. E. (Arthur Elam)
History
The Attic theatre : $b a description of the stage and theatre of the Athenians, and of the dramatic performances at Athens
Haigh, A. E. (Arthur Elam)
Athens (Greece) -- Intellectual life; Greek drama -- History and criticism; Theater -- Greece -- Athens -- History -- To 500
Again, there is the question as to the doors in the proscenium. If it was
the background, it ought to have had three doors, the usual number in
a Greek back-scene, as Pollux and Vitruvius tell us. But in most of the
proscenia discovered there is only one door. In two of the proscenia,
those at Megalopolis and Thespiae, there is no door of any kind. Even the
single door, when it is found, is very narrow for the central door of
the back-scene. At Epidaurus it is only four feet wide, at Oropus only 3
feet 8 inches, at Delos only 3 feet 3 inches.[479] A door so narrow as
this would be altogether unsuitable as the central door of the palace,
and quite inconsistent with the use of the ekkyklema. When we come to
the Graeco-Roman theatres, where the wall at the back of the stage has
in many cases been preserved, there we find everything corresponding
closely with the descriptions of the grammarians. There is always the
requisite number of doors, and the central door is of considerable width.
At Termessos it is about seven feet.[480] As regards the absence of the
three doors in the proscenium Dörpfeld gives the following explanation.
These Hellenistic proscenia, as we see from the remains, consisted of
an entablature resting on columns. The spaces between the columns were
filled in with wooden boards. Dörpfeld suggests that when doors were
required they might be provided _ad libitum_ by removing the intervening
boards.[481] But if three doors were regularly required in the dramatic
performances, it is most improbable that they should not have been
provided as a permanent fixture in the proscenium. It is most improbable
that the Greeks should have put themselves to the trouble of opening
out these temporary doors at each festival. In any case we can hardly
doubt that, if the proscenium had been the back-scene, the Greeks would
always have provided at least one permanent door, and would not, as at
Megalopolis and Thespiae, have erected proscenia in which there was no
door of any kind. The absence of a door in these two places seems to
prove conclusively that communication between the orchestra and the
space behind the proscenium was a matter of no importance.
[Illustration: FIG. 13.]
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