The Greek theater and its dramaFlickinger, Roy C. (Roy Caston)
History
The Greek theater and its drama
Flickinger, Roy C. (Roy Caston)
Drama -- Technique; Greek drama -- History and criticism; Theater -- Greece -- History -- To 500
Now Plutarch says[205] that “Demetrius came into the city (Athens)
and ordered the entire population to be assembled into the theater and
hedged in the scene-building (σκηνήν) on every side with troops and
surrounded the stage (λογεῖον) with guards, and himself descending
(καταβάς), like the tragic actors, through the upper parodi (διὰ τῶν
ἄνω παρόδων) he ended their fears with his very first words.” In my
opinion, the word καταβάς (“descending”) clearly shows that λογεῖον
means “stage.” The “upper parodi,” then, must be the passages opening
upon the logium from the parascenia. As Plutarch visualized the scene
and wished his readers to do so, Demetrius came out upon the stage from
one of the side entrances but did not address the people from there, as
an orator of Plutarch’s own day would have done.[206] Instead, in his
desire to show the Athenians his good-will he passed on down the central
steps, as Plutarch had often seen the actors do in that theater (see p.
99, above), and addressed the assemblage from the orchestra. Since he
could have passed through only one side entrance, the plural (παρόδων)
must be due to a sort of zeugma, to imply that he came through one upper
parodus and one upper entrance, viz., the central steps. The pro-stage
writers who seek to apply Plutarch’s words to the Lycurgus theater in
which the incident really happened, and who use them as an argument for
a stage at that period, are forced to ignore the word καταβάς, for they
cannot allow that “tragic actors” regularly descended from the Lycurgus
proscenium into the orchestra. If we go back of Plutarch’s words and
inquire what Demetrius actually did in the Lycurgus theater, the answer
is plain: he simply advanced from the scene-building into the orchestra,
and expressions consistent with this must have appeared in the source
from which Plutarch derived his account. In fact, in describing a similar
scene at Corinth, Plutarch retained words which are vague enough to be
applicable to either type of theater.[207] He has simply modernized one
account and brought over the other unchanged.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account