2. What did the chorus contribute to the drama?

singing, dancing, narrating, and actingbackground and summary information to help the audience follow the performancecomments on themes, contemporary matters

the chorus expressed to the audience what the main characters could not say, such as their hidden fears or secretsthe songs and speeches of the Greek chorus gave the other actors time to take a break while allowing the scenery to be adjusted and other changes made to the set.

weiner – the importance of the greek chorusconsidered chorus important – all extant tragedies have a chorus

large number of linesAristotle – regard the chorus as another actor

It engaged in dialogue with characters through its leader, the Coryphaeus, who alone spoke the lines of dialogue assigned to the chorus. 

The chorus became the Bacchae – fulfill its classical function but also gives it a deeper narrative meaningthe chorus comments on the actions of the play, provides a moral voice and links the segments of the play temporally

describing Dionysian rites from within, expressing common reactions, and, most importantly, heightening the drama, hysteria and passion of the play through dance and music. – music and dancing – like we saw on the vases last week

extolling the more benign, joyful and celebratory side of Dionysus

opposites to the maenads, Theban women, driven mad by Dionysus maenads, in counterpoint to the chorus, are never shown openly on stage, nor are they given a voice – darker side not show, maybe the knowledge that such vicious practises never really existed

less than essential to the structure and plot of the play.passive role as witnesses, their numbers alone making any interaction of the main figures a public rather than private exchange.

Perfect audience – no.

Frogs – chorus of frogs, - funny – annoying, joking with Dionysus Initiates in Eleusinian mysteries

‘frogs’ appear as initiates, the audience would be startled not just at the change in the chorus’ identity but also at their lacklustre costumes.

Parodying solemnity of actual religious rites, made funnier – Dionysus does not equate himself with Iacchus, singing cult hymn

Make fun of contemporaries - komodoumenoi Archedemus, Cleisthenes

The theatre at Thorikos is rather odd. Most Greek theatres were built into hillsides. This one, as you can see from this angle, has a back. It's also odd for not being semi-circular. It's like a rather stretched ellipse. The theatre is Thorikos, Attica, Greece. 525-480 BC Cavea Width: 55 meters rectilinear

Orchestra: Width 27 meters; (irregular rectangle)

There is no physical evidence for a circular orchestra earlier than that of the great theater at Epidauros dated to around

330B.C. Most likely, the audience in fifth-century B.C. Athens was seated close to the stage in a rectilinear arrangement,

such as appears at the well-preserved theatre at Thorikos in Attica. 

Enlarged 480 – 425 BC – 6000 peopleTimber seats then stone3rd size of theatre of Dionysusskene building on the right? Temple of Dionysus to the eastSmall festivals 

Athens – small speaking area, seats in smaller towns, theatre is used interchangeably with seats no separate agora in Thorikos altar – important for deme Altar of rural Dionysia, big deme festivalsCentral to city life, not just plays 

Irregular shape – makes way for temple, religious aspect more important than theatrical onebut unusual in this respect – no other theatre has a temple in it, imitation of Athens?seating – some seats seem to have number – more important people, some made out of better stonevictors lists – comedy and tragedy 

Theatre of Dionysus – tragedy and comedy performed in original theatre 6th centuryArchaeological evidence complicated – rebuiltearly theatre – 25m diameterno stage area – big orchestra, no distinction of chorus and actoraudience on hill of Acropolis, natural amphitheatre, wooden seats – evidence in Aristophanes 5th century

Wooden skene at the back – 1 large dooractors still with chorus in orchestra wooden stage – maybe, no evidence

5th century – Pericles, golden age, included theatre arearoof of skene, for godsnot much funding – using Persian timber decorated by paintings, architectural paintings ie pillars or symbolic – tree to indicate wood etc stone seating – hard to tell when it was installed 

Attached to precinct of Dionysus odeon – back of skene led to stoa, temple of Dionysus in front 

330BC – just after Athens fell to macedon, Lycurgus wanted to restore memory of AthensSet texts – commemorate theatre with set texts, mirroring stone seatingrelationship of looking back to the past to build a better Athens in the future?10000? But the biggest capacity is without seating – just on the hill 

Murder of Agamemnon – aegisthus short chiton with beard lunging towards AgamemnonAgamemnon – looking smaller, see through chiton - inscription e e ? anguish or nonsense

pervasiveness of theatre – scene where Agamemnon is killedcan’t know what myth is like before stagesimilar characteristics – bathing, nakedness, bath sheetsinvolvement of Clytemnestra – she kills him in play, Aegithsus comes out to gloatanother version of the myth?relationship between play and pot? – motives? Well known myth?play – 456BC, vase comes first 

Vase – Sicilian – manfria group, lentini, 340 – 320old man, infibulated penis – mature manold womanHeracles is grotesque Bore  Telephus to Heracles. central stairs leading down into orchestra?

Masks –  wooden stage off ground

CIRCA 360-350 B.C. 

Curtain staging

Seated Dionysus, aulos, thyrsus   female acrobat

Wall behind with windows – used for comic effect?

Satirical dance – gangnam stylefurry cosplay 

Apulian calyx krater – old woman on stage, old man hands in air, 

Old woman offers old man as if giving a slave up for torture 

 three actors, each wearing a mask and padded costume; above them hangs a tragic mask. The actor in the center is standing on his toes with his hands raised as if he were suspended from a post; out of his mouth come the words, "he has bound my hands above." Evidently he is being punished for a theft. The stolen goods—a dead goose and a basket—lie on a platform to the right. Also on the platform is an old man or woman, who gestures as if in remonstrance, uttering the words "I shall furnish [testimony]." To the left is the guardian of the prisoner; he holds a stick as if ready to beat the thief. The inscription that emerges from his mouth is nonsensical, either a spell responsible for the raised arms of the thief or a representation of a foreign tongue. This foreign language may characterize the speaker as a policeman, a profession often held by Thracians in Athens. In the upper left is a male youth, nude except for a mantle; he is labeled tragoidos, "tragic actor." The scene is apparently a parody of a court scene, a subject that lent itself to buffoonery. 

Comic Angels and other Approaches to Greek Drama through Vase-Paintings

Taplin – p 4 – comedy by contrast openly recognises its context and its present spectators; aristophanes’ plays explicitly declare their Athenian association

206 - The very occasion and act of theatre established that quite different conventions of communication and understanding governed and determined the transactions taking place.

208 - Pericles had explicitly underscored the importance of works of monumental architecture for the celebration of Athenian cultural values and their enduring capacity to impress upon future generations the glory and achievements of her people.

Odeon of Athens – made out of timber of captured Persian ships

208 .lycurgus He ordered that official copies of the plays of the three great tragic poets, Aeschylus, Euripides and Sophocles, be established and ‘fixed’ – in effect making them permanent.

4. I've changed my form from god to human

421 The god gives his wine equally,sharing with rich and poor alike.

1. Bacchae not crucial to our understanding of our text to know about Athenian history

But Aristophanes – Athenian history large part of play in jokes

Saviour of city alcibades – Aeschylus’ views about alcibaides, naval battles, agon not interesting if we don’t know why he changed his mind

Time of political change

New type of politicians not just aristocracy, nouveau-riche, not to help the city, to benefit their own business

Mentions cleigenes, politician for business interest

Phrynichus – mentioned in parabasis in frogs, assassinated after oligarchic revolution 411 bc, aristocrats forced to leave politics, even lost

Slaves became citizens, after naval battle, change in socio-political landscape – contrast with traditional aristocracy losing citizenship

Political concerns represented in Bacchae- pentheus, young, inexperiencedreason why Dionysus can trick himpolitical instabilityinexperienced young politicians – historical point of view?