II. The Buildings

Since the performance was a state-function, the whole nation was theoretically expected to be present, and in point of fact enormous audiences attended: the great theatre accommodated perhaps 30,000 spectators. This fact governs the nature of the whole presentation. The theatre could not be roofed, and the acting therefore differed greatly from that customary in modern buildings.

A Greek theatre consisted of three parts—the auditorium, the orchestra, and the “stage-buildings”. The heart of the whole is the orchestra or “dancing-ground” (ὀρχήστρα) upon which the chorus, throughout the action, were stationed—a circular area of beaten earth, later paved with marble. Beside the altar in this orchestra stood, in the earliest days of the theatre, the sacrificial table upon which the single actor mounted. This table in the fixed theatre is the descendant of the waggon from which the peripatetic actor of Thespis delivered his lines. In addition to the celebrants the passive worshippers were needed—the audience. Therefore the orchestra was placed at the bottom of a slope; and the spectators stood or sat on the higher ground. On the farther side rose the “stage-buildings,” whatever from time to time they were. The general plan, then, of any Greek theatre was this:—

A is the circular orchestra, B the altar (θυμέλη) of Dionysus which invariably stood in the middle of it. C represents the “stage-buildings”; D, E, F, are the doors which led from the building to the open air. The building usually projected into side-wings (G, G), called παρασκήνια. H, H, are the passage-ways (πάροδοι), by which the chorus generally entered the orchestra, and by which the audience always made its way to the seats. J, J, J, is the auditorium, a vast horseshoe-shaped space rising up a hillside from the orchestra, and filled with benches. This space was intersected by gangways, K, K, L, L, etc., called, perhaps, κλίμακες; the areas M, M, N, N, etc., so formed, had the name “pegs” (κερκίδες). In most theatres a longitudinal gallery O, O, O, was made for further convenience in getting to the seats. In the strictly Greek type the front line of “stage-buildings” never encroached on the circle of the orchestra. But these theatres were used in Roman times also, and altered to suit certain needs. The front of C was thrown forward so that it cut into the orchestra and obliterated the passages H, H. To replace these, entrances were tunnelled through the auditorium. Thus at Athens the orchestra is now only little more than a semicircle, though amid the ruins of the “stage-buildings” can still be seen a few feet of the kerbstone which surrounded the original dancing floor—the only surviving remnants of the Æschylean theatre; this masonry shows that the diameter of the whole was about 90 feet.

The “stage-buildings,” as we have called them for convenience, require a longer discussion. Originally there stood in that place only a tent, called scēnē (σκηνή), which took no part in the theatrical illusion, but was used by the one actor simply as a dressing-room. Soon, no doubt, came the important advance of employing it as “scenery”—the tent of Agamemnon before Troy, for example. Later a wooden booth was erected, and Sophocles’ invention of scene-painting—that is, of concealing this booth with canvas to represent whatever place or building was needed—added enormously to the playwright’s resources. This booth was afterwards built of stone and became more and more elaborate; Roman “stage-buildings” survive which are admirable pieces of dignified architecture. The building of course contained dressing-rooms and property-rooms. There were doors at the narrow ends. The front of the building was pierced by three, later by five, doors.

Upon what did these doors open? Was there a stage in the Greek theatre? This problem has aroused more discussion than any other in Greek scholarship save the “Homeric Question”. That all theatres possessed a stage (λογεῖον) in Roman times is certain; the Athenian building—which in its present condition dates from the alterations made by Phædrus in the third century after Christ—shows quite obviously the front wall of a stage about 4½ feet high. But did the dramatists of the fifth and fourth centuries before Christ write for a theatre with a stage or not? There is a good deal of prima-facie evidence for a stage, and a good deal to show that the actors moved to and fro on that segment of the orchestra nearest to the booth. That is, the question lies between acting on top of the proscenium (or decorated wall joining the faces of the parascenia G, G) and acting in front of it. A brief résumé of the evidence is all that can be attempted here. It is confined to the consideration of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C., to which belongs practically all the extant work. For the period after 300 B.C. the use of a stage seems indisputable.

A. Arguments For a Stage

§ 1. A High Stage.—Vitruvius, the Roman architect, who wrote at the end of the first century B.C., in his directions for building a Greek theatre says: “Among the Greeks the orchestra is wider, the back scene is farther from the audience, and the stage is narrower. This latter they call logeion (speaking-place), because the actors of tragedy and comedy perform there close to the back scene, while the other artistes play in the ambit of the orchestra, wherefore the two classes of performer are called scænici and thymelici respectively.” [Literally, “those connected with the booth” and “those connected with the central altar”.] “This logeion should be not less than 10, and not more than 12, feet in height.” This, says Dörpfeld, applies to the Greek theatre of Vitruvius’ own time, but has been extended by modern writers to the fifth century. Supposing, however, that Vitruvius was thinking of the fifth century, then:—

(a) The stage is too narrow for performances, viz. 2·50 to 3 mètres, from which 1 mètre must be subtracted for the background. The remaining space is not enough for actors and mutes, not to mention any combined action of players and chorus.

(b) It is also too high. Many passages in the plays show that chorus and actors are on the same level; in all these cases the chorus would have to mount steps, or the actors descend. This is absurdly awkward; nor is there evidence for steps. An attempt has been made to meet the difficulties by the assumption of another platform about half the height of the stage, erected on the orchestra for the chorus. But the various objections to such a subsidiary platform are so strong that it is no longer believed in. With it, however disappears the only way by which plays with a chorus could be performed on the high stage of Vitruvius.

§ 2. A Low Stage.—Many scholars, abandoning Vitruvius as evidence for the fifth century, postulate a low stage. Their arguments are:—

(a) Aristotle in the fourth century calls the songs of the actors τὰ ἀπὸ τῆς σκηνῆς, and says that the actor performed ἐπὶ τῆς σκηνῆς, phrases which seem to mean “from the stage” and “on the stage” respectively. And though Dörpfeld would take σκηνή as “background” (not “stage”) translating Aristotle’s phrases by “from the background” and “at the background,” there remains the difficulty that Aristotle plainly thinks of actors and chorus as occupying quite distinct stations, which scarcely suggests that they move on contiguous portions of the same ground.

(b) The side-wings or parascenia must have been meant to enclose a stage. What else could have been their use?

(c) There are five phrases used by Aristophanes. Three times an actor, on approaching other actors, is said to “come up”; twice he is said to “go down”. Nothing in the context implies raised ground as needed by the drama, so that we seem forced to refer these expressions to the visible stage itself. Dörpfeld and others would translate these two verbs by “come here” and “go away”; but there is no evidence for these meanings.

(d) The existing plays throw incidental light on the problem:—

(i) Certain characters complain of the steepness of their path as they first come before the audience. Do they not refer to an actual ascent from orchestra to stage?

(ii) Ghosts sometimes appear. How can they have ascended out of “the ground” unless action took place on a raised area? This argument is, however, not strong. In later theatres such spectres did rise from below. But in the fifth century they may well have walked in.

(iii) A more striking argument is that on several occasions the chorus, though it has excellent reason to enter the back scene, remains inert. In the Agamemnon the elders talk of rushing to the king’s aid; a similar thing happens in the Medea; there are a number of such strange features. The inference is that there was a stage, to mount which would have appeared odd.

(iv) A stage was needed to make the actors visible, instead of being hidden by the chorus. But, though there is no evidence that the chorus grouped themselves about the orchestra (as in the performances at Bradfield College), and they apparently stood in rows facing the actors, they could have been placed far forward enough to enable all to see the actors. Anyone who has visited a circus will appreciate this.

(v) Plato remarks that Agathon and his actors appeared on an ὀκρίβας, a “platform”. But the word suggests a slight structure: Dörpfeld objects that this appearance was probably in the Odeum, or Music Hall, not the Theatre of Dionysus; if it was in the theatre, the passage rather tells against a stage, for a temporary platform would not have been used if there was a stage.

(vi) Horace says that “Æschylus gave his modest stage a floor of beams” or “gave the stage a floor of moderate-sized beams”. Dörpfeld alleges (without evidence) that pulpitum (translated “stage” in the last sentence) may mean “booth,” and suggests that the poet assumes a stage as matter of course: he is marking the advance made by Æschylus upon Thespis, who (according to Horace himself), performed his plays upon a waggon. But the proper answer is surely that Horace is regularly unreliable when he deals with questions of Greek scholarship, and that he is no doubt arbitrarily combining his knowledge of contemporary Greek theatres with his knowledge that Æschylus advanced in theatrical matters beyond Thespis.

Such are the main arguments in favour of a stage in the fifth and fourth centuries before Christ.

B. Arguments Against a Stage

(i) The evidence of the extant dramas. This, already adduced by many to prove that a stage was used, is taken by Dörpfeld as “showing unmistakably that no separation existed between chorus and actors, that on the contrary both played on the same area”. He refers to action where people pass between house and orchestra with no apparent difficulty or hesitation. The chorus enter from the “palace” in the Choephorœ, the Eumenides, and Euripides’ Phaethon; the chorus of huntsmen enter it in the Hippolytus. There are other probable or possible instances. Particularly noteworthy is the fact that in Helena the chorus in the midst of the play enter the building, and later reappear from it.

(ii) The tradition in later writers. It is true, says Dörpfeld, that we have no express assertion that there was no stage—it never occurred to the older writers to say so, for they knew of no such thing. The later writers imply that there was none. Timæus, commenting on ὀκρίβας, says: “for there was not yet a thymele”. Thymele there means “stage”. Several late writers tell us that the Roman logeion (“speaking-place” or “stage”) was once called “orchestra”: this supports the view that the stage is part of the old orchestra, higher than the other portion (see below). The scholiast on Prometheus Vinctus, 128, remarks: “They (the chorus) say this as they hover in the air on the machine; for it would be absurd for them to converse from below [i.e. from the orchestra] to one aloft”. Now, the pro-stage theory makes all choruses do this. The scholiast on Aristophanes’ Wasps, 1342, writes: “The old man stands on a certain height (ἐπί τινος μετεώρου) as he summons the girl”. The word “certain” (τινός) implies that he knew nothing of a regular stage. Finally, if there was a definite and regular difference of position between actors and chorus, is it not astonishing (a) that there is in Greek literature no certain allusion to the fact, (b) that the older literature contains no word for the stage, the place where the acting was performed being referred to merely by reference to the booth (ἐπὶ σκηνῆς and ἀπὸ σκηνῆς)?

(iii) The architectural remains. Dörpfeld sums up his celebrated architectural researches thus. No theatre survives from the fifth century, but the theatre of Lycurgus (fourth century) belongs to a period when the plays of that century were still acted in the old manner. Also we possess numerous buildings which represent the rather later form of the theatre (the building with fixed proscenium), and which belong to that period to which the remarks of Vitruvius apply. From the Lycurgean theatre we learn that there was no stage high or low. A platform for actor or orator is only necessary when the audience are all on a flat area. If they sit on a slope, a stage is more inconvenient than if the speaker stands on the ground. And so, in the earliest times, when there was no sloping auditorium, Thespis, for example, performed upon a cart. In Italy the slope came into use only late, and the stage had been widely adopted before that time—for there was no chorus to provide for. When the Greek theatre was introduced into Italy, the Roman form was invented. They did not abandon their own stage, but divided the Greek orchestra into two parts of different height. The farther half, now superfluous (the chorus having vanished) could be used for spectators or gladiators. This portion was (in earlier theatres of the true Greek type) excavated and filled with fresh seats. The stage was, of course, not made higher than the lowest eyes.

The nature of the proscenium in Greek theatres was not suitable for the supporting wall of a stage. It would be absurd to see a temple in the air above a colonnade. Again, it was impossible to act on top of the proscenium. The fear of falling, when the actor wore a mask and was forced to approach the edge in order to be well seen by the lowest spectators, would spoil his acting. Finally, why was the proscenium-front not a tangent of the orchestra circle? It should have been brought as far forward as possible if they acted on top of it.

To sum up. The orchestra in the earliest period was the place of the chorus and the actors. It kept that function when the scēnē was erected beside it as a background. The chorus used the whole circle, the actors only part of it and the ground which lay in front of the scēnē. No change in this arrangement was made later. The actors in Roman times, of course, stood above the level of the excavated semicircle. But they remained throughout at the same distance from the spectators and at the same level—that of the old orchestra.

How then are we to deal with Vitruvius’ statement about the height of the stage? Dörpfeld suggested that Vitruvius used plans and descriptions made by a Greek; Vitruvius, in absence of any warning, taking it (as a Roman) for granted there was a stage, saw it in the proscenium; or he may have misunderstood the phrase ἐπὶ σκηνῆς in his Greek authority. But such a fundamental error made by a professional architect, who even if he had never been in Greece, must have known many persons familiar with Greek acting, is extremely hard to assume. Yet the mistake is credible as regards the Greek theatre of the fourth and fifth centuries.

Amidst the mass of evidence and argument, only an outline of which is here presented, it is difficult to decide. The majority of inquirers will probably be swayed as regards the theatre of Sophocles and Astydamas by two considerations: the acting exigencies of the plays we now read or know of, and their own feeling as to how the performance would look with a stage and without. It seems, perhaps, most likely that Dörpfeld is right: that there was no stage, though when the façade represented a palace or temple a few steps might naturally appear.