V. The Performers and Their Work

A tragic performance was carried out by actors, extra performers, flute-player, and chorus. All these were men.

Extra performers, though they take up very little space in our text, were important to the spectacle. Mutes were often needed. Not only did these figure as attendants, crowds, and the like; they are sometimes important to the plot though they do not happen to speak. The jury of Areopagites in Eumenides is vital; children such as Eurysaces in Ajax, and the sons of Medea, are important. Other extra performers were those who had very small speaking or singing parts, such as Eumelus in Alcestis. This would seem to mean a fourth actor, but, so slight was the part always allotted, that it is not an unreasonable statement that there were never more than three actors. Thirdly, an extra chorus was occasionally needed for a short scene, as the Propompi in Eumenides and the Huntsmen in Hippolytus. Any such extra performer was called a parachoregema (παραχορήγημα, “extra supply”) and was paid by the choregus, as the name shows. (The regular chorus was paid by the State.) At times a chorus sang behind the scenes and was then called a “parascenion”; this function would, if possible, be performed by members of the regular chorus.

Instrumental music was supplied by a single flute-player, paid by the choregus. He was stationed in the orchestra, very likely upon the step of the thymele, and accompanied all songs. At times a harpist was added to the flute-player; Sophocles had great success with that instrument in his own Thamyris. At the end of a play the flute-player led the chorus out of the orchestra. The music itself is a subject complicated and obscure. Practically none of it has survived, and the details are naturally difficult to determine; but some main facts are clear. Though there was much singing and dancing the music composed by the tragedians was vastly more simple than that of a modern opera. All choral singing was in unison, and as a rule the words dominated the music. The result was that an audience followed the language of an ode with ease, nor is it likely that such lyrics as those of the Agamemnon or the Colonus-song, not to mention many others, which are masterpieces of literature, would have been written were they fated to be drowned by elaborate music. Nevertheless a distinct change took place even in the fifth century, owing chiefly to the eminent composer Timotheus, whose innovations were of course looked upon by conservative taste as corrupt; the comic playwright Pherecrates grumbles about the way in which his notes scurry hither and thither like ants in a nest, a charge repeated almost in the same words by Aristophanes against Agathon. Euripides followed the new manner, and his novelties are brilliantly caricatured in the Frogs: the elaborate but thin libretto and the trills. The increasing use of monodies, or solos by an actor, which we find in Euripides—the exotic but effective performance of the Phrygian slave in Orestes is a conspicuous instance—also points to the growing importance of musical virtuosity. Greek music was composed in certain modes (νόμοι), the precise difference between which is not clear, though the ethical distinctions are known. The Dorian mode was austere and majestic, the Lydian and Mixolydian plaintive, the Phrygian passionate.

We come now to the actors. These three performers were able to present more than three persons, since they could change mask and costume behind the scenes. One of them far outshone the others in importance—the “protagonist” (πρωταγωνιστής, “first competitor”). He alone was allotted to the poet by the archon; the “deuteragonist” and “tritagonist,” he selected himself; he alone could be a competitor for the acting prize. The most important rôle was of course performed by him. In many dramas this was a vast responsibility; Hamlet himself—the proverbial instance—is not more vital to his play than Prometheus, Œdipus, or Medea to theirs. The other two divided the minor parts among them; it was the custom to give a tritagonist the rôle of a king when only spectacularly important—the Doge in The Merchant of Venice would have been just the part. In earlier dramas it is plain which rôle would be given to the protagonist; there is no mistaking the pre-eminence of Clytæmnestra in Agamemnon or of Philoctetes. But in some later works it is not clear who is the outstanding character. In the Bacchæ Dionysus and Pentheus, in the Orestes Electra and her brother, have parts of fairly equal importance. In such cases the protagonist would take an important rôle and a minor rôle. Change of costume took little time, as examination of structure sometimes shows.

This restriction of the “company” to three actors had important influence upon both plot and presentation. As for plot, however many persons a dramatist used, he clearly could not bring more than three of them forward together. But the power to do even this was frugally used: there are but few instances of a genuine three-cornered conversation; one of the three in turn is generally silent. In the Recognition-scene of the Tauric Iphigenia, Orestes, Pylades, and Iphigenia are all present, but though the éclaircissement fills about two hundred lines, the only part of it in which all three share is but twenty lines in length. This frugality indicates that the simplicity of Greek tragedy is a result not only of external conditions, but of the poets’ deliberate choice. As for presentation, the restriction to three actors would result in excellent playing of minor parts: a thoroughly competent performer would discharge such short but important rôles as that of the Butler in Alcestis and the Herald in Agamemnon. Anyone who has been depressed by wooden Macduffs and Bassanios will realize the value of this method.

A Greek actor combined the functions of a modern actor and of an operatic performer. Lyrics performed by actor and chorus together were called “commi” (κομμοί): the most elaborate instance is the great and lengthy invocation of Agamemnon’s shade in the Choephorœ. A solo by an actor was known as a “monody”; Euripides is particularly fond of these; Ion’s song is perhaps the most attractive. Finally, two or three actors might sing alternately to each other without the chorus; no name for this has been preserved. Certain other passages were neither sung nor spoken, but delivered in recitative: in tragedy these were the dialogue-trochaics and anapæsts. Iambics were spoken (or “declaimed”). Obviously the voice is of great importance to an actor’s proficiency, above all in a vast open-air theatre, but Greek writers lay even more stress upon it than we should have expected. Both volume and subtlety were demanded. This is illustrated by a famous story. An actor named Hegelochus ruined the sick-bed scene in Orestes by a slip in pronunciation. Orestes, on recovering from delirium, says (v. 279):—

ἐκ κυμάτων γὰρ αὖθις αὖ γαλήν’ ὁρῶ

“after the billows once more I see a calm”. The unlucky player instead of saying γαλήν’ said γαλῆν, “once more do I see a weasel coming out of the waves”. The theatre burst into laughter, for correct pronunciation was far more insisted upon than in the English theatre of to-day. The status of the acting profession rose steadily as time went on. At first the poet acted as protagonist, but this practice was dropped by Sophocles, owing to the weakness of his voice. From that time acting was free to develop as a separate profession. In the middle of the fifth century a prize for acting was instituted, and the actor’s name began to be added in the official records of victories. In the fourth century the importance of the player increased still more. We have seen that he was so vital to the success of a playwright that for fairness’ sake the three protagonists each acted in a single tragedy of each poet. We often hear of brilliant acting successes. In the fourth century an Actors’ Guild was formed at Athens and continued in existence for centuries. Its object was to protect the remarkable privileges held by the “artists of Dionysus”. They were looked upon as great servants of religion, and were not only in high social esteem but possessed definite privileges, especially the right of safe-conduct through hostile states and exemption from military service. About the beginning of the third century before Christ the Amphictyonic Council, at the instance of the Guild itself, renewed a decree, the terms of which have fortunately been preserved, affirming the immunity of person and property granted to the Athenian actors.

The chorus, we have seen, was originally the only celebrant of the Dionysiac festival. As the importance of the actors increased it became less and less vital to the performance. Its numbers, its connexion with the plot, and the length and relevance of its songs, all steadily diminished.

Originally there were fifty choristers, but we learn that early in the fifth century there were only twelve, and it is suggested that this change was due to the introduction of tetralogies—the fifty choreutæ being divided as equally as possible between the four dramas. Sophocles, it is said, raised the number to fifteen. This account is doubtful. It is not in the nature of things likely that Æschylus (if it was he) caused or approved such an immense drop in numbers, from fifty to twelve: for the notion that the original chorus was split up into four is frivolous. Is it not obvious that a poet would employ the same choristers for each play of his tetralogy? Again, that Sophocles should chafe at Æschylus’ twelve singers and alter the number, and that by a mere trifle of three, is quite unlikely. There is, moreover, strong evidence that the elder poet used fifty choreutæ, at any rate in his earlier time. The Supplices has for chorus the daughters of Danaus, and their exact number, fifty, was a familiar datum of the legend. The natural view is that Æschylus began with fifty, that Sophocles ended with fifteen, and that between these two points the number gradually sank. Whether the choreutæ after the fifth century became still fewer is not clearly known; there is some evidence that at times they were only seven.

Next, the dramatic value of the chorus steadily went down. In our earliest tragedy, the Æschylean Supplices, the chorus of Danaids is absolutely vital; they are the chief, almost the sole, interest. In other works of the same poet their importance is certainly less, but still very great; everywhere they are deeply interested in the fate of the chief persons—Xerxes, Eteocles, Prometheus, Agamemnon, Orestes; the chorus of the Eumenides is even more closely attached to the plot. In Sophocles a certain change is to be felt. The connexion between chorus and plot is of much the same quality as in the five plays just mentioned, but the emotional tie and (still more) the tie of self-interest are weaker. The chorus of Greek seamen in Philoctetes are (in the abstract) as deeply concerned in the issue as the Oceanids in Prometheus, but most readers would probably agree that they show it less; we can “think away” the chorus more easily from the Philoctetes. In all the other six Sophoclean dramas the interest of the chorus in the action is about the same as in the Philoctetes—strong but scarcely vital. Euripides’ work shows more variety. Alcestis, Heracleidæ, Hecuba, Ion, Troades, Iphigenia in Tauris, Helen, and Rhesus all possess choruses which are prima-facie Sophoclean in this regard, though their language tends to show less personal concern. In other dramas, Medea, Hippolytus, Andromache, Electra, Phœnissæ, Orestes, Iphigenia at Aulis, the chorus is simply a company of spectators. Thirdly, in two plays, Supplices and Bacchæ, the importance of the chorus is thoroughly Æschylean. In Euripides, then, there is found on the whole a weakening in the dramatic value of the chorus: in some instances the singers are little more than random visitors. In the fourth century Aristotle protests against this: “the chorus too should be regarded as one of the actors; it should be an integral part of the whole, and share in the action, in the manner not of Euripides but of Sophocles”.

A precisely similar change operated in the length of the ode. The lyrics of Æschylus’ Supplices form more than half the work, those of Orestes only one-ninth. Even at the end of Æschylus’ career we find in the Agamemnon odes magnificent, elaborate, and lengthy. Sophocles composed shorter songs which were still closely germane to the plot. But in Euripides there frequently occur lyrics whose connexion with the plot is slight, sometimes difficult to make out. Agathon carried this still further: his odes are mere interludes, quite outside the plot.

The fifteen choristers usually entered through the parodos, marching like soldiers. Drawn up in ranks upon the orchestra, they followed the action with their backs to the audience but faced about when they sang. Their work fell into two parts, the odes sung between the episodes, and participation in the episodes. The entrance-song was called the parodos or “entrance,” and was written in anapæstic rhythm, suitable for marching. If so, it was chanted in recitative; lyrics were sung. Songs between episodes were called stasima. This means “stationary songs,” not because the singers stood still but because they had taken up their station in the orchestra. As they left at the end they sang an exodos or “exit” in anapæsts. Besides these, there were occasional hyporchemes (ὑπορχήματα, “dances”), short, lively songs expressing sudden joy. All lyrics were rendered by both song and dance. Singing was generally executed by all the choreutæ, but some passages were divided between them. The most frequent division was into two semi-choruses (ἡμιχόρια), but now and then individuals sang a few words. Incidental iambic lines were spoken by one person, and the short anapæstic system which at the end of the lyric often announces the approach of an actor was no doubt assigned to the coryphæus, or chorus-leader alone. Dancing was also an essential feature, but both Greeks and Romans meant more by dancing than do we, or than we did before the rise of “Salome” performances. It was in fact a mimetic display, giving by the rhythmic manipulation of all the limbs an imitation of the emotions expressed, or the events described, by the song. The whole company, moreover, went through certain evolutions over the surface of the orchestra. When they sang the strophe they moved in one direction, back again for the antistrophe, and perhaps stood still when there was an epode. But nothing is known as to details here. The centre of all the dancing was the coryphæus (κορυφαῖος, “top man”), the leader of the chorus; when two semi-choruses acted separately each had its leader. As was natural, choric dancing flourished mightily in the early days, and went down with lyrical performance in general. Thus Phrynichus congratulated himself on having devised “as many figures of the dance as are the billows on the sea under a dread night of storm”. Æschylus too was a brilliant ballet-master. But Plato, the comic playwright, at the end of the same century grumbles amusingly:—

There was something to watch when the dancing was good,
But now there’s no acting to mention—
Just a paralysed row of inflexible singers,
Who howl as they stand at attention.

During the best period of the chorus its mimetic dancing must have been a wonderful spectacle. We hear of highly-skilled performers who could reproduce action so that the audience followed every detail. They seem to have “accompanied” some portions of the episodes in this manner; and that fact may account for a rather curious feature in the Ion. The messenger gives a remarkably detailed description of the designs upon the embroideries wherewith Ion roofed his great banqueting-marquee—the constellations and “Dawn pursuing the stars” are all described. Possibly this was written for the sake of an unusually brilliant mimetic evolution by groups of choreutæ.

The chorus had other duties during the episodes. As a body they normally showed themselves interested spectators; thus the chorus of Orestes enter in order to inquire of Electra concerning her sick brother. Not infrequently they do more, taking an actual share in events. At the close of Agamemnon the Argive elders are at point to do battle with Ægisthus and his henchmen; in Alcestis they join the funeral procession; at other times they aid the persons of the play, not only by misleading enemies (Choephorœ) or directing friends (Œdipus Tyrannus) but by keeping watch (Orestes). Further, the coryphæus almost always delivers two or three lines at the end of every long speech, save when it ends a scene. These little interpolations are invariably obvious and feeble. After Hermione’s tirade against women the coryphæus comments thus: “Too freely hast thou indulged thy tongue against thy sex. It is pardonable in thee, but still women should gloss over the weaknesses of women.” Anyone who has listened to the delivery of some splendid passage in Shakespeare, an outburst of Lear or Mercutio’s Queen Mab speech, will remember how the applause which follows it drowns the next speaker’s opening lines. Some pause is needed. This is provided in Greek tragedy by the insertion of a line or two which will not be missed if inaudible.

The satyric chorus diverged little from the tragic in the points discussed under this section. It had, however, a special type of dance called the “Sikinnis”. “One of the postures used ... was called the owl, and is variously explained by the old grammarians as having consisted in shading the eyes with the hands, or in turning the head to and fro like an owl.”