The theatrical cast of Athens : interactions between ancient Greek drama and society / Edith Hall.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hall, Edith, 1959-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Greek drama--History and criticism.

Greek drama.

Theater--Greece--Athens--History--To 500.

Theater.

Greece--Athens.

History.

Athens (Greece)--Social life and customs.

Athens (Greece).

Physical Description:

xi, 481 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2006.

Summary:

When they watched the tragedies, satyr plays, and comedies performed in their theatre of Dionysus, by elaborately dressed and highly skilled performers, the ancient Athenians wept and laughed at dramatized fictions in which they took infinite pleasure. The cast of characters invented by the playwrights, and brought to life by star actors, influenced and came to inhabit other dimensions of experience, from dreams to historiography and philosophical argumentation. But this theatrical cast also enacted plots that addressed the most pressing social and psychological issues affecting the Athenians in reality-families in crisis, interethnic hostilities, war, class, and litigation. Edith Hall explores the numerous different ways in which we can understand the relationship between the real, social world in which the Athenians lived and the theatrical roles that they invented. In twelve studies of role types and the theatrical conventions that contributed to their creation-including women in childbirth, drowning barbarians, horny satyrs, allegorical representations of Comedy, peasant farmers, tragic masks, and solo sung arias-she advances the argument that the interface between ancient Greek drama and social reality must be understood as a complicated and incessant process of mutual cross-pollination.

Contents:

2 The Theatrical Roles of Athens 16

3 Childbearing Women: Birth and Family Crisis in Ancient Drama 60

4 Visible Women: Painted Masks and Tragic Aesthetics 99

5 Horny Satyrs and Tragic Tetralogies 142

6 Female Personifications of Poetry in Old Comedy 170

7 Recasting the Barbarian 184

8 The Scythian Archer in Aristophanes' Thesmophoriazusae 225

9 Drowning Act: The Greeks, Swimming, and Timotheus' Persians 255

10 Singing Roles in Tragedy 288

11 Casting the role of Trygaeus in Aristophanes' Peace 321

12 Lawcourt Dramas: Acting and Performance in Legal Oratory 353.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [400]-454) and index.

ISBN:

0199298890

OCLC:

70881680