Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- 1 The problem of space
- 2 The Theatre of Dionysus
- 3 Focus on the centre point
- 4 The mimetic action of the chorus
- 5 The chorus: its transformation of space
- 6 Left and right, east and west
- 7 Inside/outside
- 8 The vertical axis
- 9 The iconography of sacred space
- 10 Orchêstra and theatron
- Select bibliography
- Index
2 - The Theatre of Dionysus
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 January 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- 1 The problem of space
- 2 The Theatre of Dionysus
- 3 Focus on the centre point
- 4 The mimetic action of the chorus
- 5 The chorus: its transformation of space
- 6 Left and right, east and west
- 7 Inside/outside
- 8 The vertical axis
- 9 The iconography of sacred space
- 10 Orchêstra and theatron
- Select bibliography
- Index
Summary
Most, if not all, extant Greek tragedies were written for the Theatre of Dionysus Eleuthereus in Athens. Alas, archaeological evidence for the shape of that theatre in the mid fifth century is confined, effectively, to a tiny arc of half a dozen stones, for the rest has vanished in the course of a sequence of rebuildings. Archaeologists dispute whether the auditorium was round or trapezoidal, whether the playing area was circular or rectangular (and if circular, how large a circle), and whether or not there was a stage. Rather than confront the arguments directly, we shall begin by examining a number of other early theatrical spaces where there was no subsequent metropolitan development, and the evidence remains relatively intact. A study of comparable spaces, in the context of how they were used, will help us to understand how the Athenians would have conceived a space for theatrical performance. We shall look for evidence not of spaces but of spatial practices.
Our starting point must be the deme theatres of Attica. The demes were organized as the city in microcosm, and in many we hear of ‘theatres’, together with performances of tragedies, comedies and dithyrambs. Across Attica there was an organizational infrastructure that we can only glimpse. Although most of the evidence for dramatic performance is from the fourth century, it is reasonable to infer that the tradition is older. A fifth-century decree from Ikarion refers explicitly to a system of chorêgia and to a full tragic chorus.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Tragedy in AthensPerformance Space and Theatrical Meaning, pp. 23 - 62Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1997