Bilder des griechischen Theaters.

by Richard Green, Eric Handley

Greek theatre was one of the glories of the ancient world. It survives not only in cultural traditions, but in plays which can still be read and seen and in artistic images. This book examines the history of Greek theatre as seen through representations on painted pottery, terracotta figures, sculpture, mosiacs, metalware and gems. Depictions of performances, actors and their masks were frequent in classical times and continued to appear down to the fifth and sixth centuries AD and beyond, long after the plays had ceased to be staged. The remains of actual theatres and texts of surviving plays also help to give us an idea of how Greek drama developed from the choral origins and how it must have appeared in its heyday. Painted or sculpted representations may not be as literal as photographs, but they tell us much about Greek drama as its ancient admirers saw it. Terracottas and vase paintings often show details of costumes, masks, and stage settings. They also give glimpses of scenes from lost plays, as well as from famous and familiar ones. Most important of all, they allow us to recapture, in part, how theatre was seen and experienced by its first audiences and how images of it informed their lives and cultures.

Genres: Nonfiction

118 pages, Hardcover

First published February 27, 1995

Reviews

[Nick Wellings · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brief but excellent. Copiously padded with plates and illustrations. Nearly all items herein are in the collection of British Museum and are well presented here.

Green and Handley's method references the various items depicted to illustrate the course of Greek theatre from inception to extinction (around 5th Century BC to 4th Century AD it seems.) A reader finds themselves flitting backward and forward through the images to trace lineages of design, evolution of staging, inheritance and later development of costume and mask. The authors also trace theatrical fashion beyond choice of costume to analyse popularity of comedy and tragedy through the ancient world, touching on their use as ritual and 'social glue' as well as entertainment. The plays of the time were a very big deal indeed. Around 20-50 men could be in one chorus and at one festival, participants numbered at least 1000 people. (The amount of manpower diverted from agriculture and manufacture certainly gives the lie to certain theories of humans as rational economic actors!)

There's not much text per se cited in this book but certain items and images (mainly vases) are shown to be from exact moments in plays. I found it fascinating that scholars can pin down the material facts of an item, both area of manufacture, probable date of manufacture and even sometimes an identity of the craftsman, but stronger, they can say definitively that this vase before us shows an identifiable moment from The Oresteia, Frogs, Seven Against Thebes etc. 'O Attic shape!' indeed...

As the authors write on the final page, we must give thanks to Porson (among many more, including the nameless thousands of monks and scribes who kept the Classical flame tended through the Dark Ages...oh, apologies, I mean 'Late Antiquity'.)

Overall: a nice quick read and truly fascinating.