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Franco Manzoni

In the ancient Athens, dramatic poetry was born as a manifestation of unit between audience and author-actor.
To understand the texts of the Greek tragedy we also have to clear in which way “tragedy” was born. According to Aristotle, it derives from a dithyramb (a choral song in honour of Dionysus).
The festival was a usual manifestation for the contemporary society, but also in the classical Greece, the competitive aspect took to the idea of the game, agon. In 534 b.C., as the authors say, when Pisistratus, the tyrant of Athens, organized Dionysiae, poet Thespis won the first competition for tragedy. Originally, the authors were the characters of their own works. Thespis passed to history because for the first time introduced an actor, who, in the clothing of the various characters, replied to the choir.
Another meaning of tragedy is the one of “goats' song”. Indeed, ”tragoi” were the followers of Dionysus who even masked as goats. Surely, the dramas before the true tragedy can be related to forms of pre-Hellenic religiosity.
Historically, the first stable theatre was built in Athens, when Pisistratus established the dramatic competitions between 536 and 533 b.C. The arrangement of a drama implied a remarkable cost. Then rhe archon of Athens (the “Lord Major” for one year of the town) addressed to a private citizen asking him to be the sponsor or promoter of a dramaturgist. After the first period, when the theater was built in wood, under Lycurgus (between 338 and 334 b.C.) the stone theater was built. As mentioned above, the actor at the beginning was only one who played several roles and dialogued with the choir. With Aeschylus the actors became two and, finally, with Sophocles and Euripides became three.
We remind that in Greece no actresses were on the stage. Like in the Elisabethaean theatre, all the female roles were played by men. To play several roles, the actor wore a mask, made of linen, cork or wood. With the face painted in white for the female roles and in dark grey for the male roles, the masked actors had the face and the whole head covered. According to Pollux, there were 28 masks of repertoire.
But why the Greeks used them? Let us figure how was the theatre in Athens. The actors were on the stage at a distance of about 18 metres from the first row and of nearly 90 m from the last row. Of course, at such a distance, the changes of mood on the face were virtually invisible, while the audience was interested in understanding immediately which was the character.
At any rate, the most important factor was the strength of the voice and of the word pronounced. The actor followed a meticulous training to have a loud voice to be heard through the theatre without shouting. The actor should be then able to change voice with the same easiness as he changed his mask, shifting from man to woman, from young to old.
Let us now discuss the function of the choir, which consisted only of 12 persons in the tragedies, then of 15 persons after Sophocles. During the course of the events, coryphaei enrichened the show singing and dancing, a sort of pantomime mimicking the scenes of the dialogue.
Music should not alter or hide the words. Therefore, it had a function of accompaniment and nothing more. Scenography always remained very simple, without omitting the effects of prospect. All the people participated in the show. The citizens could enter the theatre free and, even when an entrance ticket was paid, the government of Athens established to contribute for the cost in favour of the poor citizens making the rich to pay for the preparation of the tragedy, a tax called “liturgy”.
The theatre of Acropolis could accomodate about 16 thousand persons. Let us analyze at this point one of the most famous tragedies of Aeschylus (who lived between 525 and 456 b.C.), namely ”Prometeus Bound”.
In spite of the apparent static action - during the whole drama, Prometeus remains still, chained to a cliff of Scitia by Kratos (the strength), Dia (the violence) and Ephestus, according to the order of Zeus - Aeschylus created a very high poetry and a plot with many “coupes de théatre”. Prometeus is a puppet, oppressed but immortal, martyr but revolutionary, benefactor but thief. He becomes the symbol of human existence, he is the heir of a celestial sovereignty usurped by Zeus. However, while Prometeus is the emblem of the ancient divine lineage, which steals the fire to give it to mortals, Zeus embodies the order and justice.
The modern interpretation of Prometeus intends to represent a will, namely to never submit to violence, to never surrender, though knowing the expected punishment, if we fight for a proper cause.
This is the value of the ancient myths, which are always more updated and close to our needs of thinking about reality.

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