File:The Greek theater and its drama (1918) (14784385315).jpg

Identifier: greektheateritsd00flic (find matches)
Title: The Greek theater and its drama
Year: 1918 (1910s)
Authors: Flickinger, Roy C. (Roy Caston), 1876-1942
Subjects: Greek drama -- History and criticism Theater -- Greece
Publisher: Chicago : University of Chicago Press
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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Text Appearing Before Image:
and Xanthias crouch down, where they are, to listen (vs. 315).
Immediately the orchestra, which has just been a subterranean
lake, is changed to the imagination into a flowery meadow
(vss. 326, 351, etc.). At vs. 431 Dionysus starts up from his
lurking-place and inquires of the chorus, "Could you tell us
where Pluto dwells hereabouts?" and the coryphaeus promptly
replies: "Know that you have come to the very door" (vs. 436).
Dionysus orders his slave to pick up the baggage, walks across
the orchestra (DE), and raps at the central door (£), which
represents the palace of Pluto (vss. 460 ff.). We need continue
no further, for the remainder of the play contains nothing that
is noteworthy for our present purpose; but it is already evident
how closely the successive situations of the comedy correspond
to the physical conditions and arrangements of a stageless
theater. To those who would apply Vitruvius account to the
Fig. 45 is from a photograph belonging to the University of Chicago. The
inscription beneath the seat reads:"Of the priest of Dionysus Eleuthereus".
Text Appearing After Image:
FIG. 45
STONE CHAIR OF THE PRIEST OF DIONYSUS OPPOSITE THE CENTER
OF THE ORCHESTRA IN ATHENS
See p. 90. n. I

INTRODUCTION 91
fifth-century theater, this play presents ineluctable difficulties;
there is insufficient room for Charons boat on a Vitruvian or any
other kind of a Greek stage, Dionysus must appeal to his priest
who is some eighty feet away,¹ Xanthias has no lake to run
around, and Dionysus must inquire the way to Plutos palace
when he would be standing considerably nearer to it than the
chorus. It was a convention in the earlier fifth-century plays that if
the chorus and one actor were before the audience, an incoming
actor should speak first to the chorus and ignore the other actor
for the time being (see pp. 165 f., below). This convention was
oftentimes extremely awkward and unnatural; but if both
actors had stood on a stage several feet above the chorus it
surely would have been altogether impossible. The only tangible argument for a stage of any height in the
fifth century is afforded by the occurrence of the words

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