The visual effect of the staging of Aeschylus' plays was an essential part of their impact. And yet all that survives today are the scripts. Imagination, helped by anachronistic sources, has played the chief role for those dealing with the dramaturgy of Aeschylus' works, and the result hasusually been stages crowded with extras and equipment.In this book, the author approaches the subject from a completely different angle. He clears the stage and looks for clues of Aeschylus' stagecraft in the texts of the plays themselves. He concentrates his study in an analysis of the exits and entrances in Aeschylus' works with constant reference tothe practice of Sophocles and Euripides as well. His arguments and conclusions are fascinating and thought-provoking, and make the book indispensable for anyone interested in ancient Greek drama and its staging.

This book examines the performance of Greek tragedy in the classical Athenian theatre. David Wiles explores the performance of tragedy as a spatial practice specific to Athenian culture, at once religious and political. After reviewing controversies and archaeological data regarding the fifth-century performance space, Wiles turns to the chorus and shows how dance mapped out the space for the purposes of any given play. The book shows how performance as a whole was organised and, through informative diagrams and accessible analyses, Wiles brings the theatre of Greek tragedy to life.

"This vivid and accessible translation captures the drama of Aeschylus' poetry and the excitement of the action in performance." --VICTORIA WOHL, University of Toronto "This critical edition provides a lavish and fulsome picture of ancient Greek tragedy's most significant surviving document." --JOHANNA HANINK, Brown University

Is "space" a thing, a container, an abstraction, a metaphor, or a social construct? This much is certain: space is part and parcel of the theater, of what it is and how it works. In The Play of Space, noted classicist-director Rush Rehm offers a strikingly original approach to the spatial parameters of Greek tragedy as performed in the open-air theater of Dionysus. Emphasizing the interplay between natural place and fictional setting, between the world visible to the audience and that evoked by individual tragedies, Rehm argues for an ecology of the ancient theater, one that "nests" fifth-century theatrical space within other significant social, political, and religious spaces of Athens. Drawing on the work of James J. Gibson, Kurt Lewin, and Michel Foucault, Rehm crosses a range of disciplines--classics, theater studies, cognitive psychology, archaeology and architectural history, cultural studies, and performance theory--to analyze the phenomenology of space and its transformations in the plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. His discussion of Athenian theatrical and spatial practice challenges the contemporary view that space represents a "text" to be read, or constitutes a site of structural dualities (e.g., outside-inside, public-private, nature-culture). Chapters on specific tragedies explore the spatial dynamics of homecoming ("space for returns"); the opposed constraints of exile ("eremetic space" devoid of normal community); the power of bodies in extremis to transform their theatrical environment ("space and the body"); the portrayal of characters on the margin ("space and the other"); and the tragic interactions of space and temporality ("space, time, and memory"). An appendix surveys pre-Socratic thought on space and motion, related ideas of Plato and Aristotle, and, as pertinent, later views on space developed by Newton, Leibniz, Descartes, Kant, and Einstein. Eloquently written and with Greek texts deftly translated, this book yields rich new insights into our oldest surviving drama.

Surveys important Greek and Roman authors, plays, characters, genres, historical figures and more.

Aeschylus' Oresteia, Sophocles' Oedipus plays, Euripides' Medea and Bacchae, and Aristophanes' Birds and Lysistrata are discussed in this lively and scholarly volume. The author's experience teaching these plays to gifted high school students makes this volume particularly useful. The drama festivals, the adaptations of myth, the relevance of Aristotelian criteria, and the political and cultural background of each play are described fully, and the nature of tragedy and comedy, plot construction, stagecraft, theme, character, imagery and individual odes and speeches are analyzed in depth. The 5th century BC witnessed the flourishing of Athenian culture and was one of the most influential periods in history. The achievements of the Greeks at that time forever shaped our political and legal institutions and provided the foundation for Western civilization. At the same time, the world of the Greeks is distant and exotic to contemporary students. The values and beliefs of the Greeks are best represented in the plays that were crafted at that time, and these works continue to be widely read and studied. This book is a valuable introduction to ancient Greek drama. Designed for high school students, undergraduates, and their teachers, this work describes the origins and physical aspects of ancient Greek theatre, discusses Aristotle's Poetics, and analyzes, in ten separate chapters, ten frequently studied Greek plays: Aeschylus' Oresteia, Sophocles' Antigone, Oedipus Rex and Oedipus at Colonus, Euripides' Medea and Bacchae and Aristophanes' Birds and Lysistrata. For each there is cultural, political and mythological background, plot synopsis, and analysis of overall structure and important scenes, speeches and odes. The Aristophanes chapters explore comic method and all chapters discuss theme and stagecraft in depth.

"Classical scholar James C. Hogan provides a general introduction to Aeschylean theater and drama, followed by a line-by-line commentary on each of the seven plays. He draws on a vast range of scholarship and criticism to give modern readers the most accurate picture possible of what ancient audiences saw and understood in the spectacle of Greek tragedy. Hogan places Aeschylus in the historical, cultural, and religious context of fifth-century Athens, showing how the action and metaphor of Aeschylean theater can be illuminated by information on Athenian law, athletic contests, relations with neighboring states, beliefs about the underworld, demons, omens, and divination, and countless other details of Hellenic life. He clarifies terms that might puzzle modern readers, such as place names and mythological references, and gives special attention to textual and linguistic issues: controversial questions of interpretation; difficult or significant Greek words; use of style, rhetoric, and commonplaces in Greek poetry; and Aeschylus's place in the poetic tradition of Homer, Hesiod, and the elegiac poets. Practical information on staging and production is also included, as the author has kept in mind the need of modern readers to visualize the drama in order to understand the text. Though little is known about Greek choreography and music, Hogan stresses their central role and provides notes on entrances and exits, the use of extras, costuming, tableaux, masks, the use of a stage, the interaction of chorus and actors, tone, gesture, style of acting, and spectacle."--Back cover

Bringing together some of the best work from the 2015 Comparative Drama Conference in Baltimore, this book covers subjects from ancient Greece to 21st century America with a variety of approaches and formats, including two transcripts, 10 research papers and six book reviews. This year's highlight is the keynote conversation featuring Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Lindsay-Abaire. This volume is the twelfth in a series dedicated to presenting the latest research in the fields of comparative drama, performance and dramatic textual analysis.