Abstract
This article reviews the evidence for breach of dramatic illusion (outside the parabasis) in Old Comedy plays other than those of Aristophanes. Parallels can be found for several techniques attested in the surviving works of Aristophanes; for instance, dramatic illusion is broken in Plato Comicus fr. 167 to explain the situation to the audience (cf. Ar. Eq. 36, Vesp. 54, etc.), and in Pherecrates fr. 154 we have a good parallel for the speculation in Ar. Pax 43 & as to the thoughts of the audience and for the resentment of impatient interference from over-clever spectators. Explicit notice of the stage crane is also attested outside Aristophanes, and there are references to the ohoregus and to the victory-feast. One Aristophanic technique not certainly exemplified in the fragments of the other Old Comedians is that in Ach. 377 sq. and 496 sq., where a character speaks for the poet; Plato Comicus fr. 107 is not a definite parallel. Our evidence for lapse of dramatic illusion in the Old Comic fragments is best for Cratinus.
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