Greek Theater Production

Abstract

Greek theater production means the physical manner in which ancient Greek (mainly Athenian) drama was realized in the theater. This includes the use of masks, costumes, props; set, machinery, and vehicles; the way in which the architectural form of the theater affected the staging (such as entrances and exits); the stage movements (blocking) of the performers; the financial elements that enabled the production of the plays; and the wider cultural environment of the religious festivals within which ancient Greek drama was performed. Although tragedy, comedy and satyrlike performances are attested to elsewhere in the Greek world, most of our evidence for drama in the Classical period comes from Athens. We know of 6th- and early-5th-century performance spaces in Sparta, Argos, Sicily, Athens, and the demes of Attica: although apart from Athens we do not know if narrative drama was performed there or if they were choral dance or ritual spaces. Apart from fragments of plays by Aeschylus possibly produced in Sicily, all of the extant plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, and Menander were intended for production in Athens. It is also likely that the fragments of the plays of other dramatists from this period were also intended for the Athenian theater, although they may have been re-performed elsewhere. As theater spread throughout the Hellenistic period we find much more material-culture evidence of drama, although less textual evidence. It is important to note that the Greek theater stagecraft developed rapidly and underwent a number of significant changes. The theater also changed architecturally from a temporary wooden stand overlooking a level dancing space (orchestra) at a sanctuary or in a marketplace to a large stone edifice capable of accommodating thousands of people. The texts of ancient plays have come down to us without stage directions. Scholars have attempted to reconstruct Greek theater production techniques from evidence derived from the plays themselves, the material-culture evidence of architectural remains of theater spaces, the iconography of vase painting and sculpture, epigraphic records, and later scholia and commentaries from Hellenistic, Roman, and medieval scholars. As a result there are many controversial issues such as the shape and size of the theater space, the use of scenery and scene painting (or not), the introduction of the scene building and the entrances, exits, and stage movements of the performers.