French Scenes in Greek Tragedy: The Scenic Structure of Classical DramaAuthor(s): Mark DamenReviewed work(s):Source: Theatre Journal, Vol. 55, No. 1, Ancient Theatre (Mar., 2003), pp. 113-134Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25069183 .Accessed: 23/09/2012 12:18

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French Scenes in Greek Tragedy: The Scenic Structure of Classical Drama

Mark Damen

In 19881 played Dionysus in a production of Euripides' Bacchae. Though I had acted

many times before?even that very role?the director of the play did something that

took me by surprise, not because I lacked prior experience with it but because I had never thought about it in terms of ancient drama. For practical purposes she broke the

play down into "French scenes," sequentially numbered sections of the script demar

cated by the movement of characters on and off the stage, a system often used today in

facilitating the organization of rehearsals and technical matters. Though well aware of

this practice, it had never occurred to me to think about its application to Greek tragedy.

As a basic tool in preparing a play for performance, this means of analyzing a play's scenic structure led me to wonder if the classical tragedians had not done something similar themselves since they surely oversaw the rehearsal process at least to some

extent. Obviously, as playwrights they could construct and organize characters'

entrances and exits, so it seems likely they could also have articulated the same to

themselves and others. That inevitable self-consciousness in the disposition of scenes

in tragedy led me to wonder whether ancient dramatists intentionally manipulated the frequency with which their characters moved on and off stage and, if so, how and

why. The following article is the result of that inquiry.

I. Introduction: The Question of Scenes

Over the course of the fifth century there is a manifest evolution in Athenian

tragedy toward a style of dramatic action featuring more complex character move ment imbedded within more intricate plots.1 Even in spite of the paucity of tragedies

Mark Damen is an Associate Professor at Utah State University where he teaches Classics, ancient

history, theatre history and playxvriting. He has published articles in Transactions of the American

Philological Association, Phoenix, Antichthon, Classical World ana Theatre Journal. Recently his translation of Hrotswitha's Dulcitius and Callimachus was

published in The Journal of The

Rocky Mountain Medieval and Renaissance Association, with a reprint in the forthcoming

Women Writing in Latin.

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the American Philological Association. I wish to

thank those who commented there, Sherry Keller, David Rom?n, Sun Hee Teresa Lee, and the

anonymous reviewers of this article for their help and insight. Their efforts have improved the piece

immeasurably. 1 In modern scholarship, scene length as measured by entrances and exits has not been addressed as

such, but the disposition of entrances and exits in Greek tragedy, and stagecraft in general, has received

Theatre Journal 55 (2003) 113-134 ? 2003 by The Johns Hopkins University Press

114 / Mark Damen

preserved, this trend is evident. So, for instance, when compared to the relatively staid

sequence of exits and entrances called for in Aeschylus' Persians (472 BCE), Euripides' Bacchae (406 BCE) evidences well the dynamism characteristic of classical tragedy in its

final stages, a quality achieved not only through radical treatment of characters and

the addition of plot elements but also by the disposition of the action into a greater number of what would be termed today "French scenes."2 Aristotle in The Poetics seems to have been aware of this: "And further [there was in later classical tragedy] a

plurality of episodes."3

Nor is it hard to imagine reasons why fifth-century tragedy evolved this way. The

division of tragic plots into a higher number of discrete units in the stage action leaves

behind an impression that the play's action is moving faster, that more is happening. This effect is likely to have pleased audiences demanding ever more from theatre in

general and growing better accustomed to following increasingly complicated dra

matic constructs, as surely the celebrants at the City Dionysia had become by the end

of the classical age. And in the same way that late- and post-classical Greek theatre

witnessed advances in stage machinery (e.g. the mechane, the keraunoskopeion, the

bronteion), Sophocles and Euripides exhibit a capacity to utilize more elaborate

character movement in the unfolding of more complex stage action, while at the same

much attention, going back at least a century, cf. E. Bodensteiner, "Szenische Fragen ?ber den Ort des

Auftretens und Abgehens von Schauspielern und Chor im griechischen Drama," Jahrb. f?r cl. Phil.,

Suppl. 19 (Leipzig 1893): 637-808. Primary among the works on which this study rests is Oliver Taplin, The Stagecraft of Aeschylus: The Dramatic Use of Exits and Entrances in Greek Tragedy (Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 1977). The significance of his book to this investigation is self-evident from the title,

though Taplin's exploration of "the handling of exits and entrances" (1) and "the relation of text to

action and of action to dramatic meaning" (3) does not coincide with my focus here. Likewise, David

Seale, Vision and Stagecraft in Sophocles (London: Croom Helm, 1982) and Michael R. Halleran, Stagecraft in Euripides (Totowa: Barnes & Noble, 1985) have informed much of my assessment of stage movement

in Sophocles and Euripides. My central aim, however, is different from Seale's who seeks to explicate "the intricacy of [Sophocles'] stagecraft" (12), and Halleran's intention of elucidating a "grammar of

dramatic technique" (1). Joe Park Poe, "The Determination of Episodes in Greek Tragedy," AJP 114

(1993): 343-96, has provided a solid foundation for assessing stage movement in classical theatre,

though, as with the others, his work does not bear directly on the central premise of this study. I will

henceforth refer to these works by the author's name alone. Other works have also contributed to this

study, in particular, T. B. L. Webster, Greek Theatre Production (London: Methuen, 1956), Walter Jens,

ed., Die Bauformen der griechischen Trag?die (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 1971), David Bain, Actors and

Audiences (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), and Arthur Pickard-Cambridge, The Dramatic

Festivals of Athens, 2nd ed., ed. John P. Gould and D. M. Lewis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988). 2 The term "French scene" derives from classical French theatre where the ostensible divisions in the

structure of plays rests on the entrances and exits of speaking characters. In employing the term

"scene" I do not mean to invoke any of the critical terminology discussed or introduced by Poe in "The

Determination," e.g. "unit of action" (349), nor even to tie my argument to his, since his and others'

investigations of the "formal structure" (348) of classical tragedy have centered on issues such as the

internal structure and organizing principles of scenes in tragedy, aspects of dramatic construction I do

not address in this study; cf. Walther Kranz, Stasimon (Berlin: Weidmann, 1933). In this study, "scene"

connotes "a dramatic unit defined by the entrance or exit of any major speaking character or

characters." 3 eti de epeisodion plethe (1449a28). Remarking on the same, D. W. Lucas, in Aristotle Poetics (Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 1968), 86, notes that "a longer play would use more incidents." There he cites

also the "general sense of augmentation" in plethe. Elsewhere in The Poetics (1459b30), Aristotle

recognizes the tragedian's need to avoid monotony in the way epic readily can "with countless

episodes."

THE SCENIC STRUCTURE OF CLASSICAL DRAMA / 115

time keeping their plots unified and focused. The heightened dramatic tension that

comes as larger and larger ensembles of characters move across the stage and

cumulative complications are introduced into the plot contributes to a more compel

ling theatre experience for viewers interested in pyrotechnics of that sort.

The mechanisms enabling this evolution are not hard to suppose either. Besides

audiences who provided the tragedians after Aeschylus with an environment condu

cive to a less static mode of drama, it is clear that later classical playwrights had the

benefit of building on their predecessors' work. So, for instance, with Aeschylus' Oresteia as guide, Euripides was able to telescope many of the plot elements spread over an entire trilogy composed fifty years earlier into only one play, Orestes, by

moving the stage action along much more rapidly.4 Surely, however, this capacity for

accelerating the plot was not the product of the poets' genius alone. They would have

needed players who could feasibly enact dramas of such a sort and whose perfor mances were of interest to audiences. This was, no doubt, the case, at least to judge from the awarding of prizes to actors at the Dionysia for the first time in the early 440's

and the later domination of theatre in the fourth century by star performers like

Neoptolemos and Polos.5 It seems likely, then, that the theatregoing public by the later

classical period had already begun showing a heightened interest in performance arts

as such, engendering a fertile climate for versatile players capable of carrying out

successfully the rigors entailed in a more action-oriented mode of drama, one highly

demanding of both physical and vocal stamina.

Thus, it is possible to posit within the larger evolution of fifth-century Athenian

tragedy a growing sophistication on the part of playwright, player, and playgoer

embracing more and more

vigorous character movement within a drama and result

ing in more dynamic stage activity. None of this is in question. The question is how

this evolution took place. Was it, for instance, as we are accustomed to expect, a

gradual sort of development toward increasing complexity, or did it follow a less

direct route? In other words, how much convolution was there to this evolution?

Likewise, do the individual author's works adhere to the same general scheme,

gravitating slowly over the course of their careers toward plays with swifter turnover

of scenes as they learn from practice and observing others' work how to manage ever

more intricate stage action? If so, when and how did they acquire this skill?

To answer these questions, it is necessary first to find a consistent means by which

to measure the degree of character movement in Greek tragedy (i.e. how long "scenes" are or how quickly they change), for only then can the reasons underlying this be

explored. Thus, it is the purpose of this paper, first, to devise an equitable and

universal method of determining scene length in Greek tragedy; second, to ascertain in as much detail as the data permit the nature of the evolution of scene structure over

the course of the classical age; third, to examine the possible reasons underlying any detectible patterns of change; and, finally, to investigate the larger ramifications of the

data collected here in our general appreciation of classical Greek theatre.

4 Euripides' Orestes includes several plot elements reminiscent of Aeschylus' trilogy: horn. Agamemnon,

a lyrical Trojan (Cassandra/Phrygian); from The Libation-Bearers, Electra's lamentation, Orestes'

murderous assault on an older female relative effected with Pylades' assistance; from Eumenides, Orestes' vision of Clytemnestra's Furies, his last-second rescue by Apollo and his trial.

5 Pickard-Cambridge, Dramatic Festivals, 72,126.

116 / Mark Damen

II. A Methodology for Assessing Average Scene Length in Greek Tragedy

It is essential from the outset to establish some method of analyzing the evidence

quantitatively and uniformly across the corpus of ancient Greek tragedy. This can

happen only by establishing firm criteria that can be applied to all the tragedians' works and used to measure the speed at which the stage action of any such drama moves. Therefore, if we construe a "scene" in the simplest possible terms as the

interval between the entrance and the exit of any speaking character (including choruses), it is possible to determine the number of scenes in a play by enumerating the entrances and exits which distinguish them, thus creating in modern terms a

succession of "French scenes."6 From that may be calculated a play's average scene

length if we divide the number of lines in the play by the number of scenes.7 This clear

cut, albeit arbitrary, determiner makes the collecting and processing of data relatively

easy to execute and will produce a rough indication of the frequency at which the

scenes of a play turned over in the ancient Greek theatre.

What difficulties may arise in the course of assessing the average scene length of

specific plays can be surmounted when strict rules are applied.8 So, for instance, if a

character enters unannounced, it may not be immediately evident at what line number

to assign the entrance, thus when the scene begins.9 It is necessary, then, to devise

methods for measuring scene length uniformly; they are as follows:10

6 Because choruses play a vital role in all classical tragedies, their movements constitute an essential

component of this study; see Appendix 1 at the end of the article.

7 While admittedly a random and often variable criterion, the conventional disposition of tragedies

into "lines" brings with it several important advantages over other possible means of calculating the

"length" of a play (e.g., counting words or syllables). Though the meters used in classical drama are far

from equal in syllable length, their variety across and within Greek tragedies helps level their

differences. Also, the longer meters like trochaic tetrameter were likely to have been spoken more

quickly, whereas the shorter ones such as choral lyrics were sung, thus extenuating the words in actual

performance. All in all, poetic "meter" is in many ways just that, a "measurement" of sorts, and as such

constitutes some indication of the passage of time on stage. So, if not a perfect criterion, it looks to be

the best indicator at hand, certainly adequate enough for giving a general impression of a play's run

time and how long it took to perform a succession of scenes on the ancient stage. 8 To succeed, this study must build primarily from an equitable measurement of average scene

length as attested for particular tragedies. This requires that strict and clear rules govern the collection

of the necessary information in order to ensure a balanced assessment of all plays under consideration.

In that case, matters involving the changes effected in a drama by the entrance or exit of a character or

what entails a new "configuration" on stage (see M. Pfister, The Theory and Analysis of Drama

[Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988], 171-76 and 291-94) can follow only after the orderly

gathering of data. Even if that means equating what are clearly long and complex "scenes" such as The

Libation-Bearers 22-585 with much less weighty dramatic passages such as Trachinian Women 813-21,

the rules must be applied uniformly to achieve credible results. Moreover, plays tend to have a

complement of shorter and longer scenes, thus balancing out the statistics, as The Libation-Bearers

demonstrates well; it has the single longest scene in Aeschylus?indeed in all of Greek tragedy?but it

is also his fastest-moving drama in terms of scene change. As for those dramas that have no such

balance, such as the static Prometheus or the briskly paced Rhesus, that is the very information we seek. 9 For the most part, slight variations in line assignments do not affect the calculation of the average

scene length in a play. Richard Hamilton, "Announced Entrances in Greek Tragedy," HSCP 82 (1978):

63-82 and Joe Park Poe, "Entrance-Announcements and Entrance-Speeches in Greek Tragedy," HSCP

94 (1992): 121-56, review the nature of announced entrances. It is, however, unannounced movement

that poses, in general, more problems for this study. 10 A fuller discussion of the enumeration of specific scenes through character movement and the

methodologies used in the article for measuring scene length is contained in Appendix 2 at the end of

the article.

THE SCENIC STRUCTURE OF CLASSICAL DRAMA / 117

1. All announced and unannounced movements that are necessitated by the

plot, are to be counted, and if it matters in the enumeration of scenes, characters are assumed to enter at or about the time they first speak or are

announced, addressed, or said to be on stage.

2. Simultaneous movements of characters on or off stage count as one entrance

or exit, and only those movements that are clearly discrete as two.

3. No movement that is not strictly necessitated by the action or the plot is to be

counted.

4. In accordance with the three-actor restriction, when there is a clear need for a

performer to make an offstage change of mask and costume, we must

suppose that one of the characters on stage has exited earlier, whether or not

there was an explicit announcement of that character's movement, so that the

actor who is to play the new role is provided suitable time to effect the change and re-enter as that character.11

5. In the same vein, an offstage

voice counts as an "entrance" since all such

intrusions into the stage action are significant and involve speaking actors

whose disposition must be carefully managed and designed by playwrights

following the three-actor restriction.12

6. Characters portrayed by mute actors, however central in the stage action, do

not serve to demarcate a change of scene.13

7. Finally, if a character is silent at first but speaks later in the play without

having left the stage, the entrance is counted from when the character first

appears.14 . - . .

11 The swift changes of mask and costume and the role-sharing required of the actors performing

Rhesus?e.g., Odysseus/Alexander (626/642), Diomedes/Odysseus (633/668)?are further evidence

that it is a post-classical tragedy, not Euripides'; see below, note 27. 12 This is justifiable insofar as offstage voices nearly always represent a sharp disruption and new

development in the stage action, much as entrances do. In any case, they do not happen often enough to affect general conclusions substantially and, by being applied across the board, introduce no undue

bias into the overall analysis of scene length in different authors. It is necessary, then, to treat all

offstage voices as discrete entrances, even in those instances when the same character as the offstage voice enters subsequently, e.g. Ajax (Aj. 333/348), Nurse (Trach. 862/871), Medea (Med. 96/214),

Polymestor (Hec. 1035/1056), Dionysus (Ba. 576/604), Old Man (IA 855/864). Adopting this criterion

actually facilitates the compilation of the data at certain junctures, such as the movements of the

Servant at LB 657: whether taken as an onstage presence or an offstage voice, this character's

"entrance" into the play demarcates a new scene according to the parameters of this study; see Taplin, The Stagecraft, 341. For an overview of offstage voices and their general use in Greek tragedy, see

Richard Hamilton, "Cries Within and the Tragic Skene," AIP 108 (1987): 585-99. 13 For example, "Citizens" (Seven 35), Antigone/Ismene (OT 1470), Children (Med. 1081), Athenian

Herald (exits at Eur. Supp. 394). The movements of mute characters frequently coincide with those of

speaking characters, which greatly decreases their impact on this study. When they do not, the exact

timing of their exits and entrances is often difficult to determine precisely; e.g. Hermes (Eum. 64-93), Handmaid (Hec. 484-628), Athenian Herald (Eur. Supp. 381-94). Moreover, rarely does their passage on or off stage betoken a scenic change as consequential to the drama as when a speaking character

enters or exits. All in all, omitting the movements of mute characters from the enumeration of scenes

simplifies matters without distorting the data significantly. 14 For example, Cassandra (Ag. 783/1072), Child (Ale. 244/393), Eurystheus (Heraclid. 928/983),

Adrastus (Eur. Supp. 1/113), Chorus (Eur. Supp. 1/42), Menoeceus (Phoen. 834/977).

118 / Mark Damen

By applying these criteria to the assessment of scenes in tragedy and comparing

plays across time, it will be possible to detect patterns, if any exist, in the overall

disposition of scenes in Greek tragedy as it unfolds across the fifth century. All in all, what is really being enumerated here are not episodes or "scenes'' by any conventional

definition, but the movements of actors on and off stage through their various roles.15

III. Overview of the Data

First, the evidence validates the general impression that Greek tragedy evolved

toward plays comprised of shorter scenes (Table 1). The average scene length of

Aeschylus' plays is notably higher (95.5) than that of his successors, Sophocles (72.3) and Euripides (67.8). While the range for the individual plays of all three playwrights is quite wide, a general tendency toward accelerating stage action over time clearly exists.

IV. Aeschylus' Tragedies

Contrary to the prevailing trend, however, the data for Aeschylus' surviving plays

dispel any notion that the evolution of average scene length in Greek tragedy toward a faster turnover of scenes proceeded in any gradual or even rectilinear fashion, at

least prior to 456 BCE (Table 2). Though it is true that classical tragedy on the whole

gravitated toward decreasing average scene length and that Aeschylus' fastest

moving play (The Libation-Bearers) falls among his last, at the same time the evidence is

clear that his drama in general cannot be taken to entail any demonstrable progress toward shorter scenes over time. In particular, when The Oresteia (Agamemnon, The

Libation-Bearers, Eumenides) embodies within a single trilogy both his play with the

lowest average scene length (The Libation-Bearers) and that with the second highest

Table 1. Overall Scene Length for the Classical Tragedians16

Averages Range

95.5 136.9-59.8

72.3 98.1-54.1

67.8 93.5-58.2

67.0 93.5-52.4]

Aeschylus

Sophocles

Euripides

[with Rhesus

15 Graham Ley, "A Scenic Plot of Sophocles' Ajax and Philoctetes," ?ranos 86 (1988): 106, notes the

significance of entrances and exits in Greek tragedy: "It is clear that in a form of this kind especially

(i.e. Greek tragic drama), where perhaps the very creation of what we understand as drama came

explicitly from the manipulation of the arrivals and departures of characters, there is unlikely to be

anything co-incidental about the introduction or removal of an actor into or from the presence of a

fixed and partly defining chorus/7 16 The full data for the breakdown of plays into scenes as determined by entrances and exits is

contained in Appendix 3 at the end of the paper. 17

Since the authorship of Rhesus is debated and its average scene length falls below the range attested for Euripides, I exclude it from the data here; see below, note 27.

THE SCENIC STRUCTURE OF CLASSICAL DRAMA / 119

Table 2. Aeschylus

Play

Entrances-Exits/ Position in Lines Average Trilogy Premiere

Prometheus Bound 8/1095 136.9 first (?) uncertain

Persians 10/1077 107.7 uncertain 472 BCE

Seven Against Thebes1* 12/1078 89.8 third 467 BCE

Suppliants 11/1073 97.5 first post-467 BCE

Agamemnon19 13/1673 128.7 first 458 BCE

Libation-Bearers 18/1076 59.8 second 458 BCE

Eumenides 13/1047 80.5 third 458 BCE

[Oresteia trilogy 44/3796 86.3]

TOTAL 85/8119 95.5

(Agamemnon), it is hardly possible to credit Aeschylus with anything but masterful

flexibility in this regard. Moreover, if Prometheus Bound, Aeschylus' play with the

highest attested average scene length, is to be dated among his later works, as some

scholars assert, the notion of smooth and continuous progress in this regard over the

course of time is hopelessly undercut.20

To the contrary, what drove Aeschylus to modulate scene length was evidently not a

growing mastery of this aspect of the art form or a search for the best means possible by which to enact a complex nexus of scenes. From at least the last decade of his career on,

18 Questions of authenticity and interpolation bedevil the end of Seven Against Thebes; see Taplin, The

Stagecraft, 169-70. In the play as transmitted, there are two scenes after 821 (Antigone and Ismene enter

at some point between 861 and 961; the Herald enters at 1005). Omitting the entire passage along with

these entrances changes the average scene length of Seven Against Thebes only somewhat (82.1) and

does not alter its position relative to the other plays of Aeschylus (between Suppliants and Eumenides). 19 In Agamemnon, the movements of Clytemnestra on and off stage are notoriously problematical; see

J. R. Wilson, "Unsocial Actors in Agamemnon," Hermes 123 (1995): 398-403, and Thomas G. Rosenmeyer, The Art of Aeschylus (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), 70-74. If the minimalism presumed in this study distorts the reality of Aeschylus7 staging in which Clytemnestra may be supposed to have

entered and exited several more times in the course of the drama, the advantages provided by

reducing character movements to a minimum in order to assert as much uniformity as possible across

the data more than compensate for any misconstructions of what may have actually transpired on the

classical stage. It is worth bearing in mind that this is not fundamentally a study in the uses to which

the Greek tragedians put entrances and exits but an attempt to assess only the general picture of

character movement therein. Thus, equalizing the criteria comes at a higher premium than deliberat

ing the nature of scene transitions in specific plays. 20

Taplin, The Stagecraft, 460-69 (Appendix D), discusses the notoriously problematical question of

the authorship of Prometheus Bound as it relates to the issue of stagecraft, arguing against its

authenticity. However, even if Prometheus Bound is not by Aeschylus, it is certainly "Aeschylean"? after all, it bore enough hallmarks of his style to warrant being included among his works?and,

whether original or derivative, it must constitute evidence of a sort about the typical Aeschylean mode

of crafting plays. Since average scene length is a generality of just that type, I have included Prometheus

Bound among the plays taken into consideration here.

120 / Mark Damen

he clearly knew how to move scenes quickly

on stage when the situation demanded.

Rather, it was what the story type and plot elements of individual plays required. That

is, if Prometheus Bound is a slow-moving drama, it is not because Aeschylus did not as

yet grasp how to accelerate dramatic action through a succession of rapid-moving scenes; neither is it because he did not have at his disposal performers capable of such or even was hesitant to include a sequence of characters entering and exiting the stage

quickly in that it might confuse the audience. The drama moves slowly primarily because this part of the Prometheus myth requires that the hero be "bound," leaving him immobile on stage, which by necessity slows down the stage action.

At the same time, however, the data for average scene length in Aeschylus suggest there was perhaps another factor at play, the position of a tragedy in its trilogy. To a

greater degree than with Sophocles or Euripides, the essential unit of performance in

Aeschylus is the "connected trilogy," three tragedies linked by narrative, which were

originally designed to be performed together. Two of Aeschylus' four slowest-moving dramas as determined by scene length are known to have stood first in their trilogies: Agamemnon (128.7) and Suppliants (97.5). Another, Prometheus (136.9), was almost

certainly designed to lead off. The position of the fourth, Persians (107.7), is not known.

Next come the two known third plays in trilogies: Seven Against Thebes (89.8) and

Eumenides (80.5). And finally, the fastest-paced of Aeschylus' extant plays is The

Libation-Bearers (59.8), the only certain middle play.

With the allowance that firm conclusions cannot be grounded on such slight evidence, the data suggest that, besides the particular story, the average scene length of a play is to some extent affected by its position in a trilogy, i.e. a relatively slow pace for the first play, accelerated action during the second drama, and a moderate tempo in the concluding tragedy. Nevertheless, in light of how little evidence underlies this

hypothesis, it seems inadvisable to speak in conclusive terms about this?or it would

be more so if there were not sound and compelling principles of dramatic construction

evident in such a disposition of the action. In particular, longer

scenes and slower

action early on allow a more static and rhetorical posture at the outset of a trilogy, when the audience's curiosity and attention are naturally high and the exposition of

the plot calls for careful delivery of the underlying situation to the viewers. Later,

however, during the second play, when audience focus is at a greater risk of

wandering and as the complications of the plot are unfolding but must by definition remain unresolved, a faster pace suits better. The final play affords the opportunity to

slow the pace again, as the plot reaches closure and the playwright brings his themes

home. So, whether or not it was typical of Aeschylus, the largo-allegro-andante

performance tempo attested in The Oresteia makes good general sense in the larger context of his theatre and is supported by the data derived from his other remaining dramas that appear to accord well with such a notion.21

21 The same is, of course, impossible to determine in Sophocles and Euripides since there is not

enough known about the relative positions of their plays in trilogies to do a comparative analysis. Moreover, when the plays in a trilogy are unconnected in plot, one must ask whether the order in

which tragedies were produced would have mattered at all in the structuring of scenes.

THE SCENIC STRUCTURE OF CLASSICAL DRAMA / 121

V. Sophocles' and Euripides' Tragedies

In Greek tragedy after Aeschylus, a clear pattern in average scene length does, in

fact, emerge, but once more not the one which the general tendency towards faster

stage action over the course of the classical age would lead one to expect. Among the

data for Sophocles' and Euripides' plays, there is again neither a gradual decrease in

average scene length visible, nor even regular progress toward a faster turnover of

scenes. In fact, the opposite appears to be true.

Contrary to the dominant trend, Sophocles' extant plays gravitate toward longer

average scene length (Table 3). While the dating of Antigone and Oedipus Tyrannus is

debatable at best?most critics, however, would not situate these plays in the final

phase of Sophocles' career, and there is some good reason to posit Oedipus Tyrannus in

the early 420s?Philoctetes and Oedipus at Colonus can be securely fixed among his last

works.22 Just that alone, however, makes it clear Sophocles' drama could not have

gradually evolved over time toward plays with shorter scenes, since his two slowest

moving tragedies are among the last he wrote. If there is any pattern deducible from

the scant data at hand, Sophocles' style of composing scenes must have evolved in a

manner almost directly opposite to the way scene length was changing during his

lifetime. That is, from the late 440s up until nearly the end of his career, Sophocles was

braking, not accelerating the pace of his dramas. Only with his last tragedy, Oedipus at

Colonus, is it even possible to say he wrote a play with a faster rate of scene change than one before it. It constitutes the only evidence this playwright ever accorded with

the general pattern of quicker stage action in his day.

It is important to recognize, however, that we cannot rely too much on these data

because they are problematical in more ways than one. First, very little of Sophocles' total dramatic output survives?less than ten percent, in fact?which is a weak basis

Table 3. Sophocles

Play

Entrances-Exits/

Lines Average Date of Premiere

Antigone

Ajax

Trachinian Women

Electra

Oedipus Tyrannus

Philoctetes

Oedipus at Colonus

TOTAL

25/1353

25/1420

19/1278

19/1510

19/1530

15/1471

21/1779 143/10341

54.1

56.8

67.3

79.5

80.5

98.1

84.7

72.3

441(?) BCE

(?)

(?)

(?)

429^25(?) BCE

409 BCE

405 BCE

22 The precise dating of Oedipus Tyrannus is problematical, but likelihood and consensus accord in

setting its premiere after 429 BCE, most probably at some point shortly thereafter. R. G. Lewis, 'An

Alternative Date for Sophocles7 Antigone," GRBS 29 (1988): 35-50, reviews the evidence for dating

Antigone and suggests 438 BCE as an alternative. If so, it would not affect the data here significantly.

122 / Mark Damen

for drawing general conclusions of any sort. Second, what evidence there is runs

inexplicably counter to the known course of progress in scene structure across the

century, which makes it seem all the more suspect. Thus, these conclusions may be

easily dismissed?or they would be, if the comparable data for Euripides' work which is relatively better attested did not conform to much the same pattern.

Just as with Sophocles, the datable plays deriving from Euripides' earlier career

(Alcestis, Medea, Hippolytus) slowly climb in average scene length, reaching a crescendo with those tragedies produced in or shortly after 415 BCE (Trojan Women, Helen, Phoenician Women) (Table 4). Following that, the average scene length drops dramati

Table 4. Euripides

Play

Entrances-Exits/

Lines Average

Date of Premiere

Known Projected (Zielinski)23

Alcestis

Medea

Heraclidae

Hippolytus

Andromache

Hecuba

Suppliants

Electra

Trojan Women

Heracles

Iphigenia (T)

Helen

20/1163

23/1419

17/1055

22/1466

20/1288

21/1295

17/1234

22/1359

18/1332

18/1428

16/1496

24/1692

58.2

61.7

62.1

66.6

64.4

61.7

72.6

61.8

74.0

79.3

93.5

70.5

438 BCE

431 BCE

428 BCE

415 BCE

412 BCE

430?4 BCE

426?4 BCE

424?4 BCE

422?4 BCE

416?4 BCE

414?4 BCE

413?4 BCE

23 Zielinski's analysis of iambic trimeter in Euripides (T. Zielinski, Tragodoumenon II, De Trimetri

Euripidei Evolutione [Cracow, 1925]) suggests a growing tendency on the playwright's part to resolve

the meter over the course of his career, i.e. to substitute other poetic feet for iambs. Using this, Zielinski

was able to infer when the undated plays of Euripides most likely premiered; see T. B. L. Webster, The

Tragedies of Euripides (London: Methuen, 1967), 2-9, who recaps Zielinski's conclusions. Zielinski's

work has also been reviewed and largely confirmed by A. M. Dale, Euripides Helen (Oxford: Clarendon

Press, 1967), xxiv-xxviii, and more recently Martin Cropp and Gordon Fick, Resolutions and Chronology in Euripides: The Fragmentary Tragedies, Bulletin Supplement 43 (London: University of London, Institute of Classical Studies, 1985). Thus, I have included his suggested dates as a guideline to the

general order in which Euripides' plays were first produced, but neither Zielinski's conclusions nor

any chronology which the analysis of scene length here may seem to betoken can serve as a firm

foundation for assigning dates to Euripides' dramas.

THE SCENIC STRUCTURE OF CLASSICAL DRAMA / 123

Table 4 (continued). Euripides

Date of Premiere

Play

Entrances-Exits/

Lines Average Known Projected (Zielinski)

Phoenician Women24:

Ion

Orestes

Bacchae25

Iphigenia (A)26

[Rhesus27

TOTAL

[with Rhesus

23/1766

20/1622

28/1693

23/1392

27/1629

19/996

359/24329

378/25325

76.8

81.1

60.5

60.5

60.3

52.4]

67.8

67.0]

411-409 BCE

408 BCE

406 BCE

406 BCE

410?4 BCE

cally (Orestes, Bacchae, Iphigenia in Aulis). Thus, Euripides' later plays follow the same

pattern as Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus in reversing a long, slow upward trend

encompassing the majority of his career until very late when his style suddenly shifts toward a more rapid turnover of scenes. The evidence also hints that Euripides began

24 How the additions made after Euripides' lifetime affect the average scene length of Phoenician

Women is not clear, but it appears there is enough genuine material remaining in the play that we can

gain a sense of Euripides' original disposition of scenes. 25 The lacuna before Bacchae 1330 is estimated to be about fifty lines. Adding it into the total line

count increases the play's average scene length only slightly (23/1442 =

62.6). 26

Poe, "Entrance-Announcements," 122 (n. 4), reviews salient bibliography and addresses the

complications of dealing with the purported interpolations, textual corruptions and general questions of authenticity surrounding the texts of Iphigenia in Aulis and Phoenician Women. His analysis there is a model of sage counsel concerning the difficulties that these plays present to the wider assessment of

Euripides' stagecraft. For instance, if the beginning of Iphigenia in Aulis represents alternative versions

of the opening scene, each should be enumerated separately. Doing so, fortunately, does not affect the

data for the play's average scene length in any significant way. Both reduce the play's average scene

length a little: the "monologue" prologue (49-114) to 59.0 (26/1533) and the "dialogue" prologue (1 48, 115-63) to 60.1 (26/1562).

27 To judge by scenes, Rhesus is the fastest-moving play in the Euripidean corpus. In this way and

others, it defies easy analysis, and, as such, its authenticity has been much debated. While the evidence

here suggests the play we have is not Euripides' inasmuch as no other extant classical tragedy exhibits so rapid a turnover of scenes, it should be noted that the data do not preclude the possibility that

Rhesus derives from Euripides' period of playwriting pre-dating the rest of his surviving corpus; see

William Ritchie, The Authenticity of the Rhesus of Euripides (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

1964), 361; and more recently, Luigi Battezzato, "The Thracian Camp and the Fourth Actor at Rhesus

565-691," CQ 50 (2000): 367-73. In spite of that, however, it seems more likely our play is a fourth

century namesake of Euripides' original in that, following the last tendency visible in Greek tragedy, it is reasonable to presume average scene length in tragedy continued to drop after the end of the

classical age. If so, fourth-century tragedy would have conformed with comedy which, to judge from

Menandrean drama, also shortened scenes and accelerated the stage action in general over the course

of the generations succeeding the fifth century. Thus, Rhesus fits well into a post-classical pattern of dramatic evolution encompassing more rapid scene change and other broader stage effects.

124 / Mark Damen

this change a little earlier than his older rival. To wit, Sophocles' Philoctetes in 409 BCE

still has a high average scene length (98.1), while Euripides' Orestes, which was

produced in the following year, changes scenes much more rapidly (60.5).

The timing of this volte-face implies some correlation in the tragedians' work. That

both follow the same general pattern is significant inasmuch as each bolsters the

evidence for the other and hints there was some common factor at play, an agency

independent of their often divergent tastes in drama. What that factor or factors might have been is not immediately clear, but the coincidence in timing shows it was not

likely to have been a matter of their personal preferences alone. While for many historians a date in the late 410s raises visions of the calamitous Sicilian Expedition, the reason that disaster might have influenced average scene length in Athenian

tragedy is not readily apparent. If any connection at all exists between these

phenomena, it can only have been indirect, part of the larger program of change visible

in the arts at and around this time.

Evidence indeed suggests tragedy, and Athenian art in general, underwent a

dramatic transformation as Athens' fortunes declined over the course of the

Peloponnesian War (431-404 BCE). In particular, those tragedies dating to and after

the late 410's exhibit distinct changes in tone, notably the addition of comic elements as seen in several of Euripides' later plays, especially those resolving in "happy

endings" (Helen, Iphigenia among the Taurians, Ion). It is likely these "untragic" tragedies served several purposes, one of which was to bolster the spirits of a despondent

populace. Helen, for instance, exhibits quite a few elements traditionally employed in

comedy: trickery, disguise, sudden recognition, even an obnoxious gate-keeper.28

Analysis of the scene length of this play shows, however, that there is another

important comic element present: relatively short scenes constituting a faster pace of

action. This is almost certainly a product of the influence comic drama brought to bear on tragedy at this most tragic of times in classical Athenian history.

Though it is often very difficult to determine exact stage movements over the course

of Aristophanes' plays, a glance at two in which exits and entrances are relatively easy to determine, The Acharnions and The Clouds, demonstrates, as few would doubt, that

the pace of action in Aristophanes' comic drama as measured by the turnover of scenes

is significantly quicker than that of tragedy (Table 5). The data for the only satyr play

preserved entire, Cyclops, which represents another sort of comic drama popular in

this age, also support this assertion: 17/709 = 41.7. Thus, it is warranted to surmise

that, along with the appropriation of other comic features, Euripides' later plays reflect

the sort of dramatic action typical of comedy that was as a rule disposed into shorter,

faster-changing scenes. Hence, the importation of comedie elements may be invoked

as at least one way of explaining the inversion in average scene length among late

classical tragedies. And that comedy is the most likely culprit here opens, in turn, the

possibility that it also figured into the earlier lengthening of scenes, a process under

way by the late 440's, nearly three decades prior.

28 Dale, Euripides Helen, xi-xvi, expounds with clarity upon the comic elements in Helen.

THE SCENIC STRUCTURE OF CLASSICAL DRAMA / 125

Table 5. Aristophanes29

Entrances-Exits/

Play Lines Average Date of Premiere

Acharnians 37/1234 33.4 425 BCE

Clouds 30/1511 50.4 423 BCE

VI. Tragedy and Comedy

At present, our picture of fifth-century Greek comedy, and in particular its early evolution, is cloudy at best. Nevertheless, some benchmarks in the general develop

ment of the art stand out. The first complete comedies surviving date to the 420s,

giving witness that the popularity of this art form had risen to a certain level of public awareness by that point in time. It is also clear that comedy had been growing in

visibility as a dramatic medium well before this time. For instance, initially it was

produced only at the Dionysia, but in the late 440s a second festival, the Lenaea,

inaugurated the performance of comedy as well. Thus, by the middle of the century

comedy had evidently begun to stand alongside tragedy as a popular genre of drama, even if historical records give us no sense that audiences at the time deemed it the

counterpart or rival of tragedy, or that it even as yet stood in the mainstream of public arts. After all, the new festival showcasing comedy was strictly a local affair?only

Athenians and their close neighbors attended the Lenaea?and at the Dionysia comic

poets were given much less "air time" than their tragic agnates in celebrating the god who was their common forebear. Indeed, all evidence suggests that until quite late in

the classical age the attention of theatre-goers in Athens was directed largely toward the tragedians' work over the comic playwrights'. So at least on the surface, the frenetic sideshow of comedy, even if building in popularity, should have given the

tragic poets little to worry about. Certainly, the historical data from the time give no

credible reason to believe comedy would ever eclipse tragedy in the public mind, as in fact it later did in the fourth century.

But the Greek tragedians vied not only with each other for prized honors but also with all other art forms for public attention and acclaim. While we in retrospect may see little ground for concern, tragic dramatists may not have watched the rise of

comedy with serene dispassion.30 Comedy was, in fact, intruding

on an arena the

tragedians had once owned exclusively and were now having to share. Outright humor, the sort that Aeschylus uses when he has Clytemnestra say to Cassandra, "If

you're stupid and don't understand what I'm saying/Instead of your voice, talk with

29 The movements of characters in Aristophanes' plays are notoriously problematical to reconstruct,

and thus I do not mean to posit the calculations of the average scene length of these plays as in any way definitive, only suggestive of how quickly scenes rolled over in Old Comedy. For instance, it is

possible to construe as many as eleven more scenes in The Acharnians, which would lower the average scene length to 25.7 (48/1234). Likewise, The Clouds may be seen to have at least four more scenes,

making its average scene length 44.4 (34/1511). 30 C. W. Marshall, "Alcestis and the Problem of Prosatyric Drama," CJ 95 (2000): 229-38, adduces

another way in which tragedy and comedy may have interacted in the 430s BCE.

126 / Mark Damen

your barbaric hand!" (Ag. 1060-61),31 had after Aeschylus' lifetime come to look less like the stuff of tragedy and ever more like the property of comic poets, at least to

judge from the relative rarity of comparable moments in the early extant works of

Sophocles and Euripides.32 Though still far from it, tragedy was beginning to assume

the modern sense of the word, in no small part because it had now an antonym,

comedy.

This shift could not have pleased the tragedians. Dealing with comic drama in ascendance meant either creating distance between the genres by excluding comical elements from tragedy or competing for public attention in one important arena with an eager, emergent prot?g?. On the flip side of the Dionysia, however, the opposite

was true. The comic poets were more than willing to acknowledge openly their debt to

tragedy and use its popularity with the audience in their own behalf, a fact well demonstrated in Aristophanes' frequent citation of tragedy and impersonation of

tragic celebrities on stage. Similar echoes from the other wing of the festival are hardly ever heard, at least in the tragedies dating to the 430s and 420s. All in all, it seems

likely in more ways than one that from a tragedian's perspective this was not very

funny.

Later, however, changes in the political and social situation of Athens rendered a

very different audience and dramatic climate. Especially in the wake of the Athenians' misfortunes during the later phases of the Peloponnesian War, the aura of gravity haloing tragedy for much of its existence had, as time passed, begun to reflect all too well the sense of gloom and despair hanging over the city, ever more so as the sad outcome of the age unfolded. So, while the tragedians still commanded center stage, the comic poets dashing about in the background had been making substantive

progress in winning the public's attention?and, no doubt, their affections also. And

because comic poets had borrowed so much from the tragic arts, it amounted to hardly more than collecting on debts owed, when the tragedians began to increase the share of comic elements in their later plays, capitalizing essentially

on the growth and

popularity of Old Comedy. Those in the tragic arts who remembered the liberties

Aeschylus had enjoyed in mixing comedy and tragedy may even have reasoned this was

only recovering what had once been theirs.

But it was by that day much more. Artists like Aristophanes and Cratinus had, in the

meantime, made advances in the presentation of drama and especially humor on

stage, with the result that along with heroes-in-disguise and obnoxious gate-keepers came the comic playwrights' tendency to dispose the action on stage into shorter,

faster-moving scenes, not something typical of tragic drama composed in Aeschylus'

day even when he was going after a laugh. Of course, a quicker pace of stage action

31 Rosenmeyer, The Art of Aeschylus, 69, points to comic qualities in Eumenides: "Eumenides, of all

Aeschylus' plays, is closest in diction, tone, and spirit to the comic model." The fragments of

Aeschylus' drama also hint at his use of comedy, including an Odysseus in The Bone-Gatherers

(Ostologoi) who recounts being hit in the head with a chamberpot. 32 This is not to assert that tragedies composed in the 430s and 420s eschew humorous elements

entirely. Characters like Heracles in Alcestis, the Guard in Antigone and the Nurse in Hippolytus constitute notable exceptions where comedy plays an important role in the tragedians' work. But these

characters are just that, exceptions in a general climate of "tragic" tragedy. Ajax, Medea, Oedipus

Tyrannus, and Trojan Women certainly provide audiences with relatively few moments of levity or

reasons to laugh.

THE SCENIC STRUCTURE OF CLASSICAL DRAMA / 127

was more complicated to integrate into tragedy than adding a slapstick porter-scene to

Helen {fiel. 437-82) or having Ion rebuff Xuthus' apparent come-on (Ion 517-26), which

explains why comic characters show up in tragedy before average scene length begins to drop. The latter involves a more comprehensive investment in the comedie mode, and it was, all in all, a monumental change to effect in the art, one not without effort or risk.

But for all it entailed, the change turned out to be well worth the investment of

genius and energy. Importing comic elements proved in the end an inspired move, at

least when measured by its results. It stimulated the last bloom of classical tragedy, in

particular, Euripides' final flourish of masterpieces: Orestes, Iphigenia in Aulis, and

Bacchae. Nor did Sophocles fail to rise to the challenge as Oedipus at Colonus shows,

though he seems not to have thrived in the new tragicomic climate as heartily as

Euripides. Comedy, after all, had never been Sophocles' forte, and by now he was

almost ninety.

Ultimately, the tragedians' adoption of comic elements betokened things to come. In

the next century, humorous drama rose to pre-eminence among the dramatic arts in

Attica, and Euripides in retrospect ruled the tragic stage, winning among other

posthumous titles the distinction of being hailed "the forefather of New Comedy."

Surely, one element in the formulation of that opinion was the comfort those who

nurtured Menander?and later were nurtured on him?could feel as they watched the

late Euripides' accelerated stage action. A comparatively brisk pace of scenes was, by then, what the Greek audience expected and enjoyed.

VII. Conclusion

The record of Greek theatre demonstrates well that, despite the newness of the art

form and technical barriers like the three-actor rule, ancient playwrights as early as

Aeschylus possessed the skill to move stage action through a quick succession of scenes when the dramatic situation called for such a disposition of action. Unfortu

nately, the data do not reveal how that skill was acquired, a monumental achievement

given that the first Greek playwrights had no prototypes of complex drama to imitate. At the same time, history affords some evidence about the later classical tradition. The

dramas composed by Sophocles and Euripides, Attic tragedians writing in Aeschylus' wake, show a growing disinclination to engage in plays with a rapid turnover of

scenes, contrary to the general pattern of increasingly faster stage action evidenced

across the century. If not what we might expect on first inspection, this pattern of evolution in scene length is not intrinsically chaotic either. Indeed, it proves remark

ably rectilinear?only moving toward a pattern of longer, not shorter scenes?in

response not to some simple, prescript norms but to its passage through the dynamic environment housing it and complex channels of unforeseeable social change.

In sum, close analysis of the evidence shows that, while uniform change in Greek

tragedy could and did happen progressively over a long period of time (e.g. metrical resolution in Euripides), in terms of scene length this art exhibits more the leaps and

starts, bumps and backwashes that typify real life, exemplifying that model of evolution in which change proceeds in bursts and pauses with long periods of

stagnation punctuated by sharp and significant crises. In retrospect, this is indeed the

very thing to be expected, not a gradual pattern of transformation but a series of swift

128 / Mark Damen

and dramatic metamorphoses, which experience and common sense dictate are

inherent in any living biosystem. Thus, the growth of classical tragedy toward a more

frequent turnover of scenes is at heart a tale of fluctuation and sudden progress, of

indecision and conflict, of concerted resistance but eventual surrender to an alluring,

encroaching outsider who is really an insider, a story so dramatically human it seems

worthy of Greek tragedy itself.

Appendix 1. The Exclusion of

Choral Movements and Odes From the Data

From the vantage point of modern theatre, which for the most part does not utilize

choruses, it is natural to ask whether the data for scene length might be brought into

sharper focus if we exclude choral activity and focus only on the "dialogue" sections

of Greek tragedy (episodia, or "episodes"). That, however, entails an unrealistic and

infeasible view of the use of the chorus in Greek tragedy. The point at which a chorus

enters during the course of a play?and

even sometimes exits and re-enters, cf. Eum.

234/244, Aj. 814/866, Hel. 385/515?and how long choral odes last are issues as

important to the pacing of drama in classical Athens as the movements and words of

any single character. Furthermore, while tragedy may seem to have a basic structure of

alternating episodes and choral sections, the reality is, in fact, far more complex, as Poe

articulates well (see note 1). Thus, to separate choruses from episodes not only violates a fundamental premise of this genre but is very difficult to effect with any consistency,

especially given the imaginative use that choruses are put to in the classical tragedies.

So, for instance, when Euripides' Medea first cries out near the beginning of the play (Med. 96) and the Chorus enters in response (Med. 131), the ensuing lyrics (Med. 131

213) are then divided among the Nurse, Medea, and the Chorus. Is the Chorus's

entrance, then, to be seen as demarcating

a separate scene?and it is well to bear in

mind that at this juncture the audience first encounters the Chorus with Medea, an

important relationship in the play, which marks this as a critical transition in the

play?or should it be seen as a "choral ode," since it encompasses a strophic parodos

("entrance song"), and thus grouped along with the other lyrics which belong to the

Chorus entirely? The same could be asked of the parodoi in either Euripides' or

Sophocles' Electra. In general, if a character interacts in song with the chorus, is it to be

counted as dialogue or discounted as ode? All in all, choral activity is too often fully

integrated into other characters' activities, making it impossible to distinguish be

tween it and "dialogic" movements.

Fortunately, as difficult as it is to engineer, the removal of choral activity appears to

make little significant impact on this study, because omitting the odes and movements

of choruses shifts the numerical outcomes only slightly. As demonstrated below, if the

statistics for scene length are recalculated so as to overlook all independent choral

activity, i.e. actions and words that do not immediately involve other characters, it

speeds up Aeschylus' drama by only a fraction (less than 3%) since his choruses by nature tend to run long. For the other two surviving tragedians, it slows down the

turnover of scenes in their plays more substantially (by around 10%), because the

choruses of their dramas usually constitute less of the drama than the episodes.

THE SCENIC STRUCTURE OF CLASSICAL DRAMA / 129

Overall Scene Length Excluding Choral Odes and Movements

Averages <Averages (with choruses)> Difference

Aeschylus

Sophocles

Euripides

[with Rhesus

93.5

80.7

74.2

73.3

<95.5>

<72.3>

<67.8>

<67.0>

-2.0

+8.4

+6.4

+6.3]

Aeschylus

Play

Entrances-Exits/

Lines Average <With choruses> Difference

Prometheus Bound 7/1001 143

Persians 8/740 92.5

Seven Against Thebes 8/681 85.1

Suppliants 8/676 84.5

Agamemnon 9/1085 120.6

Libation-Bearers 12/806 67.2

Eumenides 10/810 81.0

[Oresteia 31/2701 87.1

TOTAL 62/5799 93.5

<136.9>

<107.7>

<89.8>

<97.5>

<128.7>

<59.8>

<80.5>

<86.3>

<95.5>

+6.1

-15.2

-4.7

-13.0

-8.1

+ 7.4

+0.5

+0.8]

-2.0

Sophocles

Play (Date) Entrances-Exits/

Lines Average <With choruses> Difference

Antigone (441) 19/1081 56.9

Ajax 20/1214 60.7

Trachinian Women 13/1073 82.5

Electra 14/1411 100.8

Oedipus T (429^25?) 16/1307 81.7

Philoctetes (409) 14/1383 98.8

Oedipus C (405) 16/1569 98.1

TOTAL 112/9038 80.7

<54.1>

<56.8>

<67.3>

<79.5>

<80.5>

<98.1>

<84.7>

<72.3>

+2.8

+3.9

+15.2

+21.3

+1.2

+0.7

+13.4

+8.4

130 / Mark Damen

Euripides

Play (Date) Entrances-Exits/

Lines Average <With choruses> Difference

Alcestis (438)

Medea (431)

Heraclidae

Hippolytus (428)

Andromache

Hecuba

Suppliants

Electra

Trojan Women (415)

Heracles

Iphigenia (T)

Helen (412)

Phoen. W. (411-409)

Ion

Orestes (408)

Bacchae (406)

Iphigenia (A) (406)

[Rhesus

TOTAL

[with Rhesus

15/983

18/1215

13/933

18/1250

16/1112

16/1111

12/1018

18/1224

15/1104

12/1121

13/1307

19/1494

18/1503

15/1398

23/1583

17/1053

21/1291

15/836

279/20700

294/21536

65.5

67.5

71.8

69.4

69.5

69.4

84.8

68.0

73.6

93.4

100.5

78.6

83.5

93.2

68.8

61.9

61.5

55.7

74.2

73.3

<58.2>

<61.7>

<62.1>

<66.6>

<64.4>

<61.7>

<72.6>

<61.8>

<74.0>

<79.3>

<93.5>

<70.5>

<76.8>

<81.1>

<60.5>

<60.5>

<60.3>

<52.4>

<67.8>

<67.0>

+7.3

+5.8

+9.7

+2.8

+5.1

+ 7.7

+12.2

+6.2

-0.4

+14.1

+7.0

+8.1

+6.7

+12.1

+8.3

+1.4

+1.2

+33] +6.4

+6.3]

Appendix 2. Enumeration of Scenes Through Character Movement:

Methodologies for Measuring Scene Length

1. Unannounced Movements

Entrances: Antigone/Ismene (Seven 861 or 875 [or 961?]), Herald (Aes. Supp. 836/

872), Theseus (Eur. Supp. 381, 838, 1165; contra Halleran, 21, who is correct that

standard practice would call for Theseus to enter at, for instance, 1123, but for the

purposes of this study the exigencies of uniformity and simplicity militate otherwise),

Theoclymenus (Hel. 1165).

Exits: Pedagogue (Med. 106 or 111; escorts children inside the house), Handmaid

(Hec. 894; delivers Hecuba's message to Polymestor), Messenger (Eur. El. 858; exits

after his report of Aegisthus' death has been completed), Talthybius (Tro. 1155; exits to

dig Astyanax' grave, returns at 1260), Theoclymenus (Hel. 1440; exits because he must

not overhear what Menelaus or the Chorus says, then returns at 1512).

THE SCENIC STRUCTURE OF CLASSICAL DRAMA / 131

2. Simultaneous and Discrete Movements

Simultaneous Movements (see Taplin, The Stagecraft, 241), Entrances: Messenger/ Eteocles (Seven 369; "their arrival is simultaneous to all intents and purposes," Taplin, The Stagecraft, 148), Danaus/Chorus (Aes. Supp. 1; see Taplin, The Stagecraft, 193-94), Electra/Chorus (LB 22), Orestes/Pylades (LB 892), Hephaestus/Might (Prom. 1), Nurse/Deianeira (Trach. 1), Heracles/Hyllus/Old Man (Trach. 971), Megara/

Amphitryon (Heracles 451), Chorus/Iphigenia (IT 123), Theoclymenus/Messenger (Hel. 1512), Agamemnon/Old Man (IA 1); Exits: Hephaestus /Might (Prom. 87),

Alcestis/Boy/Admetus (Ale. 434), Medea's children cry from offstage (Med. 1270a/

1272), Amphitryon/Lycus/Megara (Heracles 347), Agamemnon/Old Man (IA 163).

Simultaneous Entrances/Exits: Servant exits when Orestes and Pylades enter (LB 891/

892, or at the end of the scene [see below, section 3]), Apollo and the Chorus exit as

Orestes enters (Eum. 234/235), Antigone and Ismene exit as the Chorus enters (Antig. 99/100), Messenger exits as Creon enters (Antig. 1256/1257), Orestes exits as Aegisthus enters (Soph. El. 1437-1441), Chorus enters as Odysseus exits (Philoc. 134/135), Philoctetes exits as Neoptolemus and Odysseus enter (Philoc. 1217/1222; 1218-21 are

spurious), Death and Apollo exit as the Chorus enters (Ale. 76/77), Aphrodite exits as

Hippolytus and the Servant enter (Hipp. 57/58), Polydorus exits as Hecuba enters

(Hec. 58/59), Electra and the Farmer exit as Orestes and Pylades enter (Eur. El. 81/82), Orestes and Pylades exit as Clytemnestra enters (Eur. El. 987/988), Iphigenia exits as

Orestes and Pylades enter (IT 66/67), Helen and the Chorus exit as Menelaus enters

(Hel. 385/386), Jocasta exits as Antigone and the Servant enter (Phoen. 87/88),

Messenger exits as Antigone enters (Phoen. 1479/1480), Aeneas exits as Dolon enters, if Dolon is not already on stage (Rh. 148/149), Chorus exits as Odysseus and Diomedes

enter (Rh. 564/565), Athena exits as Chorus re-enters (Rh. 674/675).

Discrete Movements, Entrances: Athena/Apollo (Eum. 566/576; see Taplin, The Stage

craft, 396-401), Teucer/Agamemnon (Aj. 1223/1226; see Seale, Vision and Stagecraft, 171), Deianeira/Hyllus (Trach. 813/821), Iolaus/Chorus (Heraclid. 1/73), Chorus/

Helen (Hel. 515/528); Exits: Messenger/Queen (Pers. 514/531), Herald/King (Aes.

Supp. 952/965 [974?]), Creon/Guard (Antig. 326/331; see Seale, Vision and Stagecraft, 89), Nurse/Phaedra (Hipp. 709/731).

3. No Required Movement

Characters who do not exit before the end of the play: Herald (Seven), King (Aes. Supp.), Hermes (Prom.), Heracles/Old Man (Trach.), Heracles/Neoptolemus (Philoc), Electra

(Eur. EL), Servant (Hel.), Dionysus (Ba), Messenger (IA), Muse (Rh.; but her movement

is unclear?Hector and Chorus speak as if she has gone).

Characters who remain on stage through the end of a scene: Agamemnon (Ag. 958-74), Servant (LB 887-930, or he exits when Orestes/Pylades enter at 892), Messenger (Aj. 803-14), Orestes/Paidagogus (Soph. EL 1376-83), Theseus (Hipp. 1090-1101), Nurse

(Androm. 879-1008), Theseus (Eur. Supp. 947-54), Lycus/Megara (Heracles 339-47), Pentheus (Ba. 973-76), Old Man (IA 896-1035).

Characters who remain on stage during songs and choral odes: Queen (Pers. 623-80; see

Taplin, The Stagecraft, 108-14), Eteocles (Seven 77-180; contra Taplin, 139-41),

Clytemnestra (Ag. 351-487 and 503-854 passim; contra Taplin, 288-308), Creon (Antig.

132 / Mark Damen

582-630), Deianeira (Trach. 94-140), Electra (Soph. El. 472-515,1058-97), Oedipus (OT

151-215,1086-1109), Oedipus (OC117-137), Medea (Med. 1081-1115), Alcmene (Heraclid.

748-83, 892-927), Agamemnon (IA 543-606).

4. Movements Required by the Three-Actor Restriction

Guard/Ismene (Antig. 445/536), Odysseus/Heracles (Philoc. 1301/1409), Messen

ger/Theseus (OC 1669/1751), Admetus [or Pheres?]/Servant (Ale. 740/747, where it

appears only two actors are required), Theseus [or Adrastus]/Iphis [Evadne?] (Eur.

Supp. 954/1034 [990?]), Messenger/Castor (Hel. 1618/1642), Old Man/Messenger (IA

318/414).

Appendix 3. Enumeration of Exits and Entrances

[numbers separated by a dash (/) represent multiple possibilities for the line assign ment of a single entrance or exit]

AESCHYLUS

Prometheus: 1, 88,128, 284, 397, 561, 887, 944.

Persians: 1,159, 249, 515, 532, 598, 681, 843, 852, 908.

Seven Against Thebes: 1, 39, 69, 78, 287, 369, 653, 720, 792, 821 [861/875/961,1005].

Suppliants: 1, 234, 504, 524, 600, 776, 836/872, 911, 952, 966/974, 980.

Agamemnon: 1, 40, 258/264, 503, 681, 783/810, 975,1035,1069,1331,1343,1372,1577.

Libation-Bearers: 1, 22, 585, 653, 657, 668, 719, 734, 783, 838, 855, 869, 875, 885, 892, 931,

973,1065.

Eumenides: 1, 34, 64, 94,140, 179, 235, 244, 397, 490, 566, 576, 778.

SOPHOCLES

Antigone: 1,100,162, 223, 327, 332, 384, 387, 446, 536, 582, 635, 766, 781, 806, 883, 944,

988,1091,1115,1155,1183,1244,1257,1277.

Ajax: 1, 91,118,134, 201, 333, 348, 596, 646, 693, 719, 787, 815, 866, 891, 974, 990,1047,

1161,1185,1223,1226,1318,1374,1402.

Trachinian Women: 1,64,94,180,229,335,393,497,531,598,633,663, 734, 813,821,862,

871, 947, 971.

Electra: 1, 77, 86, 121, 328, 472, 516, 660, 804, 871, 1058, 1098, 1326, 1383, 1398, 1404,

1424,1437/1442,1470.

Oedipus (T): 1, 87,151, 316, 463, 512, 532, 634, 678, 863, 911, 924, 950,1073, 1123,1186,

1223, 1307,1422.

Philoctetes: 1,135, 219, 542, 628, 676, 730, 974,1081,1222,1261,1263,1293,1302,1409.

Oedipus (C): 1, 36, 81,117, 324, 510, 551, 668, 728, 847, 887,1044,1099,1211,1254,1447,

1500,1556,1579,1670,1751.

THE SCENIC STRUCTURE OF CLASSICAL DRAMA / 133

EURIPIDES

Alcestis: 1, 28, 77,141, 213, 244, 435, 476, 509, 551, 568, 606, 614, 741, 747, 773, 837, 861,

1008,1154.

Medea: 1, 49, 96, 106/111, 131, 205, 214, 271, 358/7, 446, 627, 663, 759, 866, 976, 1002,

1021, 1121,1231,1251, 1270(a), 1293,1317.

Heraclidae: 1, 55, 73,120, 288, 353, 389, 474, 602, 630, 646, 702, 720, 748, 784, 892, 928.

Hippolytus: 1,58,114,121,176,362,433,525,601, 669, 710, 732, 776, 790,902,1102,1153,

1160,1268,1283,1347,1444.

Andromache: 1,56,91,117,147,269,309,464,501,547,747,766,802,825,881,1009,1047,

1070,1166,1231.

Hecuba: 1, 59, 98, 177, 218, 444, 484, 609, 629, 658, 670, 726, 894, 905, 952, 1023, 1035,

1044,1056,1109,1287.

Suppliants: 1, 87, 365, 381, 399, 584, 598, 634, 778, 838, 955, 990, 1034, 1072, 1114, 1165, 1183.

Electra: 1, 54, 82,112,167, 341, 401, 432, 487, 493, 553, 699, 751, 761, 859, 880, 988,1143,

1147, 1165,1177,1283.

Trojan Women: 1, 48, 98,153,176, 235, 308, 462, 577, 709, 780, 790, 860, 895,1060,1123,

1156,1260.

Heracles: 1,107,140,348,451, 523, 637, 701, 726, 734, 749, 822, 875, 886, 910,1016,1042, 1163.

Iphigenia (T): 1, 67,123, 238, 344,467, 643, 725,1089,1153,1159,1234,1284,1307,1430, 1435.

Helen: 1, 68,164,179, 386, 437, 483, 515, 528, 597, 758, 865; 1030,1107,1165,1301,1369,

1390,1441,1451,1512,1619,1627,1642.

Phoenician Women: 1,88,202,261,301,446, 638, 697, 784,834,960,991,1019,1067,1072, 1264, 1270, 1283, 1310, 1335, 1480, 1539, 1638.

Ion: 1, 82, 184, 247, 401, 425, 429, 452, 510, 517, 676, 725, 1048, 1106, 1229, 1250, 1261,

1320,1369, 1553.

Orestes: 1, 71,126,140, 316, 356, 470, 632, 717, 729, 807, 844, 852, 960,1022,1246,1296,

1323, 1345, 1347, 1353, 1369, 1506, 1527,1537, 1554, 1567,1628.

Bacchae: 1, 64,170,178,215,370,434,519,576, 604, 642, 660, 775, 848, 862,912,918,977,

1024,1153,1168,1216,1330(?).

Iphigenia (A): 1,164, 303, 317, 319(?), 414,442, 543, 607, 685, 742, 751, 801, 819, 855, 864,

1036,1098,1106,1120, 1276,1345, 1433,1509, 1532,1534, 1621.

Rhesus: 1, 87,149, 224, 264, 342, 379, 527, 565, 595, 627, 642, 668, 675, 692, 728, 808, 882, 890.

Cyclops: 1,41, 96,175,188, 203, 347, 356, 375,483, 503, 590, 656, 663, 682/689, 704, 708.

134 / Mark Damen

ARISTOPHANES

Acharnians: 1, 41, (45?), 56, 61, (125?), 129, (133?), 134, 167, 175, 204, (237?), 241, 396,

(403?), 407, (410?), 480, 572, 622, 625, 719, 729, 750, 818, 830, 836, 860, 908, 959, (969?), 971,1000,1003,1018,1037,1048, (1060?), 1071, (1078?), 1084, (1094?), 1143,1174,1190,

1198, (1227?).

Clouds: 1, (56?), (60?), 126,133,217, (221?), 275,510,627,634,803,814,844,847,868,889,

1105, 1115,1131,1146,1170, 1214,1221,1259,1303,1321,1476,1493,1497,1499, 1502,

1505, (1508?).