Antigone - commentary notes

The Myth

•Characters of a tragedy were not invented from scratch each time the writer composed a new play.

•Images and stories inspired by myths were connected with every form of artistic expression and ceremonial ritual, proving that the greeks were not only familiar with a great number of mythical stories, but also made them to define themselves in the world and communicate their specific cultural issues.

•In tragic theatre the characters were mentally close to the audience and shared the values of the democratic period in Athens.

•The geographical characteristics of the mythical location, which usually existed in reality, could also be used in the stories and affect the dramatic events of the play.

•The Theban saga of Lais and his children was one of the most popular in the Greek literary and iconographic tradition.

The Festival

•The tragedy of Antigone was presented in the theatre of Dionysus as part of a drama competition that took place every year during the city Dionysia, one of the city’s numerous festivals.

•The city Dionysia, which was dedicated to Dionysus, god of fertility, wine and theatre, was one of Athens’ greatest annual festivals and aimed to celebrate the god’s arrival in Athens as well as the city’s wealth and prosperity.

•The event took place in mid to late march when seagoing again became possible after the winter.

•A rough schedule of the festival can be made as it developed until the outbreak of the Peloponnesian war in 431 BC

•The day before the official beginning of the City Dionysia a pre-contest took place during which the poets and their cast described the plays they were due to perform.

•The next morning the first day of the festival began and all normal life came to a halt. The wooden statue of Dionysus was led into the city escorted by young men carrying lighted torches, in a ceremony which represented the God’s arrival in Athens.

•At the end of the evening procession the statue was positioned in a temple below the theatre of Dionysus where it remained for the duration of the festival.

•The second day a great civic procession took place in which each citizen showed his civic status by a specific costume while the foreign guests were identified through scarlet robes.

•The sponsors of the drama performances were also marked out by wearing rich gowns.

•The procession included a number of dances performed by each tribe of Athens, and ended with the sacrifice of bulls at the altar below the theatre.

•On the third day the drama competitions commenced between three tragic poets and five comic poets.

•Before they began a piglet was sacrificed and its dead body carried around the performance area to purify the space in which the plays would be staged

•The decision about who was to compete was made by a state official selected by lot about six months in advance.

•The sponsor’s responsibility was to finance the whole production and the training of the chorus, asa form of taxation.

•The drama competitions lasted four days.

•actors presented three tragedies, a ‘satyr’ play and a comedy each day.

•The religious and civic activities that surrounded the productions must have created part of the play’s meaning

•In ancient greece the viewing of a tragedy or comedy was not only a form of entertainment and education but also a religious as well as a public experience, which added to the play a political dimension and ritual quality.

•In 449 the competition for actors in tragedy was introduced at the city Dionysia and the actor gradually became as important as the dramatist.

Political context

•Antigone was first presented c. 440 BC, the interwar period between the Persian and Spartan wars, during which Athenian democracy was flourishing following the reforms of Pericles and Ephialtes, which ensured that political power belonged to the body of the citizens and not to the aristocratic few.

•In 477 the Greek city states formed the Delian League for mutual protection from the Persians. Athens was placed at the head of it because of her power at sea.

•Initially its treasury was located on the island of Delo, but Pericles transferred it to Athens, boosting the city’s political and financial power and gradually transforming the federation into an Athenian empire.

•The increasing power and wealth of Athens were clearly reflected in the city’s achievements in science, philosophy and the arts.

•Some philosophers even challenged the power of the gods and their ability to affect human lives, claiming that humans had gradually become masters of their environment through the development of the civilisation and the establishment of democracy.

•The best source from which one can get an idea of the Athenian political constitution and ideals of Athenian democracy is Pericles’ famous funeral speech, as given by the historian Thucydides.

•The speech stressed the ideals of radical democracy, and praises the Athenian way of life, especially in contrast to the Spartan. It particularly highlights the importance of the people being involved in the city’s affairs, accusing those who mind their own private business of being useless, and bringing to mind Creon’s inaugural speech in Antigone.

•Finally, not everybody was considered politically equal in democratic Athens.

•Slaves and women were excluded from all public and political institutions and had no right to vote. Slaves were used as labourers to build and preserve the wealth and strong economy of Athens while women’s central function was to breed pure Athenian citizens. The women also remained under male guardianship and were supposed to get married at an early age in order to devote themselves to their families.

•Their duties were confined to household activities, as well as the performance of religious rituals, and their expectations and roles are clearly represented in Antigone.

The performance

The theatrical space

•Antigone was first performed in the morning in the open-air theatre of Dionysus, on the southeast slope of the Acropolis, just above the temple of Dionysus and close to the market-place where all political, judicial, commercial and religious activities took place, making it both metaphorically and literally the centre of the city

•The shape of the theatre itself developed according to the topography of the Acropolis hill. This meant that the hillside rising up from the temple of Dionysus gradually formed a natural theatre auditorium with the audience sitting initially on the ground and later on wooden planks. This offered spectators a better view than level ground, allowing them to look down on a performance area which gradually developed into a circle where the tragedies unfolded through the skilful acting and dancing of the performers.

•A wooden structure, the stage building, was positioned on the circular performance area. The fromt pf the skene was dominated by a central door, marking the boundary between inner and outer space, private and public domain, and to a certain degree between female and male spheres. At a practical level it also served as the place where actors changed costumes and masks without being seen.

•The invention of skenographia is credited by Aristotle to Sophocles. The front of the skene was rendered to look like a palace.

•Apart from the central door, the circular performance area had another two side entrances from which the male characters usually arrived or departed.

•Women usually used the main door, with the exception of Antigone, who is no ordinary female

The actors

•In ancient Greek theatre three professional male actors, the protagonist, deuteragonist and tritagonist, interpreted all the characters in the play, their status depending on the length and difficulty of their roles.

•The actors were assigned to the dramatist by the state official in charge of the festival, but on many occasions, the poet himself could also participate by playing the central part

•It is important to note that the poet was not a simple dramatist but also functioned as the modern-day director, guiding and instructing his actors on how to perform their parts.

•It is obvious that when two characters co-existed on stage the parts could not be interpreted by the same actor.

•As the content of the play suggests, the spectators would have witnessed a series of simple but well-constructed confrontations between two actors, but no special effects were required.