Words for Board: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Oedipus Rex, Antigone, Euripides, Medea

How did Greek drama start up? Dionysus was the god of wine. He was a rural deity but he was also the god of drama. That came about cuz he was a dying/rising god of fertility. There were 2 big Greek ceremonies: on of mourning in the winter and one of rejoicing for his return in the spring. It got down to one ceremony in the spring with one week of mourning and then all the women got loaded on the fruit of the vine and went running naked through the woods looking for the spirit of Dionysus returning. The first animal they saw (mouse, man, anything) was supposed to be the god returning to earth and they killed it and ate the body to release the spirit into themselves. Gradually, the ceremony tamed down to a priest with an audience of followers doing a responsive reading type of service. Have you ever been to a responsive reading? It's actually responsive mumbling. So it went down to a priest with a small chorus who could talk together to do the service and the audience just sat. Soon, they added more priests and plays started to develop. The chorus began to represent public opinion. Soon, they got the priest into a special chair in the audience cuz the priests can't act. Instead, he got to be prompter. Since the Greeks were very competitive, they began having play contests.

There were 2 types of Greek plays: tragedy and comedy. Comedies were more like slapstick with a lot of sex thrown in (the 3 Stooges rated X). A Tragedy was a play that dealt with a serious subject. Lots dealt with death, also the nature of the gods, can you please gods and government, what do you owe the government, religion, or your fellow man. If you were rich, you discussed these topics with your sophist. But, if you weren't, you could go to the theater and hear life's big questions discussed. Greeks thought it was important to think about big things occasionally. It was part of the process that made you an adult. The government of Athens would even pay for your ticket if you couldn't afford it cuz they thought the theater was so important.

There was no scenery or lighting. Plays happened from dawn to dusk at the contests. Actors would announce the time and weather in their lines of the play. Actors wore masks which announced who the characters were by the masks (the kings always had a king mask, etc.). The masks had a built-in megaphone of brass. The actors wore padded clothing and tall shoes. All this stuff was so they could be seen and heard in the last row. But cuz of the mask and megaphone, you couldn't see facial expressions or voice inflections. All the subtle stuff had to be built into the words of the play. Greek plays were very talky cuz the words were everything. There were no new plots in Greek plays. All the plots were based on history and religious stories. When you went to see a play, you knew the storyline and how it ended. That's no fun, you say? Why do we go to see movies again? Why did you sit through Star Wars 4 times? Because you wanted to pick up on new details, new lines or because you enjoyed it. Greeks also got a different treatment of the story with each different playwright. Every so often the chorus would rise and sing and dance across the stage as a convention. Sound corny? We have convention like there's always background music in the movies. As a matter of fact, if the director wants to make a point, he has the music stop. It usually wakes the audience up to the fact that something big is coming or happening.

Aeschylus wrote during the Persian Wars. He was one of the biggies and a conservative. He said you have to accept the gods dumping on you cuz they're the gods and obviously know what they're doing. Stockmyer tells you all about his play in the Syllabus, so you better read it!

Sophocles was a young man when Aeschylus was old, so he's the next generation. He won the big prize in 468 BC, after the Persian Wars. He was handsome, which was very important to the Greeks (even more than to Americans). He was a genius, wealthy, skilled at sports. His father was a sword manufacturer during the war. Sophocles gave public performances on the harp. He played a ball game of the Greeks publicly. He won prizes at the Olympic competitions. He was a personal friend of Anaxagoras (philosopher). Yet with all that going for him, he was a great pessimist all his life. (Having everything doesn't make you happy.)

His big play was Oedipus Rex, which is actually misnamed. Rex was the Roman name for king. In Greek, it would be Oedipus the Tyrant (leader of the people). The play took place at Thebes, in Northern Greece. Lots of plays took place there. The play opens with a protest demonstration at the royal house. Oedipus went out to chat with the people who are upset cuz there's a plague on them. They want Oedipus to do something to get the plague lifted. Oedipus called in a soothsayer who told him a long story. It seems the former king of Thebes and his wife had a son who had an oracle about him. The prophecy said that the son would kill the father and marry the mother. In those days, Greek fathers had the decision of whether their kids lived. They could expose them and let them get eaten. The king didn't want his kid growing up to kill him, so he sent the baby out with an old shepherd with instruction to make sure the kid died. Instead, the shepherd took the kid and crossed into southern Greece into Corinth. It just so happens that the king and queen or Corinth couldn't have kids and were looking for a loose baby. They took Oedipus and raised him. In those days, no one told you that you were adopted. Oedipus heard an oracle about himself that he'd kill his father (who he thought was the king of Corinth). He didn't want to kill his dad so he renounced his throne (which was rarely done–most princes were trying to knock off the old man so they could inherit the power). Oedipus headed north. Outside of Thebes he ran into an old codger with his goon squad on the road. Roads in those days weren't too big and if you were bigger you forced the other person off the road. The goons muscled Oedipus off the road. Being an honorable Greek, Oedipus had to defend himself and had a fight with swords and killed the old man and his goons who just happened to be the king of Thebes (Oedipus' real father). Why was the king on the road? He was going to Delphi to receive a prophecy. See, there's this monster that's been bugging Thebes. It's a sphinx (Greek word for monster–it was Greek tourists that named those big buildings) with the face of a woman, tail of a lion and wings of a bird who travels the highways and asks people a riddle. If you can't answer the riddle, the sphinx eats you. But he's a sporting sphinx: he gave you a chance by asking you for the riddle and if you answered correctly, he promised to thrown himself off a cliff. On the other hand, it's his riddle so your chances are somewhat diminished. Oedipus didn't know about him, but he soon found out when he ran into him. The sphinx posed the riddle of: What has 4 feet, 2 feet, and 3 feet? Oedipus said it's man–baby with 4 feet, man on 2 feet, and old man with a cane for 3 feet. Apparently, that's the answer the sphinx had in mind and so, begin the good sport it was, it threw itself off the cliff. Oedipus got into town and was met by the town council. They offered im the position of king, since it seems theirs had just been killed and Oedipus was obviously the hero of the day. But they were supposed to have a hereditary monarchy, so just to keep the people from getting too upset, would Oedipus mind marrying the queen of the former king (Oedipus' real mother). That happened ok and over the years Oedipus and his wife/mother had some kids (Oedipus' sons/half-brothers, etc.). Anyway, as the play progresses we find out all this story. The queen found out and killed herself offstage. (Nobody killed themselves on stage–it was always announced in the play.) Eventually, Oedipus found out the whole story. He blinded himself and put himself out of town, just like he threatened to do to the person causing the plague, which it turned out was himself. The gods had been punishing Thebes cuz they were opposed to incest and murdering parents which Oedipus had unknowingly done. What does this mean? If you hear it from the English department, they will teach you that it shows the tragic flaw in a great man. But, actually, Oedipus' flaw was supposed to be his pride and that was normal in Greek culture. According to Stockmyer, Oedipus is similar to Job in the Old Testament. If you don't remember the story of Job, it goes like this: One day, god and the devil were chit-chatting and god was bragging about his man Job, that there was no one more devoted to him, etc. The devil said that god was protecting Job and not letting anything bad happen to him. He said he could wear Job down. So, they made a small wager that god would remove all protection from Job and the devil could do anything but kill Job. So the devil killed all Job's animals off and then his family and then gave Job boils all over his body and then burned down his house. But Job stayed loyal to the end and finally the devil gave up and god gave Job back all his good stuff. This was a teaching story to the Jews cuz they believe that, if you stay loyal, God paid off in the end. They also thought that if good things were happening for you, it was cuz god loved you but, if you were having bad luck, it was cuz you were evil. The Greeks believed the same way. Oedipus had been a great man. He nobly gave up the throne of Corinth to save who he thought was his father and took the same punishment he had promised to who he thought was someone else, to save Thebes. But the play shows that even great men can be brought low. And just cuz everything looks like it's going great, the gods may not love you.

Sophocles' other great play was Antigone. It was named after the heroine, a young lady who was engaged to the son of the king of Thebes. (Just a coincidence–lots of plays were set in Thebes for some unknown reason.) As the play opens, the king had just put down a coup of young rebels trying to overthrown him. One of the rebels was Antigone's brother who was laying out dead on a field. Now, the job of king is to give security to your people and prevent revolts. So, to make an example out of the rebels and discourage further revolts, the king said that no one could bury the rebels (as sort of a visual aid). If anyone tired to bury the dead, they would be put to death. But religion demands that you bury your relatives and that was Antigone's brother rotting out there. She has a small problem. Religion says bury and State says no. What to do? She decided the state could only get you in this life, but religion could get you forever. So she starts to bury her brother, got caught, and was put to death outside of town. Her fiance (the king's only legitimate son and heir) found out and killed himself. So, eventually, the king was destroyed by his own rule. Everybody was wrecked. But the play showed that sometimes that was the way life is. There are situations that you can't get out of. In case you don't think that's still true, remember a little skirmish not too long ago nicknamed the Vietnamese War? If you were a young male during those days, you may have had a problem. You conscience didn't necessarily agree with fighting an unofficial war far away but if you escaped to Canada, you lost your home forever. Sophocles showed that life has bad situations that can't be helped. He also gave a small criticism of the gods for trapping man up that way.

The other biggie playwright was Euripides. He was of the new variety and worshiped reason, which made him non-religious. He had the new sophistic education and was a democratic type liberal. His biggie play was Medea which first showed in 431 BC. It was the old Greek legend of Jason and the Golden Fleece with a new slant. A Golden Fleece was something neat to go hunting after, similar to the Holy Grail of the Middle Ages. Nobody knew exactly what it was they were hunting, but the journey and search was good for your soul. Jason was a local hero working out of Corinth. It so happened that a barbaric king on the Black Sea owned the Fleece at the time. Jason seduced his daughter, Medea, and got her to kill her father and steal the Fleece for him and they hit the road. They got married and moved back to Corinth. One day, Jason was downtown having a beer with the boys and the king of Corinth offered him a deal. See, the king had no sons and was at the point that he needed a successor. So he offered Jason the hand of his daughter and therefore the crown of Corinth if Jason would divorce his wife, who, after all, was a barbarian anyway. So, Jason went home and told Medea of the deal and that he was divorcing her. In Greece, divorce was easy and women had no say about it anyway. But Jason forgot that Medea was not Greek and did not take the idea of divorce lightly. She gave Jason the appearance of being reconciled to the idea. But Medea had special magic powers. (Greeks thought that barbarians were closer to nature and therefore had special powers. Of course, we don't think that primitive people have special magic, do we? Been to any good voodoo ceremonies lately?) Medea decide to get even. She gave the bride-to-be a special dress for the wedding that burned her up when she put it on. Her father, seeing her burning, tried to help her and was consumed in the fire, too. Jason avoided the fire and went home to make up with Medea. In the meantime, she had killed their children and disappeared in a fiery chariot. Yes, she loved her children and it hurt her to kill the, but they were Jason's too, and she knew it would hurt him more cuz Greeks have a thing about legitimate sons. That was the old story everyone knew and the moral was don't get involved with foreigners, especially foreign women. But Euripides showed a new version. The way he told it made Jason look like the thundering ass that he was. It also showed that Greeks treated women and foreigners very badly and that Jason got exactly what he deserved. Even the name of the play showed the idea–Medea. It was named after a woman. Usually the story would have been called Jason or the Golden Fleece or a combination of the above. Euripides showed Greeks that they were snobby and not as neat as they thought. The Greeks hated the play and were hostile to new philosophers.