Literature Review

TELLING TALES ABOUT ACTORS AND AUDIENCES: RECENT WORK ON THE RECEPTION OF DRAMA IN ANTIQUITY

Simon Perris Classics Programme, Victoria University of Wellington Wellington 6012, New Zealand Eric Csapo, Actors and Icons of the Ancient Theater. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. Pp. xiv + 233, incl. 30 black-and-white illustrations. ISBN 978-1-4051-3536-8. GBP70.00. Karelisa V. Hartigan, Performance and Cure: Drama and Healing in Ancient Greece and Contemporary America. Classical Inter/Faces. London: Duckworth, 2009. Pp. xi + 124. ISBN 978-0-7156-3639-8. GBP14.99.

Each of these books suggests a new and fruitful approach to ancient drama performance and its reception in antiquity. Csapo’s Actors and Icons proposes an iconographical history of the ancient actor, while Hartigan’s Performance and Cure proposes a model of theatre as therapy. Beyond charting these new courses, however, Hartigan and Csapo also spin a great yarn. On the one hand, we have a patient’s experience of theatrical therapy in the ancient Asklepieion and the modern hospital; on the other, an account of ancient actors and acting. Hartigan’s is very much a personal story. As its subtitle indicates, Performance and Cure compares the therapeutic use of drama in ancient Greece and the United States. To my mind, this pushes yet again the classical reception envelope, stretching the boundaries of what ‘bringing the ancient and modern worlds together’ (p. xi) really means. This is all to the good: the strengths of the Classical Inter/Faces series have always been innovation and provocation. Chapter 1, ‘Drama and Healing in Contemporary Medicine’ (pp. 5-17), first presents a potted history of Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI), establishing the therapeutic potential of belief. A précis of modern uses of drama in medicine then establishes the therapeutic potential of role-play. Chapter 2, ‘Drama and Healing in Ancient Greece’ (pp. 18-80), outlines the cult of Asklepios—myth, healing process and evidence—before leading a ‘tour’ of the major sanctuaries. Based on the earlier discussion of belief and role-play in modern medicine, this chapter makes a two-fold case: (1) belief played a substantive role in healings at Asklepieia; (2) patients witnessed a theatrical performance before entering the abaton to await a healing dream. As we shall see, I am far more comfortable with the first proposition than the second. Chapter 3, ‘Drama and Healing in the Contemporary American Hospital’ (pp. 81-92), recounts Hartigan’s acting experiences as a member of the Playback Theatre group at Shands Hospital, Florida. (Playback volunteers improvise short

136 Scholia ns Vol. 19 (2010) 126-45 ISSN 1018-9017 scenes at a patient’s bedside.) It is here most of all that Hartigan makes a strident, unfashionable claim for the real importance of drama now. ‘Through the enactment of drama, for both hospital patient and theatre audience, the catharsis Aristotle described occurs and leads to a healthier soul’ (p. 92). Chapter 4, ‘Asklepios Beyond the Classical World’ (pp. 93-99) presents the requisite treatment of Nachleben. This reads as something of an afterthought, albeit an intriguing one, outlining the iconographical continuity between Asklepios, Jesus and Greek Orthodox healing saints. Chapter 5, ‘Conclusion and Epilogue’ (pp. 100-3), recaps the argument, at which point a surprising ‘Personal Epilogue’ recounts Hartigan’s positive experiences of Playback— as a patient! Performance and Cure thus turns out to be about not only the ancient spectator-patient but also the modern actor-spectator-patient. I must confess to feeling a bit cheated at this point. Nothing to do with Asklepios? indeed. I should think that this personal account—unfairly demoted here to epilogue status—could only have strengthened Hartigan’s earlier claims for the affective capacity of drama. As it is, Performance and Cure presupposes influence and inheritance: ‘As we look back from current ideas on the interaction between drama and healing, on how both mental and emotional stimulation can help to restore health, can we discover the roots of these ideas in ancient Greece?’ (p. 2). Surely, however, Playback, PNI and the placebo effect lend credence to the possibility of theatre-dream-healing at ancient sanctuaries, not the other way around. I shall now offer a few specific suggestions and criticisms.

1. Calling Poetics 1449b27-8 ‘Aristotle’s well-known statement . . . that drama produces an emotional catharsis’ (p. 5) packages katharsis too neatly for me. A physiological interpretation of katharsis would have played nicely into Hartigan’s hands here.

2. Neither the existence of plays titled Asklepios (p. 29), nor the location of a theatre or odeion in a given sanctuary proves that theatrical performances were staged in Asklepieia for therapeutic purposes.

3. Aristophanes, Ploutos 652-748 does not describe a theatrical performance, however much it may involve pageantry and a play within a play (pp. 30-32).

4. For my taste, Hartigan relies overmuch on non-specialists’ discussions of Asklepios, as when she quotes a passage from a book on dream healing because it ‘beautifully sums up’ Asklepios (p. 26).

5. Hartigan asserts that the Epidauros theatre ‘was not originally constructed for entertainment as the Greeks did not put on dramas for pleasure’ (p. 46). This at least deserves some heavy-duty secondary references, if not a book unto itself.

6. Asklepios and Dionysos shared a festival day: 8 Elaphebolion, the προάγων of the City Dionysia. This does not prove ‘that the theatre was used in rites honouring both deities’ (p. 77).

7. The presence at an Asklepieion of an honorary statue of a resident chorister who also happened to be an actor is highly suggestive. Nevertheless, I am

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unpersuaded that ‘he must have been so honoured because of the role(s) he played in the pageant for Asklepios’ (p. 78, my italics).

8. I note typographical errors below. 1

It would be churlish not to mention Hartigan’s infectious enthusiasm, the force of her narrative, or how refreshing (and reassuring!) it is, at least for this scholar of Greek drama, to imagine that theatre might actually be able to do something. ‘Because drama unites past and future in the present, it offers a way to bear the present, and for those who must endure illness in that present drama helps them take the first step to a successful healing’ (p. 17). Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief. Hartigan asserts: ‘During the course of my research into the cult of Asklepios I have become ever more certain that a dramatic pageant was performed as part of the healing ritual’ (p. 100). I lack Hartigan’s conviction, but—like an agnostic seeking salvation—I am willing, eager even, to entertain the possibility. Performance and Cure should at the very least prompt further investigation into medicine and drama. For example, if ancient healing sanctuaries hosted theatrical performances of ‘mini-scripts’, to what extent were the institutionalised, large-scale genres of tragedy, comedy and satyr-play considered therapeutic? What would this mean for interpretation thereof?2 And what about Aristotelian katharsis? Actors and Icons likewise tells its tale well: ‘the central theme advertised by my title: the changing image of actors in antiquity’ (p. viii). The Rise of the Actor is of course a well-worn meta-fable,3 but by basing his narration on visual representations, Csapo neatly complements other canonical treatments.4 Actors and Icons is a compelling account of the development of acting in antiquity, taking actors all the way from mere adjuncts (hypokritai who ‘answer’ the chorus) to famous, favoured members of the imperial circle. A preface (pp. viii-xii) outlines the book’s genesis, thereby setting the scene. Five of the six chapters are revised and annotated lectures. In the absence of a fully fledged introduction or conclusion, this could have

1 Stafford (2005) cited but not in bibliography (p. 23); ‘The iamata and other written

accounts . . . does appear to record’ (p. 40); repeats quotation by Teijeiro (1993) verbatim (pp. 41f.; cf. p. 39); pinaka for nominative pinax (p. 43); ‘The Sanctuary for Asklepios’ (p. 53; cf. p. 52 ‘the sanctuary for Asklepios’); ‘could also have others uses’ (p. 56); ‘under the support of the Ptolemys’ (p. 57); ‘trapezas’ for trapezai (p. 68); ‘Eleusinian’ for ‘Eleusinion’ (p. 80).

2 Cf. P. Pucci, The Violence of Pity in Euripides’ Medea (Ithaca 1980) 21-58 on Euripidean drama as a therapeutic exploration of violence.

3 See, e.g., B. Gredley, ‘Greek Tragedy and the “Discovery” of the Third Actor’, in J. Redmond (ed.), Drama and the Actor (Cambridge 1984) 1-14.

4 E.g. O. Taplin, Comic Angels and Other Approaches to Greek Drama through Vase- Paintings (Oxford 1993) and Pots and Plays: Interactions Between Tragedy and Greek Vase- painting of the Fourth Century B.C. (Los Angeles 2007); J. R. Green, Theatre in Ancient Greek Society (London 1994); P. E. Easterling and E. Hall (edd.), Greek and Roman Actors: Aspects of an Ancient Profession (Cambridge 2002).

138 Scholia ns Vol. 19 (2010) 126-45 ISSN 1018-9017 resulted in a lack of focus—but does not: ‘As it turned out, my topics interact in surprisingly many ways’ (p. ix). Csapo is too modest, for his chapters are more than up to telling a story, not to mention interacting with each other. Chapter 1, ‘A Portrait of the Artist I: Theater-Realistic Art in Athens, 500-330 B.C.’ (pp. 1-37), outlines two related observations. First, choral scenes predominate in marble reliefs, paintings, or large sympotic vessels, whereas actors, although rare, do appear on small vessels (mostly choes) and terracotta figurines. Secondly, Attic vase- painting is uninterested in actors before c. 430 BCE. This ‘shows a popular interest, for the first time, in the men behind the masks, and an awareness of their skills’ (p. 31). Chapter 2, ‘A Portrait of the Artist II: Theater-Realistic Art in the Greek West, 400-300 B.C.’ (pp. 38-82), reassesses the dichotomy between Attic and West Greek theatre art. The earlier, Attic, vases concentrate on choruses and telling the whole story; the later, West Greek, vases concentrate on actors and capturing a single moment. Csapo maintains that ‘the general impression left by theater-related art in Athens and West Greece is that from about 420 B.C. actors began to catch the popular imagination in a way they had never done before’ (p. 76). Chapter 3, ‘The Spread of Theater and the Rise of the Actor’ (pp. 83-116), accounts for the development of acting during the classical period. Performances outside Attica meant more employment opportunities; supply and demand combined brought pay increases, especially for famous ‘star actors’. Thus acting became a profession, and a lucrative one at that. Chapter 4, ‘Kallipides on the Floor Sweepings: The Limits of Realism in Classical Acting’ (pp. 117-39), examines three independent testimonia regarding theatrical realism: (1) Aristotle, Poetics 1461b34-5: Mynniskos calls Kallipides an ape for ‘excessive mimesis’ (ὡς λίαν γὰρ ὑπερβάλλοντα), thereby acting out elite discomfort at mimesis of non-elite behaviours; (2) Aristophanes, Frogs: an ‘invaluable witness to the social and ideological resonances perceived by Athenian audiences in 405 B.C. to different production styles in tragedy’ (p. 123); and (3) Poetics 1460b10- 11: Sophokles portrays men ‘as they should be’, Euripides ‘as they are’. Csapo suggests that these conflicts were really about elite and democratic conceptions of the real. The actor had now permeated ideological discourse. Chapter 5, ‘Cooking with Menander: Slices from the Ancient Home Entertainment Industry?’ (pp. 140-67), examines Roman mosaics of scenes from, and depicting, Menander. Here Csapo makes the crucial observation that private theatre under the empire was widespread but not popular, limited to the imperial elite. The dining-room mosaics from the House of Menander in Mytilene, or in Daphne in Antioch, reflect not theatrical performances in situ but upwardly mobile social aspirations of the not-quite-über-rich; ‘[t]hey are images which attest to a living social practice, but elsewhere and at another time’ (p. 163). Chapter 6, ‘The Politics of Privatisation: A Short History of the Privatisation of Drama from Classical Athens to Early Imperial Rome’ (pp. 168-204), caps off Actors and Icons in style. Csapo undermines the public/private dichotomy: public theatre in the ancient world always involved private benefactors; private theatre, too, was a politically charged form of status display. Public theatre ‘was more effective than public theater in its primary political and economic objective of forging obligations of friendship and service’ (p. 195). Although not signposted as such, this is

Review Articles 139 the climax of the actor’s story—wealthy elites introducing actors into their own spaces, cultivating them, employing them for private, not always intimate, performances and all for political ends.

Actors and Icons is ostensibly about evidence: ‘In each chapter I am primarily concerned with potential bodies of evidence, whether new or old, that seem undervalued and underexploited for the purpose of theater history’ (pp. viii-ix); however, there is more to this than accreted detail. As but one example, I note Csapo’s discussion of three choregic statue bases from rural Attica with inscriptions listing famous poets as didaskaloi: ‘Three of the most important inscriptions to our question are generally ignored, or avoided, because they fly in the face of a long-standing prejudice about the city’s virtual monopoly on high-quality dramatic performance’ (p. 90). Csapo here offers both an argument (for high-quality theatre in the demes) and a shove in the direction of the evidence. The scant few typographical errors I came across do no harm to Csapo’s overall narrative,5 which is all the more compelling for being understated. Theatre iconography reveals a late fifth-century interest in actors; the diaspora of drama created the actors’ profession; actors eventually became matter for ideological debate; private theatre was the subject of bourgeois aspiration; and private and public theatre were not so different after all. Healing at an Asklepieion worked by faith and Hartigan demands more than a little faith from her reader. Csapo, on the other hand, inspires faith: faith in the evidence; faith in the rapprochement of art history and theatre history; and faith in his narrative. I will return to Actors and Icons more often, yet I was more deeply provoked by Performance and Cure. In one sense, Playback Theatre itself continues Csapo’s story of the rise and rise of the actor. First an afterthought, then professional performers, then superstar emblems of private political theatre, actors are now, and may once have been, part of arguably the greatest profession of all: medicine. Hartigan and Csapo thus prompt students of ancient drama to reconsider—excuse the irresistible, unforgiveable pun—the actor’s role in society. Whether or not we find ourselves in agreement, it certainly makes for a good story.

5 ‘Taplin’s Comic Angels and Other Approaches to Greek Drama Through Vase-

Paintings’ dated to 1994 instead of 1993 (p. ix); ‘interraction’ (p. 2); ‘mytholgical’ (p. 5); question mark after ‘only “Greek” drama?’ (p. 39); ‘atleast’ (p. 84); ‘it it’ (p. 105); ‘reclines on a kline’ needs italics for Greek kline (p. 148); comma needed after ‘the estate of the Apion family’ (p. 156); ‘lex Capurnia’ (p. 180); ‘0. Taplin’ in bibliographical entry for ‘Csapo, E. 1994’ (p. 208).