Greek Theater
Greek theater was very different from
what we call theater today. It was, first of all, part of a religious
festival. To attend a performance of one of these plays was an act
of worship, not entertainment or intellectual pastime. But it is
difficult for us to even begin to understand this aspect of the
Greek theater, because the religion in question was very different
from modern religions. The god celebrated by the performances of
these plays was Dionysus, a deity who lived in the wild and was
known for his subversive revelry. The worship of Dionysus was associated
with an ecstasy that bordered on madness. Dionysus, whose cult was
that of drunkenness and sexuality, little resembles modern images
of God.
A second way in which Greek theater was different from
modern theater is in its cultural centrality: every citizen attended
these plays. Greek plays were put on at annual festivals (at the
beginning of spring, the season of Dionysus), often for as many
as 15,000 spectators at once. They dazzled
viewers with their special effects, singing, and dancing, as well
as with their beautiful language. At the end of each year’s festivals,
judges would vote to decide which playwright’s play was the best.
In these competitions, Sophocles was king. It is thought
that he won the first prize at the Athenian festival eighteen times.
Far from being a tortured artist working at the fringes of society,
Sophocles was among the most popular and well-respected men of his
day. Like most good Athenians, Sophocles was involved with the political
and military affairs of Athenian democracy. He did stints as a city
treasurer and as a naval officer, and throughout his life he was
a close friend of the foremost statesman of the day, Pericles. At
the same time, Sophocles wrote prolifically. He is believed to have authored 123 plays,
only seven of which have survived.
Sophocles lived a long life, but not long enough to witness
the downfall of his Athens. Toward the end of his life, Athens became entangled
in a war with other city-states jealous of its prosperity and power,
a war that would end the glorious century during which Sophocles
lived. This political fall also marked an artistic fall, for the unique
art of Greek theater began to fade and eventually died. Since then,
we have had nothing like it. Nonetheless, we still try to read it, and
we often misunderstand it by thinking of it in terms of the categories
and assumptions of our own arts. Greek theater still needs to be read,
but we must not forget that, because it is so alien to us, reading these
plays calls not only for analysis, but also for imagination.
Antigone
Antigone was probably the first of the
three Theban plays that Sophocles wrote, although the events dramatized
in it happen last. Antigone is one of the first heroines in literature,
a woman who fights against a male power structure, exhibiting greater
bravery than any of the men who scorn her. Antigone is
not only a feminist play but a radical one as well, making rebellion
against authority appear splendid and noble. If we think of Antigone as
something merely ancient, we make the same error as the Nazi censors
who allowed Jean Anouilh’s adaptation of Antigone to
be performed, mistaking one of the most powerful texts of the French
Resistance for something harmlessly academic.
Oedipus the King
The story of Oedipus was well known to Sophocles’ audience.
Oedipus arrives at Thebes a stranger and finds the town under the
curse of the Sphinx, who will not free the city unless her riddle
is answered. Oedipus solves the riddle and, since the king has recently been
murdered, becomes the king and marries the queen. In time, he comes
to learn that he is actually a Theban, the king’s son, cast out of
Thebes as a baby. He has killed his father and married his mother. Horrified,
he blinds himself and leaves Thebes forever.
The story was not invented by Sophocles. Quite
the opposite: the play’s most powerful effects often depend on the
fact that the audience already knows the story. Since the first
performance of Oedipus Rex, the story has fascinated
critics just as it fascinated Sophocles. Aristotle used this play
and its plot as the supreme example of tragedy. Sigmund Freud famously
based his theory of the “Oedipal Complex” on this story, claiming
that every boy has a latent desire to kill his father and sleep
with his mother. The story of Oedipus has given birth to innumerable
fascinating variations, but we should not forget that this play
is one of the variations, not the original story itself.
Oedipus at Colonus
Beginning with the arrival of Oedipus in Colonus
after years of wandering, Oedipus at Colonus ends
with Antigone setting off toward her own fate in Thebes. In and
of itself, Oedipus at Colonus is not a tragedy;
it hardly even has a plot in the normal sense of the word. Thought to
have been written toward the end of Sophocles’ life and the conclusion
of the Golden Age of Athens, Oedipus at Colonus, the
last of the Oedipus plays, is a quiet and religious play, one that
does not attempt the dramatic fireworks of the others. Written after Antigone, the
play for which it might be seen as a kind of prequel, Oedipus
at Colonus seems not to look forward to the suffering that
envelops that play but back upon it, as though it has already been
surmounted.
