“Deus-Ex-Machina” Mechanism Reconstruction in the Theater of Phlius, Corinthia

2009 ◽  
Vol 132 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Argyris S. Papadogiannis ◽  
Marilena C. Tsakoumaki ◽  
Thomas G. Chondros
Keyword(s):  
Planar Motion ◽  
Path Generation ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Single Beam ◽  
Greek Drama ◽  
Archeological Evidence ◽  
Lifting System ◽  
Latin Term

In some ancient Greek drama plays, the stage machine used to bring the gods or the heroes of the tragedy on stage, known with the Latin term deus-ex-machina, was used for the solution of an apparently insoluble crisis. A twin-facing stone base was found in the theater of Phlius in Corinthia, Greece, behind the stage building. The existence of similar foundations in other ancient theaters indicates their use for specific purposes connected with the needs of the play. An attempt to reconstruct the mechanism is presented based on archeological evidence and literary descriptions. The reconstructed mechanism was designed for path generation and comprised a single beam with ropes controlling its planar motion and a sidle twin lifting system.

Mechanisms of the Ancient Greek Theater

1992 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew D. Dimarogonas
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Path Generation ◽  
Space Travel ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Machine Element ◽  
Four Bar Linkage ◽  
Indirect Information ◽  
First Time ◽  
Latin Term

Abstract The word Mechanism is a derivative of the Greek word mechane (which meant machine, more precisely, machine element) meaning an assemblage of machines. While it was used for the first time by Homer in the Iliad to describe the political manipulation, it was used with its modern meaning first in Aeschylos times to describe the stage machine used to bring the gods or the heroes of the tragedy on stage, known with the Latin term Deus ex machina. At the same time, the word mechanopoios, meaning the machine maker or engineer, was introduced for the man who designed, built and operated the mechane. None of these machines, made of perishable materials, is extant. However, there are numerous references to such machines in extant tragedies or comedies and vase paintings from which they can be reconstructed: They were large mechanisms consisting of beams, wheels and ropes which could raise weights up-to one ton and, in some cases, move them back-and-forth violently to depict space travel, when the play demanded it. The vertical dimensions were over 4 m while the horizontal travel could be more than 8 m. They were well-balanced and they could be operated, with some exaggeration perhaps, by the finger of the engineer. There is indirect information about the timing of these mechanisms. During the loading and the motion there were specific lines of the chorus, from which we can infer the duration of the respective operation. The reconstructed mechane is a spatial three- or four-bar linkage designed for path generation.

Conclusions

2019 ◽  
pp. 243-250
Author(s):  
Lucy C. M. M. Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Current Understanding ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Greek Drama ◽  
Relevant Evidence ◽  
History Of ◽  
Key Questions ◽  
The Way

As well as bringing together all the relevant evidence for the quality and activity of the chorus of drama in the fourth century, this monograph has raised certain key questions about the current understanding of the nature and development of Attic drama as a whole. First, it shows that the supposed ‘civic’ quality of the chorus of drama is, in fact, an association loaned, inappropriately, from the genre of circular, ‘dithyrambic’, choral performance. Being attentive to the cultural differences between these two genres should prompt a further re-evaluation of how to read dramatic choruses more generally. Second, the way in which key fourth-century authors such as Plato and Xenophon use the image of the chorus to discuss the concept of leadership has profoundly shaped ways of construing choreia in ancient Greek drama, and the ancient Mediterranean more generally. Armed with this knowledge, it is possible to retell the story and history of the chorus in drama.

scholarly journals Actors of Dionysus

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (40) ◽  
pp. 35-36
Author(s):  
Megan Rogers
Keyword(s):  
Years Of Experience ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Greek Drama ◽  
Theatre Company

Actors of Dionysus (aod) is a charity and theatre company with 26 years of experience of creating radical adaptations of Ancient Greek drama and new writing productions inspired by myth. Since 1993 we have toured over 50 productions nationally and internationally, performed to over 750,000 people and become the UK's leading interpreters in this field.

Stage by Stage: The Birth of Theatre. By Philip Freund. London: Peter Owen, 2003; pp. 811. $79.95 cloth; Women and Humor in Classical Greece. By Laurie O'Higgins. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003; pp. xviii + 262. $70 cloth.

2005 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 321-324
Author(s):  
Mark Ringer
Keyword(s):  
Past Century ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Classical Greece ◽  
Greek Drama ◽  
The Past ◽  
General Readership ◽  
Comprehensive Survey

Both Philip Freund's The Birth of Theatre and Laurie O'Higgins's Women and Humor in Classical Greece deal with Ancient Greek drama. Freund, a theatre historian, attempts a fairly comprehensive survey of both Greek and Roman drama as well as its influence on postclassical theatre, with particular emphasis on the past century. O'Higgins, a classicist, offers what at first glance appears a far narrower exploration that might only be of interest to other classicists. Of the two writers, it is O'Higgins who crafts a readable study that resonates well beyond its ostensibly narrow subject, whereas Freund's book, geared toward a more general readership, is hampered by serious problems of presentation and organization that compromise his more ambitious work's usefulness.

The Trojan Women a Love Story: A Postmodern Semiotics of the Tragic

2000 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-52
Author(s):  
Sarah Bryant-Bertail
Keyword(s):  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Site Specific ◽  
Greek Drama ◽  
Love Story ◽  
History Of ◽  
Specific Material ◽  
Material Space ◽  
The University ◽  
History Of Western Civilization ◽  
Structural Base

Charles Mee, before turning to playwriting, authored several well-known political histories. To the last of these, from 1993, he gave the ironically portentous title of Playing God: Seven Fateful Moments When Great Men Met to Change the World. With this deconstructive final word after two decades as a historian, he did not in fact abandon history, but began to write it in the medium of theatre. In doing so Mee has come to share a view articulated by Roland Barthes, who was once a university student of theatre and actor in Greek tragedies: the view that theatre, and Greek tragedy in particular, can illuminate our history as a story unfolding before us, allowing us to connect critically past with present as our best hope for the future. The American director Tina Landau, a frequent collaborator with Charles Mee, likewise believes that the ancient Greek tragedies helped constitute, articulate, and today still codify the structural base in myth and history of Western civilization. Accordingly, Mee and Landau have created a number of what they call ‘site-specific pieces’ adapted from Greek drama, site-specific in that they are created out of the specific material space and time at hand. One of these is The Trojan Women a Love Story which was developed and premiered at the University of Washington in Seattle in the spring of 1996. The production was based on Euripides' play The Trojan Women and Hector Berlioz's 1859 opera Les Troyens, which in turn retells the story of Aeneas and Queen Dido of Carthage from Virgil's epic, The Aeneid.

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