Picture Writing

Background

History and definition

Tragic drama began in Athens, Greece, in the sixth century BCE. ⁶ Performances of tragedies were a special occasion and always were planned to take place on festival days celebrating the Greek god Dionysus; these performances, however, were not religious. ⁷ A tragedy is always written in verse. ⁸ The performances were competitions between three playwrights, and each playwright would commonly enter four plays. These plays didn't need to relate to one another in any way, except that they all had to be tragedies. Sophocles won second-place when he wrote and produced Oedipus Rex. ⁹ It's difficult to believe that there was a tragedy better than his in the running, but that brings up an important point. There is evidence that thousands of tragedies were written, but we have manuscripts for only thirty-two in existence today. These tragedies have been widely read and performed over the last two thousand years. ¹⁰ This information will show students the stark contrast of ancient Greek tragedy to our modern day understanding of theatre and its purpose.

The amphitheater (called a theatron) that the tragedies were performed in was enormous. Evidence shows that up to fifteen thousand people could be seated in the theatre. ¹¹ This doesn't seem like a large capacity compared to our sports stadiums that can hold upwards of 50,000 people, but it's important to remember that Greeks didn't have the ability to amplify or project sound and pictures, except through natural acoustics. It is hard to know exactly what these theaters looked like in the sixth century BC because many of the original ruins were covered up when later theaters were built on top of them. The stage was a circle about twenty meters in diameter (about sixty-five feet), ¹² and the seats surrounded the stage on three sides and continued upward and outward. Although spectators in the upper sections probably couldn't see the actors and chorus very well, if at all, no one had any trouble hearing the actors because of the amazing acoustics. Actors also had to have very strong voices. The word was extremely powerful during the time when rhetoric was born, and this is obvious seeing the Greeks' design of theatres with the priority for was everyone to be able to hear during the plays. The scenery on the stage was very basic—often it was just the stage, which was built with columns and decorated in the Greek style.

In Greek theatre, just as in modern theatre, both actors and chorus members wore costumes—sometimes both were elaborate costumes, and sometimes chorus members wore ordinary Athenian dress. Unlike modern theatre, everyone on stage wore masks that covered the whole head. Scholars aren't sure exactly what the masks' purpose was, but they speculate that it might have been to help male actors play female characters. I would also guess that part of the function was to make the actors' features larger so that people far away could see the faces. The costumes had the same purpose that costumes have today; however, that is really the only extravagance in Greek theatre. For most of my students, it's almost impossible to imagine watching a play in which there are no special effects, no lights, and practically no scenery. I want them to understand, however, that for the Greeks, this was the highest form of entertainment and that most people went to plays and enjoyed them. Ordinary Athenians were often cast in chorus roles, so it could be said that they had a stake in going to see other plays. Often people would remember lines and sing them, just as we sing songs from the radio and even Broadway musicals. We will be looking at images from the nineteenth century that attempt to recreate the stage and costumes of ancient Greece.

Tragedy is a specific type of drama, and it has very specific characteristics. There could only be three actors on the stage at one time, and the chorus was made up of twelve to fifteen people (Sophocles raised the number to fifteen). Only men could act in tragedies (or any Greek performance, for that matter). Tragedies were written in verse, and actors would either say or sing their lines. The chorus usually sang and danced between actors' lines. ¹³ In ancient Greece, the playwright was a choreographer and a composer in addition to being a playwright. He choreographed the dances for the chorus as well as composing the music that the chorus sang. ¹⁴ (add citation) Unlike today, when a playwright or a screenwriter will do only the writing and leave the music and movement to someone else or more likely to many others, the Greek playwright did all of these jobs, and he did them all at the same time, since the movements and the tempo of the song depended on the words the chorus was singing. The only musical accompaniments were the aulos, which is a double-reeded instrument, ¹⁵ and sometimes a harp-type instrument.

There were fairly strict rules for writing a tragedy. All main characters in tragedies had to be nobles, although sometimes they were disguised as beggars or some other unfortunate character. Gods often showed up in tragedies, not as physical characters necessarily but sometimes intervening on behalf of a character or criticizing others. The English word tragedy often refers to horrible events; and although this can also be true in Greek tragedies, Oedipus Rex for example, Greek tragedies don't always end sadly, contrary to popular high school belief. They sometimes have a happy ending, but it's usually after something horrible almost happens, for example, in Euripides' Ion, a mother and son nearly kill each other, but the tragedy is averted at the last minute. Some tragedies, for example, reunite families, as in Euripides' Ion and Iphigenia among the Taurians. ¹⁶

Function and form of the Chorus

The chorus played an integral role in the Greek theatre. The closest translation to the concept of "directing a play" translates roughly in Greek to "teach a chorus." This in itself offers evidence of the centrality of the chorus to the drama. It was the director's job to teach normal Athenians how to sing and dance as members of the chorus, and doing so was probably more work than directing actors who already had some training. In the brief history that I share with students, I will be focusing specifically on the chorus' role in tragedies and even more specifically on its role in Oedipus Rex. The chorus had a few different purposes. One of their jobs was to provide background information that the spectator would need to know at the beginning of the play. This is not the case in Oedipus Rex; it is actually the priest whose sole function in the play seems to be giving the audience background information. The chorus can also function as the backup singers, in a sense. They often repeat what the actors are saying. The first time we see the chorus in this play, they are calling on the gods to help their poor city and describing just how bad things are in Thebes due to a plague. Although the priest has just told Oedipus practically the same thing, it's the chorus' job to reinforce for the audience the seriousness of the issues in the play.

The chorus also provides opinions and points of view about the action in the play. Daniels and Scully note that the chorus is often on a "different plane; differentiated from the specific concerns and incidents of the action." ¹⁷ Often the chorus may be commenting on something that is happening in the action, but it could also be a comment that doesn't exactly relate to the current actions. A modern-day example to look at is the Broadway musical Rent, ¹⁸ during which, in some songs, the chorus is not singing about the action at hand, but rather expressing a supporting or sometimes opposing view than that of the lead singers. The song "La Vie Boheme" is a good example: in one scene the actors/singers are having dinner together, and the chorus is singing about different people and the different preferences they have. The message the chorus is sending while the characters are dining and supposedly celebrating, is that people are different, and it's not always easy to get along, but we're all human. This may not be a perfect example, and the content is very different to Oedipus Rex, but it helps explain why the chorus can be difficult for my high-school students to read and to integrate the messages of the chorus into the rest of the action.

The chorus did essentially (with a few important differences, of course) what a chorus in a contemporary Broadway musical does—sings and dances to music. The chorus stood together on the stage with the other three actors (the most permitted by Greek rules of drama to be on stage at one time). ¹⁹ Usually the chorus was the communal voice, meaning that although there was more than one person singing, they all had the same opinion. The chorus always stayed physically near each other, in the center of the stage, and when they moved, everyone moved together. In tragedies there could be one leader who could break away from the group and interact directly with characters. The purpose of this character (who is simply titled chorus in the text, as opposed to strophe and antistrophe—see below for more information) is to give advice to one of the characters. Those are some of the easier lines of the chorus for students to understand because the language is clear and the intent is straightforward.

Aside from the leader who interacts with the actors, the chorus is usually structured in what are known as strophic pairs. The first part is called the strophe, and the second part is called the antistrophe. ²⁰ These words in Greek literally mean "turn" and "turn against." The chorus would dance across the stage while singing the strophe and then turn around and come back across during the antistrophe. This is an interesting part of the play and I wasn't able to find out if there was symbolism for this act, or if it was just to add movement and dance. Some of the time these pairs present different points of view, and this can make it more difficult for students to keep up.

I've talked about the difficulty for students to understand the messages and point-of-view of the chorus. I want to take a strophic pair and discuss in more detail some of the difficulties students may have. The first time we hear from the chorus in Oedipus Rex is directly after Creon returns from the god Apollo with Apollo's message about how to save the city of Thebes from plague and ruin:

    Strophe
    What is the sweet spoken word of God from the shrine of Pytho
    rich in gold
    that has come to glorious Thebes?
    I am stretched on the rack of doubt, and terror and trembling
    hold
    my heart, O Delian Healer, and I worship full of fears
    for what doom you will bring to pass, new or renewed in the
    revolving years.
    Speak to me, immortal voice,
    child of golden Hope.
    Antistrophe
    First I call on you, Athene, deathless daughter of Zeus,
    and Artemis, Earth Upholder,
    who sits in the midst of the market place in the throne which
    men call Fame,
    and Phoebus, the Far Shooter, three averters of Fate,
    come to us now, if ever before, when ruin rushed upon the state,
    you drove destruction's flame away
    out of our land. 21
  

Students understand that the entire play is written in verse, but the strophic pairs are generally in more flowery and obscure verse than the actors' lines are. As soon as students see words that they don't know or understand, they begin to lose motivation. The strophe is reacting to the news from Apollo and in some ways foreshadowing the events to come when it says, "I am stretched on the rack of doubt," and it then uses words that express fear and foreboding, like "terror and trembling" and "full of fears" and "doom." This may seem quite apparent, but the language is full of metaphor and allusion, and this can be difficult for students to understand. The antistrophe is calling on the gods to help them. This presents a problem for students who haven't learned the names and stories of the gods being written about, especially because their myth or story has an impact on the meaning. Why does Sophocles pick these specific gods? If students haven't had the opportunity to learn about Greek myths, they have a harder time making the connections that they need to make in order to understand these messages. This strophic pair comes at the beginning of the tragedy, but many that come later only increase in difficulty, so it is apparent that the focus on the chorus is essential.

Structure of Greek tragedy

The structure of a tragedy is divided into six parts: exposition, complication, discoveries and reversals, peripeteia, climax and denouement. Oedipus Rex fits into this structure perfectly, giving it amazing economy in terms of plot and purpose. The structure plays a big role in the form of the tragedy, and it's worthwhile to look at the summary of the play in terms of this structure.

Oedipus Rex

Many tragedies, including Oedipus Rex, are based on traditional legend. ²² The name translates to Oedipus the King. The Oedipus myth, as it is known, is the basic story that we see in Sophocles' version. Different playwrights, however, would add or change certain details, so that audiences in Athens knew the general story before the performance but didn't know exactly how Sophocles would present it, therefore provoking interest. We can easily relate to this in our modern world—filmmakers often remake a classic with a new twist or remake it in a very similar way, but the audience is still very interested in seeing the remake, especially if they've seen the original.

Oedipus Rex is the story of a man who becomes the king of Thebes after solving the riddle of the Sphinx, who had taken over the city. The riddle the Sphinx asks is: what crawls on four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three in the evening? Oedipus thinks a bit and then gives the correct answer: man. The fascinating part of this story is that Oedipus never actually says the answer. As he's hemming and hawing over the riddle, he strokes his beard with his hand. The sphinx takes this motion to mean that Oedipus is pointing at himself, thus answering her question. She is defeated and the city of Thebes is given to him. This image and explanation make sense to the reader because Oedipus is never portrayed as an especially intelligent man. This image is also very important to my unit because there is another image of Oedipus stroking his beard during the scene when he finds out the truth about his life, although he isn't ready to accept it until the last shred of evidence is shown to him. He strokes his beard as if to symbolically say, "it's me; I'm Laius' killer."

Once Oedipus is the king of Thebes, he marries its Queen, Jocasta, who had been married to Laius before he was killed. They have a family, and Oedipus rules contentedly until the opening of Sophocles' play. The tragedy opens on the scene of the priest asking Oedipus to help his people, who are suffering from the plague. Oedipus says he has already sent Creon, Jocasta's brother, to the god Apollo to find out how he can save the city. This is the exposition. When Creon returns he relays Apollo's news that in order to save the city, they must find and bring to justice the man or men who killed the former king, Laius. Oedipus vows to find whoever it was and immediately starts an investigation by asking questions about Laius' death. This is the complication in the story that starts the chain reaction of questions and answers that lead to the inevitable truth that he has unwittingly killed his father and married his mother.

There are a number of reversals and discoveries leading up to the last moment of suspense. For example, Teresias the prophet tells Oedipus that he is the murderer, but Oedipus doesn't believe him and ends up fighting with Creon. Another discovery happens when Jocasta tells Oedipus the story of Laius being killed at a crossroads. Jocasta tries to counsel and comfort Oedipus, and while trying to make him feel better about the prophecy he has heard, she tells him that Laius also received a prophecy that he would be killed by his son. The fact that as the story goes, Laius was killed by a band of people at a crosswords tells her that the prophecy couldn't possibly have been true. However, this is probably the worst news for Oedipus because he knows that he once killed a man at a crossroads. Even though this might seem like enough information to convince the audience, Oedipus, who is still in denial, calls for the herdsman who was with Laius when he was killed.

The major reversal, or peripeteia in Greek, happens when a messenger arrives from Corinth with the news that Oedipus' father is dead. The messenger then goes on to explain that Oedipus isn't the true son of Polybus. He explains that he was ordered to take Laius and Jocasta's son to the mountains and kill him so that the prophey given to Laius that his son would kill him wouldn't be fulfilled. He tells them that he didn't kill the child, but instead gave him to another shepherd who then gave the child to the king and queen of Corinth. (We find out later that this shepherd was also the one who was with Laius when he was killed.) The messenger thinks this is good news, for it means that Oedipus can return to Corinth without fear of marrying his mother, because she isn't his real mother. The tragic irony is that in telling Jocasta and Oedipus this good news, Jocasta realizes that Oedipus is in fact her son. This is enough for Jocasta, and she goes into her room and hangs herself. Oedipus needs to know the final details from the shepherd who has been summoned and describes the death of Laius, before he can admit the truth, and this is the climax of the tragedy. Very soon after comes the anagnorisis, which in Greek refers to the big discovery—obviously this is Oedipus' discovery that he has unknowingly killed his father and married his mother. Some scholars add in the moment of catastrophe, a word that literally means fall down, to describe the reported suicide of Jocasta and Oedipus' act of blinding himself. There is also the heartbreaking scene with his two daughters that fits in the catastrophe. Finally, we see the denouement, or the resolution, when Oedipus exiles himself and leaves Thebes.

A Note on Images

Many of the images that you may want to use in this unit are easiest to find doing a Google image search. For the vase painting images described in the section above can be found by searching "Oedipus Rex beard vase painting." The image is a circular painting that is from the Etruscan Museum in the Vatican. The image of Oedipus and Jocasta can be found by searching on Google Image for "Oedipus messenger." The image shows Oedipus and an old man in the center and then Jocasta is off to the left, while two small children are on the right and left of Oedipus. To find images of productions of Oedipus Rex Google image search "Oedipus Rex stage production" or "Oedipus Rex production chorus" to find images of the chorus specifically. Most songs to Broadway musicals are available on YouTube, including "La Vie Boheme" and "Oklahoma!"