Seeing Theater: The Phenomenologies of Classical Greek Drama (original) (raw)

Discussions of this pot have generally been concerned with identifying these various details. One of its most remarkable features, however, is its focus on theatrical spectatorship itself. Actors, chorus, musician, judges, and audience have been reduced to an exchange between a single performer and two spectators. 6 The latter have been variously identified: as both judges; a judge with the chorēgos, the man who financed the production; a judge with the dramatic poet; or perhaps just regular audience members. 7 Whoever they may be, the scene invites its viewer to position themselves alongside this pair-to look upon the actor and the physical properties of his performance space and perhaps also, like modern scholars, to wonder about their potential objects of representation. Yet the curved shape of the pot prevents any stable viewing of or with the spectators, for only when not actually using this chous to pour wine might a user see the entire scene; otherwise they would flit between audience and actor. 8 In a way, this experience is analogous to that of seeing a play, especially in a light-filled open-air structure: that is, an audience member may look as much at his fellow spectators as at the performance itself. 9 It also

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"Theatre, Religion, and Politics at Alexander's travelling Royal Court", in, E. Csapo, H.R. Goette, J.R. Green, P. Wilson (eds), Greek Theatre in the Fourth Century B.C., de Gruyter, 2014, p. 249-274, and Pl. 10