Aristophanes, comedy, and Greek theatre

Aristophanes’ Lysistrata was performed in 411 BCE, well before Athens’s defeat, when there was still hope among the city’s citizens either for peace or an Athenian victory. The performance of the play and its theatre were unlike any we experience today, for the Greek comedies (and tragedies) were part of both a religious celebration and a “best play” competition.
      Twice a year the Athenians honored the god Dionysus with festivals that included theatre performances. The City Dionysia, which occurred in March, admitted comedies to its competition in 487 BCE, while the Lenaea festival, held in January, began having comic competitions in 432 BCE. The performances were held outside in the Theatre Dionysus at the foot of the Acropolis beneath the Parthenon.
      While the Lenaea might have been devoted mainly to comedy, the City Dionysia included competitions for both tragedy and comedy, as well as performances and contests for choral singing. The first day of the festival was comprised of a parade of the choruses and casts from the competing playwrights. This was followed by two days of choral competition and a day of comedy, in which five comic playwrights presented a comedy like the Lysistrata (during the Peloponnesian War, only three comic playwrights competed).
      Then for each of the next three days, from sunrise to evening, a playwright like Sophocles or Aeschylus would present three tragedies, followed by a satyr play—a grotesque, sometimes obscene burlesque that featured a chorus of satyrs, described by James H. Butler as “the woodland attendants of Dionysus …, who were endowed with special fertility powers. They were lusty, bestial wanton forest creatures equipped with horse tails or goat legs and bristling animallike ears and hair.” Each day, ten judges among the audience of 15,000 would evaluate the contestants, and at the end of the festival, they would announce the winners of the prizes for best comic writer and best tragic writer. The officials would also announce whom they had chosen to compete in the next year’s festival, so these playwrights and their producers could begin to prepare their actors and choruses for the next year’s competition.
      These two festivals—the City Dionysia and the Lenaea—were the only times during the year that the citizens of Athens would see theatrical performances. It is not known if women were present in the audience.

Zeus brandishes his thunderbolt: this image on a Boeotian vase from the 6th-5th century BCE at the Heidelberg Museum embodies Aristophanes’ comic spirit and might have been inspired by the masks and phalluses from comedy.

      All the actors were citizens—that is, men who could vote—and the plays included one or two choruses that danced and sang between the action. (See the page Lysistrata and Old Comedy for a discussion of the structure of the plays.) The comic actors were masked and wore padded costumes; when male characters were being portrayed, they often wore large leather phalluses—sometimes erect, sometimes not—that extended below their costumes. In the fifth and fourth centuries BCE, prizes began to be awarded to tragic and comic actors, respectively, at the City Dionysia.

Web sites related to Greek comedy and theatre:

Didaskalia: Ancient Theater Today, the University of Warwick's beautiful and comprehensive site that gives a thorough introduction to Greek stagecraft, architecture, masks, and costumes; includes computer models of masks and versions of the theatres.

Images of Greek theatre (Emory University)

Images of editions of Aristophanes' Lysistrata, including editions illustrated by Picasso and Aubrey Beardsley (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee)

You may enjoy this site, published by the BBC to aid parents and teachers of students ages 9-11 in their study of ancient Greece. The Flash movie/cartoon works in interesting ways, as art often does, giving life to archeological research and clarifying the relationships between actors and audience members at the Theatre of Dionysus.

Where to go:

About Ranjit Bolt, the adaptor, and Aristophanes, the playwright
The war between Sparta and Athens
Lysistrata and Old Comedy
Women in Athens and Sparta
The "Happy Idea" of the Lysistrata

Lysistrata page
IU Theatre and Drama home page
Indiana University Bloomington home page