1. The analysis of the three-actor scene at Hippolytus 565ff. is by Graham Ley; the discussion of The Libation Bearers, and especially 884–930, by Michael Ewans. Introductory and concluding remarks by both authors.

2. Taplin, Oliver, Greek Tragedy in Action (London 1978CrossRefGoogle Scholar); Walton, Michael, Greek Theatre Practice (London 1980Google Scholar); Seale, David, Vision and Stagecraft in Sophocles (London 1982Google Scholar); Walton, Michael, The Greek Sense of Theatre: Tragedy Reviewed (London 1984Google Scholar); and Halleran, Michael, Stagecraft in Euripides (London 1985Google Scholar).

3. The Stagecraft of Aeschylus (Oxford 1977Google Scholar). This work of Taplin is perhaps less innovatory than it seemed on first appearance. It is apparent in retrospect that, for all its value, it was oriented more towards certain traditional concerns of scholarship, and to problems of traditional theory (e.g. ‘act divisions’), than towards sustained study of performance or production.

4. The evidence for the earlier Hippolytus, as for the Phaedra of Sophocles, is collected by Barrett, W.S. in his edition of Hippolytus (Oxford 1964), 10ffGoogle Scholar. The nature of the relationship between the two lost plays, and aspects of form and content, are discussed in two forthcoming studies for Eranos by Graham Ley.

5. Text and translation of this significant fragment from the lost Cretans art provided by Page, D. L., Select Papyri III: Literary Papyri and Poetry (London and Cambridge, Mass., 1941), 74–7Google Scholar.

6. For the role of the kyrios in Athenian life, see Schaps, D. M., Economic Rights of Women in Ancient Greece (Edinburgh 1979Google Scholar), passim.

7. O.T. 911–1085.

8. There is no convincing evidence for a raised, extended stage (= acting platform) in the fifth-century, and there is solid evidence for the ease of access of chorus from orchēstra to skēnē (e.g. Euripides Helen 315f.), or vice-versa (e.g. re-entry from skēnē at Helen 515), and of actor from skēnē to orchēstra and parados (e.g. Hippolytus, below), or vice-versa (e.g. Orestes and Pylades in The Libation Bearers, below). Accordingly, few scholars, if any, would now attempt to confine the actors to this imagined platform: but few will follow them, with any confidence, into the orchēstra. A reasoned picture, on this as on other matters, is given by Simon, E., The Ancient Theatre, tr. C. E. Vafopoulou-Richardson (London 1982), 7Google Scholar.

9. For the instances of departure and return by the chorus in tragedy, see Taplin (n.3 above) 375f., or Pickard-Cambridge, A. W., The Dramatic Festivals of Athens², rev. J. Gould and D. M. Lewis (Oxford 1968Google Scholar), ch.5 section 5. Both the earlier and the later editions of Pickard-Cambridge ignore Rhesus.

10. Taplin (n.2 above, 70f.) discusses some of the preliminaries to this scene interestingly, but characteristically he fails to stage it, breaking off, in line with his persistent concern with entrances and exits, at the moment of Hippolytus’ entry. It is particularly noteworthy that he, like others, is apparently quite confident of gesture and close contact (e.g. supplication, 70, para. 5.7.2) between actors, but extraordinarily tentative (e.g. ‘we are suddenly to suppose that Phaedra is eavesdropping at the door’, 70, para. 5.7.3 — the text makes quite clear that we see it) or totally silent on staging. The distinction between these two kinds of physicality in production or performance studies should be minimal, and certainly a pronounced degree of confidence in the one should not be unbalanced by an almost total lack of consideration for the other. In contrast, Halleran (n.2 above) makes no mention of this scene whatsoever, despite his theme, but possibly because he, following Taplin (n.3 above, and to a lesser extent n.2 above), is far more concerned about entrances and exits than he is about stagecraft.

11. That is, unless he was counterbalanced by another actor in the symmetrically opposite position. Cf. how the focus is primarily on Pylades, then equally shared between Klytaimestra and Orestes in the blocking suggested below for The Libation Bearers 900–903.

12. Aeschylus obviously exploited this fact to superb advantage in Agamemnon’s movement up the tapestries (laid out on and around the line) at Agamemnon 958ff. In the Newcastle production that movement was deliberately echoed in the last exit of Klytaimestra in The Libation Bearers — see the stage directions given below for 930.

13. Arnott’s claim that the grave was represented by an altar on a raised stage behind the orchēstra (Greek Scenic Conventions [Oxford 1978], 59–61) considers none of the practical difficulties, and is totally unconvincing.

14. All abbreviations referring to placing in the orchēstra are keyed to the diagram (see figure 1, p. 79).

15. The fractured, dismembered circle, and the anxious movements of successive individual chorus members towards the heirs and the burial mound, were also appropriate images for the central section of the kommos, where the participants temporarily despair, and doubt whether their prayers are reaching the dead king.

16. It is plain that stagehands could preset large props before the start of each individual play — for example, the statues or images of Aphrodite and Artemis must be preset for Hippolytus. This could also, clearly, be done during those moments when the chorus has left the orchēstra during the course of a play, to denote a scene-change; an image of Athena needs to be brought on for the second part of The Eumenides, and probably some bushes for the second half of Ajax. Though few commentators or translators entertain the possibility, there must have been a scene change after The Libation Bearers 584, since Klytaimestra obviously did not bury in her palace courtyard the husband whose body she mutilated (cf. 22: ialtos ek domōn eban). Accordingly in the Newcastle production Orestes led Pylades, Elektra and the chorus off at 584; the burial mound was then struck by stagehands, after which first Elektra entered by a parodos, knocked at the skēnē doors and gained admission (so establishing that now, for the rest of the play, the skēnē is in use and represents the house of Atreus); then the chorus re-entered for the ‘monsters’ ode. The placing of the burial mound at the centre requires the assumption that in Aeschylus’ time the thymetē itself could be removed from its base for part or all of a play.

17. They need to be standing before this, to convey an implacable, silent hostility first to the Servant’s excited pleas for help and then to Klytaimestra on her entry.

18. This sequence of movements gains plausibility if the entries and exits are made heading in different directions inside the skēnē. Thus, if Klytaimestra enters from the left side of the skēnē doors the Servant should exit into the right side to attempt to fetch an axe — so not encountering Orestes and Pylades who enter from the left side in hot pursuit of Klytaimestra. (This consideration, added to the extremely short space of time between the Servant’s exit and Pylades’ entry, tilts the balance in favour of the view that Aeschylus broke the three-actor rule here to add shock to the already considerable effect of having Pylades, hitherto a kōphon prosōpon, take voice. The Servant was played by a parachorēgēma.) Entry and exit from and into different sides of the door opening is also of vital importance later in the Oresteia, during the Delphic section of The Eumenides.

19. The significance of voice, and the development of a sense of professionalism in the actor, can be traced most readily from the evidence assembled in Pickard-Cambridge (n.9 above) ch.3, with the addition of ch.7 for the (much) later period.

20. Ajax is generally presumed to be the earliest surviving play of Sophocles.