Transcript Document

PLAUTUS
and his audience
Titus Macc(i)us Plautus
• Titus: a popular
Roman name =
John/Dick
• Macc(i)us cf. Maccus
the fool in the Atellana
= Clown
• Plautus = ‘flat footed’
Plautus: facts
• Was active between
215 and 185 BCE
• Dates of plays
Pseudolus: 191;
Stichus: 200.
• Cicero claims that
Plautus died ca 184
BCE
Plautus according to Gellius
• An Umbrian from
Sarsina
• Unsuccessful
merchant
• Successful theater
professional
• Contemporary of Cato
(c. 150 CE)
CATO
• Cato The Censor (234-149
BCE)
• stood for moral, social and
economic reconstruction.
• Cultivated a rustic and
conservative pose, and
was strongly against
everything Greek.
• As one of two censors
(184), he taxed luxury and
spent money on building a
sewerage system.
Born in Sarisina?
• In the Mostellaria (‘the story of little
monsters’)
• A character looks for some shadow and
hears in response that he will find no
shadow umbra, meaning also woman from
Umbria (Umbra), not even a woman from
Sarisina (Sarisnatis).
The Umbrians…
• spoke a language closely related to Latin
• their civilization was strongly influenced by
the Etruscans.
• at the beginning of the third century BCE
the Romans defeated the Umbrians, along
with the Samnites and the Etruscans.
Background
• Temporary stages
• Troupes consisting mostly of slaves under
the direction of domini gregis, such as Titus
Publius Pellio, L. Ambivius Turpio
• Troupes in competition; possibly aediles
approached by the domini of various
troupes in search of contract for
performances
• Actors organized in a guild
• Artists of Dionysus an influential model
Entertainment
• In competition with other forms such as the
famous tight-rope walkers mentioned in the
prologue to the Hecyra
• “Thus the crowd crazy in their passions was
exclusively interested in tightrope walking.”
Prize?
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Inspectors surveying claque
Aediles give prize
Comparison to elections!
Each member of the cast needs to be
examined?
COMOEDIA PALLIATA
• ‘comedy in Greek mantle’ used the scripts
of Greek New Comedy and adapted them to
suit the taste of Roman audiences, often
combining several plays into one.
The conventions of palliata
• Plots are predictable and can be reduced to
a few simple models, mostly:
– Boy wants girl & Rival/pimp has girl
– Boy with the help of slave overcomes obstacles
– Boy acquires girl
Dramatis personae
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Boy:
Girl:
Old man:
Matron:
Slave:
Maid:
a bit dumb
clever or innocent
does not want to share
owns husband or serves him
foolish or clever
devoted to mistress
Slave, trickster, and director
• Often referring to himself as imperator,
architect, engineer
• The poet’s self-centered and conceited alterego
• indulges in meta-theatrical dialogues with
the audience
Coincidences
• Like Tyche in Greek new comedy, Fortuna
reigns supreme over all comic plots
– While the efforts of the slaves provide the
playwrights with the material for action the
final solution almost invariably depends on
lucky coincidence
Theater in 2nd century Rome
• Greek plays versus Roman mos maiorum
• 194: senators obtain special seats in
theater—sing of respectability
• 179, 174 projects to build a stone theater
thwarted
• 154 Scipio Nasica opposes the construction
of the theater
Masks
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Pollux 2nd century CE 40 masks:
Grotesque: senex, servus
Lifelike: young women, adulescens
Colors: red for young men, white for slaves,
green for older women
Conditions and convention cd.
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Two houses
Dialogues take place in the street
No indoor scenes
Distant actions narrated
Characters approaching announce by those
on stage
• Characters entering houses have an overthe-shoulder remark
Conventions
• Monologues narrate what happened on
stage, offer reflections, deliberate what will
happen, soliloquies, entrance monologues
• Asides: eavesdropping asides, asides in
conversations, addressed to nobody, another
character, the audience