This is the first book to approach the visuality of ancient Greek drama through the lens of theater phenomenology. Gathering evidence from tragedy, comedy, satyr play, and vase painting, Naomi Weiss argues that, from its very beginnings, Greek theater in the fifth century BCE was understood as a complex interplay of actuality and virtuality. Classical drama frequently exposes and interrogates potential viewing experiences within the theatron—literally, “the place for seeing.” Weiss shows how, in so doing, it demands distinctive modes of engagement from its audiences. Examining plays and pottery with attention to the instability and ambiguity inherent in visual perception, Seeing Theater provides an entirely new model for understanding this ancient art form.
Seeing Theater The Phenomenology of Classical Greek Drama
About the Book
Reviews
"What does it mean to 'see' theater? This ambitious and wonderfully engaging book turns the spotlight on the theater spectator, finding the drama hidden away in the very act(s) of watching Greek drama. Weiss's phenomenological approach foregrounds the multisensory nature of theatrical performance. Reading the tragedians—especially Aeschylus and Sophocles—will never feel quite the same again."—Melissa Mueller, author of Objects as Actors: Props and the Poetics of Performance in Greek Tragedy"Naomi Weiss breaks new ground, powerfully reconceptualizing theatrical visuality on a phenomenological basis. Informed by the fluidity of roles and positions in vase paintings’ views of viewing, her fresh, engaging, and sophisticated analyses not just from the genre of tragedy but also from comedy and satyr drama, bring much-needed emphasis to the aesthetic. Seeing Theater is poised to become a classic that will shape performative criticism of ancient Greek drama for many years to come."—Mario Telò, author of Archive Feelings: A Theory of Greek Tragedy
"An original and outstanding contribution, Seeing Theater opens up an entirely new approach to ancient drama and related artifacts, yielding conclusions that are of fundamental interest to Greek drama and art."—Eric Csapo, coauthor of A Social and Economic History of the Theatre to 300 BC
Table of Contents
Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Note on Texts, Translations, and Abbreviations
Introduction
Phenomenology, Aristotle, and Classical Greek Drama
Theōrein and Seeing Theater
The “Play of Actuality” beyond Fifth-Century Theater
Engaged Spectatorship
Genre and Scope
1. Opening Spaces
Tragic and Comic Space
Seeing the Setting
Staged Spectatorship
Seeing Theater, Seeing Assembly
Atopic Beginnings
The Phenomenology of Space in the Classical Greek Theater
2. Seeing What?
Is This That? Aeschylus’s Theoroi
Visual Indeterminacy in Aeschylus’s Suppliants
Winging with Words in Aristophanes’s Birds
3. Pain Between Bodies
Dustheatos
Blinded Bodies I: Euripides’s Cyclops and Hecuba
Blinded Bodies II: Sophocles’s Oedipus the King
Sympathetic Bodies: [Aeschylus’s] Prometheus Bound
Pleasure in Pain
4. Pots and Plays
Actor, Mask, Costume
The Basel Chorus Krater
The London Pandora Krater
The Naples Birds Krater
Epilogue
Works Cited
General Index
Index Locorum
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