Summary Of David Wiles 'Greek Theatre Performance: An Introduction'

Human beings have been performing in a variety of different ways for millennia. In David Wiles’ Greek Theatre Performance: An Introduction, Wiles discusses the many different ways ancient Greek people expressed themselves through the performing arts. Performance was integral to Greek culture and society, affecting not only popular entertainment, but religious practices and politics. Wiles also discusses how Greek theatre survives today and how the performing arts have changed across cultures and centuries. Wiles argues that there is a fine line between Greek theatre and Greek performance, and that Greek performances are inseparable from the context of Athenian society. Wiles organizes his discussion of Greek performance into eight categories,

Wiles argues that “[w]e cannot understand the play as the Athenians did because we have lost the earlier versions of the myth and can only glimpse the political context” (20). Because not all scripts were preserved, a modern person can never experience an ancient play the way Athenians would have, but we can gather as much information as possible in order to comprehend this art to its fullest. Ritual also plays an important role in establishing how Greek people created and perceived performances. The City Dionysia was the biggest performance ritual in ancient Athens, consisting of drinking wine and theatre competitions. This is intertwined with myth and Greek religion, as the festival was held to honor the god Dionysus. Additionally, theatre and Athenian politics were connected. Wiles discusses orations and the Athenian assembly, and how both could be considered performance. In legal settings, rhetoric allowed a speaker to convince an audience of a person’s guilt or innocence. Often, these decisions were impacted by the moral standing of the accused, as perceived by jurors. It was the duty of the speaker to deliver a

Athenians believed that they lived at the center of the world and were therefore the most important people. Where a play was written to take place was incredibly important to Athenian audiences. Playwrights deciding to write a story in Athens would be obligated to portray their city in an exaggeratedly glorious light. Where the performances themselves took place is not actually known. From a modern eye, we expect plays to be acted on a stage, but that may not have been the case in the classical period. Open air performances were common, allowing the actor to work with the natural world. The subject of the performer is a broad one. Dancers, singers, actors, and speakers all practiced different arts, sometimes working together, and often practicing multiple skills at the same time. Performing, then and now, is highly cooperative, and is usually done with much trust and rehearsal. A chorus was common in Greek plays, often used to narrate the story or pass judgment of the characters. Before the performers can work, however, the playwright must do his job. Wiles discusses the works of famous playwrights such as Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. The Greeks may not have invented theatre, but, in this era, the first plays were written down to be performed, allowing many of them to survive for modern