CONTAMINATIO AND ADAPTATION: THE MODERN RECEPTION OF ANCIENT DRAMA AS AN AID

TO UNDERSTANDING ROMAN COMEDY

LISA MAURICE

The last few decades have seen an explosion in the number of performances of ancient drama and in the way that these performances are viewed by classical scholars, those involved in the theatre, and the wider public. This explosion has in itself led to the development of the relatively new field of reception studies, through which new perspectives have been cast not only upon the ancient texts themselves but also upon the impact of these texts on modern society. In this paper I would like to examine the changing attitudes to the staging of ancient drama and in particular highlight a new trend of creative adaptation which, I suggest, is similar to the methods used by Plautus in writing his plays. I will conclude with some ideas as to what this comparison might tell us, in an attempt to apply reception studies back to the ancient world, in a way that may help us understand more deeply the role drama played in ancient Greek and Roman societies. I Attitudes towards staging ancient drama

1. Stage one: accuracy and authenticity as criteria of worth

One of the earliest approaches to modern performances of ancient themes and texts was to judge them according to their authenticity and their loyalty to the classical world and ancient staging practices. Thus, early British productions of Greek tragedy, such as the 1845 version of Sophocles’ Antigone, aimed for authenticity. As a result, Greek tragedy quickly became a popular subject for burlesque. Its earnest faithfulness to the original was parodied.1 In the United States a parallel emphasis upon authenticity can be seen, as for example in the 1881 production of Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus, performed in the original Greek. The costumes for the production were declared authentic to fifth-century Athens,2 while other productions featured sets that were carefully designed to resemble an ancient Greek theatre.3 This attitude can also be seen in the productions of Greek plays at Bradfield College and Cambridge. Since 1882, these plays have been performed in the

1 E. Hall, ‘Greek tragedy and the British stage, 1566-1997’, in Productions of ancient Greek drama in Europe, ed. P. Mavromoustakos (Athens 1999) 53-67 (at 60), ‘1845 and all that: singing Greek tragedy on the London stage’, in The use and abuses of antiquity, ed. M. Biddiss and M. Wyke (Bern and New York 1999) 37-55. 2 K. Hartigan, Greek tragedy on the American stage (Connecticut 1995) 7. 3 For information on Antigone (1845) and Oedipus (1882), see Hartigan, Greek tragedy (n.2, above) 9-11.

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original language. Their goal was to strive for accuracy and to reproduce the atmosphere of the original setting and performance as closely as possible. That this was still an important criterion as recently as the mid 1990’s is demonstrated by an article on the Cambridge Greek Play of 1995:

No production in translation, however, can access the direct emotional power of the original theatrical experience. Greek plays are written in verse, and, moreover, are centred around their ritual origin in the chorus. The choric passages in a Greek play are no banal interlude to the drama, but its essential dynamic, as the group celebrates, bemoans, and comments on the individual protagonists’ actions, driving the story forward through their singing and dancing. The felt power of the group versus the individual, the Dionysiac joy and terror conveyed by rhythm and sound, is denied to the audience in translation: it is as if one was hearing a vast orchestral piece played on an untuned piano. The remit of the Cambridge Greek Play is, then, to unlock the poetry coiled up in the original text, ‘the twisting music of that language that is itself a work of art’ (Kenneth Rexroth). For both audience and actors the result is a pure and direct encounter with the sensuous and emotional aspects of the drama – its true theatrical nature.4

As the practice of reviving Greek tragedy developed in the early years of the twentieth century, attempts were made to highlight plays and themes that resonated in the minds of their contemporary audiences. From Gilbert Murray’s pre-First World War versions onwards, Greek tragedy began to be staged in ways that emphasized the political and social relevance of its themes. Thus the Medea was performed against the backdrop of the suffragette movement,5 and the Trojan women against that of the Treaty of Versailles.6 In America too, the Trojan women was repeatedly staged as a pacifist manifesto between 1915 and 1935.7 Even as Greek tragedies were adapted, however, placing the emphasis on those elements of the dramas that enhanced their relevance to modern audiences, they still attempted to remain faithful to the original texts. Their producers believed themselves to be faithful to the true and original spirit of the plays. It was by this criterion that staging Greek tragedy was justified and judged. Indeed, Karolos Koun, whose European productions of the 1960s adapted tragedy to highlight its political and social resonance for contemporary audiences by looking at modern Greece through the prism of the ancient stated that:

The issue of the interpretation of the works of a great writer depends upon how much you are going to respect the essence, the spirit, the poetry and the magic of the work, in conjunction always with the means at your disposal and the manner

4 D. Hood, ‘Transcending the barriers – The Cambridge Greek play’, Didaskalia 1.5 (1994): www.didaskalia.net/issues/vol1no5/dictynna.html (accessed 26/02/2009). 5 E. Hall, ‘Medea and British legislation before the First World War: Medea the suffragette’, Greece and Rome 46 (1999) 42-77. 6 Hall, ‘Greek tragedy and the British stage’ (n.1, above) 63. 7 Hartigan, Greek tragedy (n.2, above) 15-19.

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which best suits a specific production, so that this interpretation helps the public of a certain place [and time] to communicate more fully with the work.

He wanted to ensure that he never betrayed the ancient form of Greek drama. He believed that as a native Greek, he was closer to and was able to recognize the essential nature of the drama he was producing. ‘It is easy enough,’ he declared:

to be led astray by superficial pyrotechnics, which are alien and opposed to the reality of the country and to the content and form of tragedy. It is equally easy to allow the work to unfold in a climate of dullness, with a rhetorical delivery of the words and only the words, accompanied by schematic and conventional movement, again alien and opposed to the Dionysiac and ritual form of ancient theatre.8

Being ‘true’ to ancient tragedy was, therefore, the raison d’être of many modern productions. At the same time relevance to the modern world was emphasized.

A similar trend can be observed in the criticism of the portrayal of the ancient world in film. Historical films in general have engendered a sense of unease in academics, who have traditionally been concerned with the question of accuracy. Thus, the historian Louis Gottschalk, as early as 1935, complained to Samuel Marx, Story-Editor of MGM Studios, that cinema owed it to its patrons to be more accurate and urged him to use reputable historians to ensure that portrayals of historical events were factually correct.9 Authenticity was again the criterion by which the value of such productions was judged. 2. Stage two: modern contaminatio, a new trend

Despite this early stress on ‘authenticity’, in recent years a new trend has emerged, whereby ancient texts are adapted, manipulated, and transformed in order to produce new productions that have an impact on contemporary society. Despite the vibrancy of these new plays, they still face criticism from purists. Herbert Golder, for example, strongly criticized modern productions for being out of step with their roots and therefore unfaithful to the spirit of classical Greece. He rejected the attempts to employ alternative traditions, such as Noh drama, in staging Greek tragedy.10 Despite such criticism the trend has gathered momentum. Ancient plays are reinterpreted, set in different locations or periods, cast inventively, rewritten, or even combined to create new works and this is on the whole regarded as a positive development. Steven Berkoff’s Greek was an early example of this trend. It is modelled on a range of ancient plays (Aeschylus, Agamemnon, Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrannus, Oedipus at Colonus, and the other Theban plays). It was performed to acclaim on several occasions throughout the 1980s. Berkoff himself wrote about this play:

8 Karolos Koun on Greek tragedy: http://www.theatrotechnis.gr/$greek%20art%20th.files/ $greek_tragedy.html (accessed 05/07/2008). 9 Letter from Louis Gottschalk, President of the University of Chicago, to Marx dated 18 April 1935, quoted and discussed in D. J. Sylvester, ‘Myth in restorative justice history’, Utah Law Review 471 (2003) 1445-96: http://ssrn.com/abstract=886201 (accessed 03/03/2009). 10 H. Golder, ‘Geek tragedy? – Or why I’d rather go to the movies’, Arion 4.1 (1996) 174-209.

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Greek was my love poem to the spirit of Oedipus over the centuries. I ransacked the entire legend. So this is not simply an adaptation of Sophocles but a recreation of the various Oedipus myths which seemed to apply.11

This idea of ‘ransacking’ ancient texts in order to produce new dramatic recreations has gained ground over the last few years. Greek tragedy in particular has proved a particularly fertile source of inspiration for playwrights in countries plagued by conflict. In this vein a recent volume considers the staging of tragedy in Ireland, citing plays by a range of modern playwrights,12 who have translated and adapted Greek tragedies to emphasize messages that resonate in the political context of Ireland.13 Many of these plays are more than literal translations. They draw on other sources to expand the range of their message and to create a powerful multi-layered atmosphere with which the audience can identify. In particular, there has been a spate of productions of Antigone, four in 1984 alone, all written within the space of a few months: Brendan Kennelly’s Antigone, Aidan Carl Mathew’s Anti-gone, Tom Paulin’s The riot act, and Pat Murphy’s movie Ann Devlin.14 Each of these utilized the ancient myth to comment on contemporary events in Ireland. It did so by altering the source texts in order to facilitate this agenda. Kennelly’s and Murphy’s versions are more concerned with women’s rights, namely the contemporary debate and legislation on divorce and abortion. Matthews’ Anti-gone dealt with the curtailing of civil liberties, in light of the Criminal Justice Bill that was then being debated. Paulin’s version was perhaps the most political, using the play as an attack on Unionism. His Creon, for example, echoes the rhetoric of Ian Paisley and uses the phrases and gestures of modern Irish, British, and American politicians in his speeches.

In a similar vein, South Africa has produced its own versions of plays inspired by Greek tragedy.15 Athol Fugard’s Antigone-based drama, The island, depicts prisoners jailed on Robben Island under the abusive apartheid laws, metatheatrically performing scenes from Antigone in protest against the regime under which they live. The song of Jacob Zulu by Tug Yourgrau forms a parallel with the Orestes myth in which, as William Dominick points out: ‘the trial of a young man becomes the backdrop against which a human legal system can emerge from a destructive cycle of blood violence and

11 S. Berkoff, The theatre of Steven Berkoff (London 1992) 139. 12 For example Brian Friel, Seamus Heaney, Marina Carr, Frank McGuiness, Brendan Kennelly, Tom Paulin, and Pat Kinevane. 13 M. McDonald and J. M. Walton, Amid our troubles. Irish versions of Greek tragedy (London 2002). 14 For a discussion of this phenomenon in general and a close examination of these plays, see A. Roche, ‘Ireland’s Antigones: tragedy north and south’, in Cultural contexts and literary idioms in contemporary Irish literature, ed. M. Kenneally (Gerards Cross 1988) 221-50 (at 249-50); C. Murray, ‘Three Irish Antigones’, in Perspectives of Irish drama and theatre, ed. J. Genet and R. A. Cave (Gerards Cross 1991) 115-29. 15 W. Dominik, ‘Africa’, in A companion to the classical tradition, ed. C. Kallendorf (Oxford 2007) 117-26. See also L. Hardwick and C. Gillespie (eds), Classics in post-colonial worlds (Oxford 2007).

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vengeance’.16 Mervyn McMurtry’s Electra staged at the University of Natal Durban in 2000 was adapted from translations of Sophocles’ Electra and combined with additional material from Aeschylus’ and Euripides’ versions of the same myth. In addition, the choral odes were rewritten and modelled not only on Greek drama but also on testimonies by victims of atrocities from Bosnia and from the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The prologue was declaimed by a forensic pathologist who explained the murder of the blanket-covered corpse on the mortuary trolley next to her. The characters of the play appeared in chains clustered on a stage scattered with sand and marked off by hazard tape. Scenes from modern war zones played on a screen and a guard in modern dress, armed with a rifle, supervised the prisoners. The production was most definitely McMurtry’s Electra rather than Sophocles’, a new creation in its own right.

Jay Scheib took a similar approach when he wrote his version of The Medea (2004). He explained:

The structure and language of the play collide classical verse with fragmented prose. I have used Heiner Müller’s apocalyptic tryptic: Despoiled shore, Medeamaterial and Landscape with Argonauts as a frame for the texts of Euripides, Seneca, and Franz Grillparzer. The play makes several nods to the films of Pasolini, Carl Dreyer’s unfinished manuscript, Lars Von Trier’s Nordic experiment, and Cherubini’s opera.17

Taking inspiration from the modern detective novel, he reversed the order of events, so that Medea’s children are killed at the beginning of the play and the climax is Jason’s abandonment of his wife. There are metatheatrical touches in this production, too. It featured microphones, video cameras, and television sets. Once again, the end result is an original dramatic production rather than a revival.

Even in conflict-free areas, tragedy has been used to explore important social issues. Feminism in particular has informed many modern productions based on Greek tragedies. Edith Hall has commented on this trend, highlighting the centrality of relationships between women and figures other than a husband or lover in Greek tragedy. This aspect makes these plays ideally suited for putting forward a feminist agenda that also wishes to emphasize the female as something other than a wife.18 The USA saw a production entitled The hungry woman. A Mexican Medea in which the eponymous heroine, who in this case is a lesbian Chicana, is imprisoned in a mental hospital, to which she was admitted after murdering her son. This play draws on the Medea myth, but alters and updates it, in order to highlight the theme of feminism and sexual orientation.19 Another version of the Medea, Rhodessa Jones’ The Medea project (1992), intertwines the stories of convicted female prisoners with that of Medea herself.20 Other tragic productions

16 Dominik, ‘Africa’ (n.15, above) 121. 17 J. Scheib at www.jayscheib.com/medea/pressmaterials/info_photokey.doc (accessed 3/3/2009). 18 E. Hall, ‘Introduction: why Greek tragedy in the late twentieth century?’, in Dionysus since 69, ed. E. Hall, F. Macintosh, and A. Wrigley (Oxford 2004) 1-46 (at 37). 19 S. Wilmer, ‘Women in Greek tragedy today: a reappraisal’, Theatre Research International 32 (2007) 106-18 (at 112-13). 20 For an in-depth study of this production, see R. Fraden, Imagining Medea. Rhodessa Jones and theater for incarcerated women (Chapel Hill 2001).

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utilize the myths of the house of Atreus and in particular add elements from the myth of Iphigenia to that of the Oresteia in order to present Clytemnestra in a more sympathetic light. They presented their audiences with a more positive female version of the Argive queen.21 A similar approach was taken in the play Bad women. Elements from different tragedies and myths were combined in order to explore contemporary female roles. Helene Foley described the production as:

an explicitly metatheatrical piece in which two actors and four actresses, playing Clytemnestra, Phaedra, Medea, Agave, Deianeira, and Cassandra performed certain diverging or intersecting aspects and high points of their roles before a chorus of gossiping teenage girls in modern dress holding cell phones.22

All of these modern adaptations are far more than mere translations. They utilize a range of texts and sources to create a performance that remains recognizable as classical in origin, but one that is also a radically new interpretation of the story. The ideology behind this new trend is clearly demonstrated in Charles Mee’s ‘The (re)making project’.23 This is an internet database of classical texts and new works modelled on them as well as from other sources. The aim of the project is to facilitate the creation of yet more new receptions. The user is strongly encouraged to join in this process:

Please feel free to take the plays from this website and use them freely as a resource for your own work: that is to say, don’t just make some cuts or rewrite a few passages or re-arrange them or put in a few texts that you like better, but pillage the plays as I have pillaged the structures and contents of the plays of Euripides and Brecht and stuff out of Soap Opera Digest and the evening news and the internet, and build your own, entirely new, piece – and then, please, put your own name to the work that results.24

Mee’s words are echoed by the mission statement of the Creative Archive Licence Group, through which a range of organizations including the BBC, the BFI, Channel 4, and the Open University make their content available for download. This enables them to ‘share, watch, listen and re-use this content as a fuel for [their] own creative endeavours’.25 Here is the legitimization of the principle that plundering texts and sources in order to create new productions is acceptable and perhaps even something to be encouraged. What is new

21 Examples include Katie Mitchell’s 2000 production of the Oresteia, Triche Kehoe’s Children of Clytemnestra presented at the Edinburgh festival in the same year, Clyt at home. The Clytemnestra project and All Clytemnestra on the Western Front: a techno-feminist reconstruction of The Iliad, both from 2001, Charles Mee’s Iphigenia 2.0 (2007), and Avra Sidiropoulou’s Clytemnestra’s tears (2007). 22 H. Foley, ‘Bad women: gender politics in late twentieth-century performance and revision of Greek tragedy’, in Hall et al. Dionysus (n.18, above) 77-111 (at 78). 23 Reviewed in Didaskalia 6.2: www.didaskalia.net/issues/vol6no2/donegan.htm (accessed 24/03/ 2009). 24 http://charlesmee.com/html/about.html (accessed 8/3/2009). 25http://www.bbc.co.uk/creativearchive/archives/what_is_the_creative_archive/project_faqs/index.html (accessed 18/6/2008).

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and exciting about this approach is the idea that using Greek drama as a foundation upon which to build and as a source of plunderable material, is a valid and worthwhile form of creation and one that can produce exciting results. II The context of modern adaptations: post-modern theatre

In order to follow the development from performances of ancient drama informed by the principle of authenticity to the innovative new style characterized by the combination of disparate elements outlined above, it is necessary to consider the wider context of twentieth-century post-modern theatre.26 One feature of this style of drama is that different kinds of texts and indeed different media are frequently combined. Postmodern theatre regards all history and culture as a store of signs that may be utilized as source material. Thus, cultural dramatic traditions from all over the world and from different periods in history may be transplanted and merged together to create a new performance. Their acting style, costumes, production design, music, and other elements are taken from different contexts.

One result of this combination of such varied texts and sources is that they can be used to comment on each other, thus producing metatheatrical effects. Techniques such as the breaking of the fourth wall, broken non-linear narrative, subversion of character portrayal, self-conscious approach to the audience, and improvization characterize this kind of theatre. Playwrights can thus explore the limits and boundaries of theatrical conventions. Examples of metatheatrical, post-modern theatre take a variety of forms and range from the pure farce of plays such as Michael Frayn’s Noises off to the sophistication of Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead. Alan Ayckbourn’s experiments with theatrical styles while working within mainstream comedy have been notable in this field. His House & garden, for example, consists of two plays performed simultaneously in two adjacent theatrical spaces, one a proscenium and the other a theatre in the round. These plays, according to one article, appropriate elements from ‘traditions as various as Greek satyr plays and nineteenth-century drama, and from venues as disparate as the carnival square and the drawing room’.27 Plays such as these, with their pastiche of styles and traditions, demand a high level of theatrical awareness from the audience. This is characteristic of post-modern theatre and they provide the context within which the modern productions of classical drama mentioned above should be discussed.

In the case of the adaptation of classical texts the issue is brought into even sharper focus, because translation into another language is necessary. As Lorna Hardwick has argued sensitivity to the processes of translation has greatly increased in recent years. It is now recognized that translation is not necessarily a second-rate copy of an original work, but may be a work of art in its own right.28 This changing attitude arises from the

26 For discussion of the development and characteristics of post-modern theatre, see e.g., J. L. DiGaetani, A search for a postmodern theater. Interviews with contemporary playwrights (New York 1991); H.-T. Lehmann, Postdramatic theatre, trans. K. Jurs-Munby (London 2006). 27 S. Tucker, ‘A diptych of comedy and carnival: Alan Ayckbourn’s House & garden’, New Theatre Quarterly 22 (2006) 155-80. 28 L. Hardwick, Translating words, translating cultures (London 2000) 9-22.

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proliferation of these modern adaptations which has in turn helped to foster a vibrant and exciting atmosphere in which they can flourish.

In the wake of post-modernist theatre as well as in conjunction with it, modern scholarship has developed in new directions. Translation theory, reception studies, and performance studies demonstrate a new sensitivity to and awareness of these issues. These developments have led to a gradual change in the attitudes of academics towards performances of classical drama and of movies set in the ancient world. Early scholarly reactions to the movie, Gladiator, were mainly concerned with the accuracy of its portrayal of Imperial Rome.29 Martin Winkler’s volume exploring the movie from an academic perspective reflects this concern.30 Kathleen M. Coleman, who was the historical consultant on the film, found that her advice was often not heeded. She therefore asked not to be mentioned in the credits. She described the difficulties of acting as a historical consultant. While admitting that ‘a feature film is not a documentary’, she nevertheless felt frustrated by the presence of historical inaccuracies in the film.31 Allen Ward expressed his disapproval in stronger terms:

Unfortunately, the creative minds who do the most to shape popular views of the past often have little regard for the level of accuracy that preoccupies professional practitioners of Clio’s craft. Artists and writers mine the past for raw materials that support their own creative agenda. Few writers other than the most scrupulous of historical novelists will ever let the facts that concern professional historians get between them and paying customers.32

Martin Winkler, however, argued that while historical authenticity was clearly a subordinate concern in the film, the aim of a historical film is to recreate a sense of the period and to bring it to life. Quoting director Anthony Mann’s statement that ‘the most important thing is that you get the feeling of history’, Winkler declared: ‘That is the only standard by which to measure a historical film’s level of achievement’.33

Only three years later, the position of scholars involved with cinematic receptions had changed dramatically. While some critics still condemned the film Troy for its inaccuracies,34 many scholars supported the validity of Petersen’s adaptation. The companion volume to Troy is interspersed with discussions of how far it is acceptable to adapt ancient sources and with justifying the changes made.35 Georg Danek cites examples of the alterations made to the Homeric story in the classical period by Dictys and Dares and uses this as a model in support of the changes made by the modern

29 For example, see www.qwipster.net/gladiator.htm (accessed 08/03/2009). 30 M. M. Winkler (ed.), Gladiator, film and history (Oxford 2004). 31 K. M. Coleman, ‘The pedant goes to Hollywood’, in Winkler, Gladiator (n.30, above) 45-52. 32 A. M. Ward, ‘Gladiator in historical perspective’, in Winkler, Gladiator (n.30, above) 31-44 (at 31). 33 M. M. Winkler, ‘Gladiator and the traditions of historical cinema’, in Winkler, Gladiator (n.30, above) 16-30 (at 23). 34 See e.g., D. Mendelsohn, ‘A little Iliad’, The New York Review of Books 52.11 (24 June 2004) 46-49. 35 M. Winkler, (ed.), Troy. From Homer’s Iliad to Hollywood epic (Oxford 2007).

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scriptwriter.36 Other scholars point out that modern filmmakers were in fact engaged in a practice very similar to the one Homer himself engaged in by taking a range of earlier sources and producing from this his masterful epic.37 Throughout the volume, the validity of the practice of creating a new work based on classical literature is emphasized. Martin Winkler writes: ‘Creative or artistic engagement with a text, however, is not scholarship, and adaptations of classical literature do not have to conform to the strictures of philology’. 38 Similarly, J. Lesley Fitton argues:

In fact, the creative art of filmmaking took precedence over the creative art of archaeological reconstruction. And rightly so. After all, the filmmakers’ aim was not to create an academic or didactic document but a dramatically satisfying film for large audiences worldwide. The two things are quite different.39

Commenting on practice of viewing films such as Troy on the principle of accuracy, Jon Solomon forcefully and repeatedly declares: ‘This is no way to watch a movie’.40 Stephen Scully demands in a similar vein:

Wolfgang Petersen’s Troy is no Iliad but why should it be? Virgil’s Aeneid is no Iliad and James Joyce’s Ulysses no Odyssey. Nor should they be. Petersen’s primary task is not fidelity to an ancient text but to tell, as Homer does, a rousing good story.41

All these statements and the others that comprise this volume emphasize the validity of viewing new adaptations as works of art in their own right. They strongly support the practice of altering the classical original. While classicists might not always agree with the specific changes made, the right of the adapter to make those changes is strongly defended in such scholarly writing. This development is surely due to an increased sensitivity to the processes of adaptation and translation. This allows for the serious and thoughtful assessment of new works modelled on ancient texts and performances. III Scholarly perspectives on Roman comedy

1. Plautus and contaminatio

The post-modernist creation of drama from multiple sources at first glance appears to be a new practice and yet this method, too, has its roots in the ancient world. It resembles the way in which Roman comedies were created in the third century BCE. The only complete

36 G. Danek, ‘The story of Troy through the centuries’, in Winkler, Troy (n.35, above) 68-84. 37 For example, K. Shahabudin, ‘From Greek myth to Hollywood story: explanatory narrative in Troy’, in Winkler, Troy (n.35, above) 107-18. 38 M. Winkler, ‘The Iliad and the cinema’, in Winkler, Troy (n.35, above) 43-67 (at 44). 39 J. L. Fitton, ‘Troy and the role of the historical advisor’, in Winkler, Troy (n.35, above) 99-106 (at 99-100). 40 J. Solomon, ‘Viewing Troy: authenticity, criticism, interpretation’, in Winkler, Troy (n.35, above) 85-98. 41 S. Scully, ‘The fate of Troy’, in Winkler, Troy (n.35, above) 119-30 (at 119).

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plays we have from this time are twenty-one comedies created by Plautus and six by Terence. Both these dramatists constructed their comedies by plundering Greek plays. While it is not clear exactly how Plautus translated and adapted his sources, it is certain that he did use these Greek models as the basis for his plays, because on several occasions he stated this explicitly. Thus, for example, in the prologue to the Casina he declares:

Comoediai nomen dare uobis uolo. Clerumenoe uocatur haec comoedia Graece, latine Sortientes. Diphilus Hanc graece scripsit, post id rursum denuo Latine Plautus cum latranti nomine.

I want to give you the name of the comedy. This comedy is called Clerumenoe in Greek, in Latin, Sortientes. Diphilus wrote it in Greek, afterwards Plautus – he of the barking name - wrote it again in Latin. (Casina 32-35)42

In the Trinummus he famously explains:

huic Graece nomen est Thensauro fabulae: Philemo scripsit, Plautus vortit barbare, nomen Trinummo fecit, nunc hoc vos rogat ut liceat possidere hanc nomen fabulam.

The name of this play in Greek is Thensaurus. Philemon wrote it, Plautus turned it into a foreign tongue, gave it the name Trinummus, and now asks this of you, that the play be permitted to keep this name. (Trinummus 18-21)43

More evidence as to Plautus’s creative process is provided by Terence, writing a generation after Plautus. In Terence’s prologues he defends himself against criticism of his writing methods:

Menander fecit Andriam et Perinthiam. qui utramvis recte norit ambas noverit: non ita dissimili sunt argumento, [s]et tamen dissimili oratione sunt factae ac stilo. quae convenere in Andriam ex Perinthia fatetur transtulisse atque usum pro suis.

42 Texts used are the Oxford University Press editions of Lindsay. In the case of Plautus: W. M. Lindsay, (ed.), Plauti comoediae, 2 vols (Oxford 1905); and Kauer and Lindsay in the case of Terence: R. Kauer and W. M. Lindsay, (eds), P. Terenti Afri comoediae (Oxford 1905), with the exception of the Casina and The Brothers. For these, the texts used are the Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics editions: W. Thomas MacCary and M. M. Willcock, Plautus: Casina (Cambridge 1976); R. H. Martin, Terence: Adelphoe (Cambridge 1976). Translations are my own unless otherwise stated. 43 In total, the Greek originals of eight of Plautus’ extant comedies are known, either because they are named in the Roman text or because they can be inferred from quotations in other literature. Four of these plays (Aulularia, Bacchides, Cistellaria, Stichus) are based on Menander, two (Casina, Rudens) on Diphilus, and two (Mercator, Trinummus) on Philemon.

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id isti vituperant factum atque in eo disputant contaminari non decere fabulas. faciuntne intellegendo ut nil intellegant? qui quom hunc accusant, Naevium Plautum Ennium accusant quos hic noster auctores habet, quorum aemulari exoptat neglegentiam potius quam istorum obscuram diligentiam.

Menander made an Andria and a Perinthia. Whoever knows either of them well, knows both of them: for they are no different in plot, although different in language and style. He admits that he has transferred those things that were suitable from the Perinthia to the Andria and used them for his own ends. They denigrate him for having done this, and argue that he should not have mixed the plays up in this way. Do they not show by this understanding that they understand nothing at all? When they accuse him, they accuse Naevius, Plautus, and Ennius, whom our poet has as precedents, whose carelessness he would rather imitate than the dreary pedantry of these writers. (Andria 9-21)

What Terence is accused of here is taking parts from one play and transposing them into another. The ‘fault’ that is called by modern scholars contaminatio. Thus, Menander wrote two different plays with similar plots and Terence has taken parts from both to create his new version of the Andria. He also refers to the neglegentia that he believes characterizes the previous generation of dramatists, Naevius, Plautus, and Ennius, contrasting it favourably with the obscura diligentia of his own contemporaries and taking the earlier poets as his models.

Similar lines in the Heauton Timorumenos repeat the accusation levelled by Terence’s critics:

ex integra Graeca integram comoediam hodie sum acturus H[e]auton timorumenon, duplex quae ex argumento facta est simplici ... nam quod rumores distulerunt malevoli multas contaminasse Graecas, dum facit paucas Latinas: factum id esse hic non negat neque se pigere et deinde facturum autumat. habet bonorum exemplum quo exemplo sibi licere [id] facere quod illi fecerunt putat.

Today I am presenting a fresh comedy from a fresh Greek one, the Heauton Timorumenos, a double plot which was made from a single one ... As to the rumours that malicious people have spread, that he has mixed up many Greek plays, and made a few Latin ones, he does not deny that he has done this, and he declares that he is not ashamed, and will do it again. He has the example of good writers, and he thinks that he is allowed to do what they did. (Heauton Timorumenos 4-6, 16-21)

Again, the playwright has taken more than one Greek play and plundered them as sources for his new work. He admits as much and denies any fault in so doing. He quotes the

456 IN DIALOGUE WITH THE PAST – 2

example of earlier boni, presumably Plautus and his contemporaries, to justify his creative method. Here too, we are told explicitly that he has made a specific change by doubling an aspect of his sources.44

The prologue to The brothers gives a further example of adaptation:

Synapothnescontes Diphili comoediast: eam Commorientis Plautus fecit fabulam. in Graeca adulescens est, qui lenoni eripit meretricem in prima fabula: eum Plautus locum reliquit integrum. eum hic locum sumpsit sibi in Adelphos, uerbum de uerbo expressum extulit. eam nos acturi sumus nouam: pernoscite furtumne factum existimetis an locum reprehensum, qui praeteritus neclegentiast.

Synapothnescontes is one of Diphilus’ comedies. Plautus made this play the Commorientes. In the Greek play there is a young man, who snatches a courtesan from a pimp in the first scene; Plautus left out the entire passage. [Terence] has placed it in his Adelphoe, translated word for word. We are about to act this new play: judge whether you think this deed to be theft or a restored passage which was carelessly omitted. (The brothers 6-14)

The story is that there was a play by Diphilus called Synapothnescontes, which Plautus adapted to create a play of the same name, but he omitted at least one scene in his new version of the plot. Terence therefore used the Greek material that Plautus had rejected and inserted it into his Adelphoe that is itself based on Menander’s play of the same name. He strongly defends his actions and claims that his play is all the better for it. He rejects the criticisms of the purists who believe that he should only be translating texts without supplementing or changing them.45

Although the precise meaning of contaminatio has long been debated and not enough evidence survives about the precise way in which Terence adapted his sources, it is nevertheless clear that what is being discussed here is some form of appropriation of one or more Greek sources that are adapted, added to, and combined. Moreover, Plautus (and according to Terence, other earlier dramatists including Naevius and Ennius) did the same thing. The process of contaminatio or ‘barbarization’ was not regarded as a source for shame during Plautus’ own time. As Plautus himself declared ‘Plautus vortit barbare’ (‘Plautus turned it into a barbaric language’).46

44 L. Richardson, Jr, ‘The Terentian adaptation of the Heauton Timorumenos of Menander’, GRBS 46 (2006) 13-36. 45 Interestingly, in the Eunuch he defends himself against another charge, that of plagiarism, declaring that he had indeed ‘stolen’ characters from another play, but that he had not known that it had already been translated into Latin. It seems to have been unacceptable to Terence to retranslate a text that had already appeared in Latin, a point that again emphasizes the debt the Roman poets owed to their Greek models. 46 See e.g., E. W. Handley, Menander and Plautus. A study in comparison (London 1968); E. Lefévre, ‘Plautus-Studien II: Die Brief-intrige in Menanders Dis exapaton und ihre Verdoppelung in den

LISA MAURICE: CONTAMINATIO AND ADAPTATION 457

2. Early Plautine scholarship: Plautus as the key to lost Greek comedy

As a result of the open references made by Plautus and Terence to their sources and the seemingly rough style of Plautine comedy modern critics have often regarded Plautus as a crude barstardizer of Greek plays. Despite the comic power and exuberance of Plautine comedy and Plautus’ influence on later writers, particularly Shakespeare and Moliere, his work was primarily studied in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a means of understanding lost Greek New Comedy. It was not until Fraenkel’s groundbreaking work that he began to be regarded as a figure worth studying in his own right. Even then, the emphasis was firmly on attempting to trace or identify the environment in which Plautus lived and worked and on isolating his sources. Thus, Eckard Lefèvre and the so-called ‘Freiburg school’ emphasized the centrality of the native dramatic traditions, such as Atellan farce, with its impromptu performances, as the most important model for Plautus.47 Some of these scholars go so far as to deny that some of Plautus’ comedies are based on Greek plays. At least one proponent of this school of thought argues that Plautus lost interest in the Greek palliata and moved from these tightly structured plots towards improvised farce. He preferred a style characterized by a loosely connected series of episodes, in which plot took a backseat to verbal gags, puns, and slapstick.48 The opposite extreme is represented by Otto Zwierlein who outlined his own agenda as follows:

I seek to show that a series of harsh offences against logical development of plot and in character-portrayal in Plautus are not in fact to be put at his door, but should be ascribed to the poor artistic taste of later revisers. The grounds for often extravagant theories of large-scale contaminatio are thus incidentally systematically eliminated. Nor is Plautus the freely inventing writer that many recent and very recent investigators, particularly in the German-speaking world, present us, for all his freedom in detail Plautus essentially preserves the progression of the action of his Greek original.49

Bacchides’, Hermes 106 (1978) 518-38; D. Arnott, ‘Plautus vortit barbare: Plautus, Bacchides 526-621 and Menander, Dis Exapaton 102-12’, in Creative imitation and Latin literature, ed. D. West and T. Woodman (Cambridge 1979) 17-34; N. Zagagi, Tradition and originality in Plautus. Studies in the amatory motifs in Plautine comedy (Göttingen 1980); J. C. B. Lowe, ‘Plautine innovations in Mostellaria 529-857’, Phoenix 39 (1985) 6-26; D. Gilula, ‘Greek drama in Rome: some aspects of cultural transposition’, in The play out of context, ed. H. Scolnicov and P. Holland (Cambridge 1989) 99-109; M. Damen, ‘Translating scenes: Plautus’ adaptation of Menander’s Dis Exapaton’, Phoenix 4 (1992) 205-31; W. S. Anderson, Barbarian play. Plautus’ Roman comedy (Toronto 1993); M. Damen, ‘By the gods, boys ... stop bothering me! Can you tell Menander from Plautus? Or how Dis Exapaton does not help us understand Bacchides’, Antichthon 29 (1995) 15-29. 47 E. Stärk, Plautus barbarus. Sechs Kapitel zur Originalität des Plautus, ScriptOralia 25 (Tübingen 1991) 1-12, but passim. 48 W. Hofmann (ed.), Plautus. Truculentus. Lateinisch und Deutsch. Herausgegeben, übersetzt und kommentiert. Texte zur Forschung 78 (Darmstadt 2001). 49 O. Zwierlein, Zur Kritik und Exegese des Plautus. Vol. I: Poenulus und Curculio (Stuttgart 1990-92) 5.

458 IN DIALOGUE WITH THE PAST – 2

Thus Zwierlein and his followers claim that Plautus closely adhered to his Greek sources, but that ‘Plautus’ was heavily and anonymously, but not irrecoverably, interpolated in antiquity. They postulate that very little indeed of what is in Plautus’ comedy is indeed Plautine.

The debate as to how far the comedies were original works as opposed to close versions of Greek models continues to this day. Even in Roman drama courses currently being taught at universities he is still often regarded as somehow a lesser poet, a mere translator. Thus, Mark Damen writes:

It’s a fair question to ask why he did not write his own original works – indeed, the same could be posed for every Roman playwright whose works survive – and the answer must be that he considered it wasted effort to till a field when the world doled out free grain. In other words, why make a play when you can steal one? It was an age when copyright did not yet exist and it was considered neither illegal nor immoral, or even inadvisable, to adapt another’s work.50

The implication in the choice of the terms ‘steal’, ‘illegal’, and ‘immoral’ is clear. Even if by ancient standards he was not at fault, by modern standards, Plautus like other extant Roman playwrights was a thief and a plagiarist whose works are unoriginal and therefore second-rate. 3. Plautus and modern scholarship: Plautus as a metatheatrical playwright

Despite the charge of unoriginality aimed at him, over the last twenty years Plautus has begun to be appreciated in his own right as a self-conscious and sophisticated comic playwright. Works by scholars such as Niall Slater, Timothy Moore, and Richard Beacham have stressed Plautus’ metatheatrical style.51 They emphasize Plautus’ conscious underscoring of the play as a ‘play’ and his use of drama to refer to itself as ‘drama’. In this approach the audience is encouraged to view the play on two levels, both as a simulation of reality and also as an unreal piece of dramatic fiction. Although this view of Plautus’ work has come under attack by some scholars, most noticeably Thomas Rosenmeyer, even critics like he who object to the use of the term ‘metatheatre’ do not deny the existence of the elements noted by scholars who have favoured the metatheatrical approach.52 These elements include the awareness of his characters that they are on a stage. They self-consciously draw attention to their status as actors playing parts. They even seem to improvise thus usurping the role of the playwright. The practice of internal role-playing is also characteristic of his oeuvre. His characters consciously take

50 www.usu.edu/markdamen/clasdram/chapters/141plautus.htm (accessed 24/3/2009). 51 Foremost in this area has been Niall Slater with his Plautus in performance, 2nd edn (Amsterdam 2000) 3-18, 168-78. R. Beacham, The Roman theatre and its audience (London 1991), continued to develop a performance based approach, emphasizing the self-consciousness of Roman drama. See also M. Barchiesi, ‘Plauto e il ‘metateatro’ antico’, Il verri 31 (1970) 113-30; F. Muecke, ‘Plautus and the theatre of disguise’, CA 5 (1986) 216-29; S. Frangoulides, Handlung und Nebenhandlung. Theater, Metatheater und Gattungsbewusstsein in der römischen Komödie (Stuttgart 1997); T. Moore, The theater of Plautus. Playing to the audience (Austin TX 1998) 1-49. 52 T. Rosenmeyer, ‘Metatheater: An essay on overload’, Arion 10 (2002) 87-119.

LISA MAURICE: CONTAMINATIO AND ADAPTATION 459

on further roles as part of the development of the dramatic action. Some critics choose to regard these elements merely as aspects of drama while others prefer the label ‘metatheatre’. However, no matter what label is applied to this style its presence is surely noteworthy. As one scholar recently put it metatheatre is ‘drama within drama as well as drama about drama’. As such it reveals a rather surprising level of sophistication and theatrical awareness, especially when one considers the lack of evidence for other literary activity at the time when Plautus was writing. IV Drawing parallels

It seems unlikely that it is merely accidental that this period of recognition of Plautus’ dramatic sophistication coincides with the world of post-modernist theatre and the trend of manipulating ancient drama to create new, vibrant, and often metatheatrical performances that are in tune with and responsive to modern society. I would argue that this is very similar to what Plautus himself was doing. What perhaps most characterizes post-modernist theatre is its self-conscious and self-reflexive nature.53 This is demonstrated in two ways, the creation of a new drama from adaptations of earlier works and the application of a metatheatrical style. Both of these elements are present in Plautus’ work. Just as twentieth-century drama has developed into a multi-layered genre that combines a range of sources and influences to produce new works that continually call attention to their own theatrical nature, so did Plautine comedy.

Greek comedy was the main framework used by Plautus as the basis for his comedies, just as Greek tragedy is the model employed by modern dramatists for their new adaptations and creations produced in recent years.54 As the modern playwrights drastically altered these tragedies so did Plautus radically modify the Greek comedies. Following on from Fraenkel’s work, there is a near consensus among scholars that Plautus has adapted and altered whatever Greek plays he may have used as models to a considerable degree. He has altered the structure of many of the plots with which he was working,55 as well as enlarging and expanding on the characters’ roles and speeches. He

53 The twentieth century and Republican Rome are not of course unique in being characterized by such a theatrical style. Other periods that have produced metatheatrical, self-conscious drama include Shakespearian England and the Spanish Golden Age. 54 Martha Malamud makes a similar point concerning the adaptation of Plautus for the film A funny thing happened on the way to the forum:

Like Plautus, who assimilated what was for him, high culture, Greek new comedy, and adapted it for popular Roman tastes, Gelbart and Shevelove took what was for them high culture, ‘the classics’, and made Roman comedy popular by translating Plautine humour into vaudevillian and burlesque humour, the Roman slave into a Jewish comic, and Rome into Brooklyn.

M. Malamud, ‘Brooklyn-on-the-Tiber: Roman comedy on Broadway and in film’, in Imperial projections. Ancient Rome in modern popular culture, ed. S. R. Joshel, M. Malamud and D. T. McGuire (Baltimore and London 2001) 191-208 (at 192). 55 On the structure of the Menaechmi, see A. S. Gratwick, Plautus: Menaechmi (Cambridge 1993) 23-30; W. Steidle, ‘Zur Komposition von Plautus’ Menaechmi’, RhM 114 (1971) 247-61; K. Gaiser, ‘Zur Eigenart der römischen Komödie: Plautus und Terenz gegenüber

460 IN DIALOGUE WITH THE PAST – 2

also flavoured the plays with his distinctive and flamboyant language.56 Despite these changes, the underlying Greek comedies can still, however, be glimpsed.

On the other hand, the presence of other models should not be ignored. Plautus was exposed to Greek tragedy and old comedy that was performed by itinerant companies.57 Native Italian drama also played a key role. The stock characters of Atellan farce (in particular the clown, Maccus, from whom Plautus took one of his names) influenced the Roman playwright. The metrical forms of Fescennine verse, with their range of poetic metres and snappy dialogue, were another model, providing that the limited extant evidence concerning these verses can be trusted.58 One can also argue that Plautus’ self-conscious metatheatricality and structure has its roots in the self-conscious poetry of Callimachus and other Hellenistic poets. According to Niall Slater: ‘In Plautus, the Greek, South Italian and Roman theatrical traditions collide with explosively creative results’.59

While the search for specific lost models is less productive in the case of Plautus, what does seem likely is that he adapted and was influenced by a wide range of sources. His comedies are in fact a pastiche of various models. This combination of disparate elements and traditions is therefore a creative process not unlike that of post-modernist drama in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Plautus’ comedies can equally well be described as combinations of a mixture of sources and vibrant creations in their own right. The same is true of the post-modern plays discussed above. They, too, are combinations of a range of traditions and texts, but also something quite new and vibrant. The authorship of these plays like those of Plautus should be ascribed to the new playwright rather than to the sources.

ihren griechischen Vorbildern’, ANRW 1.2 (1972) 1027-1113 (at 1063); M. Damen, ‘Actors and act-divisions in the Greek original of Plautus’ Menaechmi’, CW 82 (1989) 409-20 (at 409-10); E. Fantham, ‘Act IV of the Menaechmi: Plautus and his original’, CPh 63 (1968) 175-83; L. Maurice, ‘A calculated comedy of errors: the structure of Plautus’ Menaechmi’, Syllecta Classica 16 (2005) 31-59. For the structure of the Bacchides, see C. Questa, ‘Struttura delle Bacchides (e problemi del Dis Exapaton)’, in Parerga Plautina (Urbino 1985) 15-86; S. Goldberg, ‘Act to action in Plautus’ Bacchides’, CPh 85.3 (1990) 191-201. For the structures of the Epidicus and Miles Gloriosus, see L. Maurice, ‘Epidicus mihi fuit magister: structure and metatheatricality in Plautus’ Epidicus’, Scholia 15 (2006) 35-52, ‘Seeing is believing: the Miles Gloriosus as an exercise in self-conscious illusion’, Mnemosyne 60 (2007) 407-26. 56 With regard to the Menaechmi, see E. Fraenkel, Plautine elements in Plautus, trans. T. Drevikovsky and F. Muecke (Oxford 2007) 160-61, 239-40; R. Maltby, ‘The language of Plautus’s parasites’, in Theatre. Ancient and modern, ed. L. Hardwick, P. Easterling, S. Ireland, N. Lowe, and F. Macintosh (Milton Keynes 2000) 32-44, and at: www2.open.ac.uk/Classical Studies/GreekPlays /Conf99/index.htm (accessed 25/3/2009); J. C. B. Lowe, ‘Plautus’s parasites and the Atellana’, in Studien zur vorliterarischen Periode im frühen Rom, ed. G. Vogt-Spira (Tübingen 1989) 161-69 (at 167). 57 J. Lightfoot, ‘Nothing to do with the technitae of Dionysus?’, in Greek and Roman actors. Aspects of an ancient profession, ed. P. Easterling and E. Hall (Cambridge 2002) 209-12. 58 For an overview of these sources, see G. Duckworth, The nature of Roman comedy, 2nd edn (Princeton 1994) 7-16. 59 N. Slater, Plautus (n.51, above) 5.

LISA MAURICE: CONTAMINATIO AND ADAPTATION 461

V Applying the modern to the ancient

If we accept the parallel between Plautus and the recent post-modern adaptations of Greek drama, it is possible that other parallels can be drawn that will add to our understanding of the conditions under which Plautus worked and the society in which he operated. If the phenomenon of post-modernism is to flourish it seems that certain conditions must be in place. Firstly, accessibility of a range of different media is required in order for different texts and genres to be combined. The impact of globalism and in particular the internet has been a factor in the development of this trend in our society. Not only, however, must there be a range of traditions accessible, but these traditions must also be understood by the audience. It is not possible to play with theatrical conventions, or parody genres, if those conventions and genres are not themselves familiar to the audience. Additionally there is a corresponding need for a high level of theatrical sophistication on the part both of the playwright and the audience in order fully to appreciate these nuances. A vibrant theatrical culture and a social environment that merges various strands and promotes creativity are both necessary.

If we apply these criteria back to Plautine comedy, we can perhaps better appreciate Plautus’ dramatic background. The Roman conquests can be compared in their impact to modern globalism. The expansion of Rome united and assimilated a range of other cultures and societies. As a result, a range of traditions were available to Plautus, giving him access both to native Italian drama, with which the Roman audiences would have been familiar, and to Greek models. One can argue that in this period of the literary and geographical expansion of the Roman world, there must have been an explosion of creativity as the society became exposed to new genres and styles. In such a climate, there was no shame in taking over earlier Greek comedies and mixing and adding to them to produce new, raw, and vibrant plays that reflected the ethos of the age. It was perhaps even a source of pride to appropriate these elite cultural models and to adapt them for the Roman audiences by combining them with native traditions. Interestingly, a half-century later, however, Terence faced criticism for deviating from his Greek models. By his time a mood of preservation and idealization of the Greek world had set in. Certainly the smooth elegance of Terentian comedy lacks the energetic vitality of the Plautine plays. This quality is reflected in modern works such as those produced by Charles Mee.

As discussed above, this practice of combining sources gives wide scope for meatheatricality. Post-modernist adapters of Greek tragedy are attracted to metatheatricality, as was Plautus. One of the effects of metatheatrical references is the creation of a bond between actors and audience. This allows spectators to identity with the actors as well as with each other. The members of that audience thus share a common body of knowledge about theatre, its language, practices, and values that unites them. The interweaving of multiple layers thus invites the audience to enter into the game of identifying the different elements. It invites complicity between spectator and performer.

One reason for the prominent use of metatheatricality in modern adaptations of ancient drama is that there is a wide gap between the content of the plays and the audience. The metatheatrical effects compensate for this by drawing actors and audience closer. They also, however, serve to highlight the gap between the audience and the myths.60 In other words,

60 Foley, ‘Bad women’ (n.22, above) 78.

462 IN DIALOGUE WITH THE PAST – 2

shed and ppreciated.

dy is still being performed, but also on the ancient world in hich drama first flourished.

ar Ilan University, Israel

Arnn and Latin literature, ed. D. West and

-60. 3-30.

1).

Ca rce at Rome’, in Farce, ed.

metatheatricality provides a link between the actors and the spectators that is especially necessary when the drama is in some way ‘foreign’ and ‘alien’. Here again, the Plautine comparison becomes valid. Plautus in presenting his Roman audiences with his fabula palliata that consciously created an illusion of Greekness is also dealing with a foreign and alien world. The metatheatricality of Plautus’ plays therefore reminds the audience that they are not part of the foreign illusory world that they are watching. It thus creates distance between them and that world.

A metatheatrical style requires a certain level of theatrical awareness on the part of the audience. Recent scholarship that has highlighted the metatheatrical aspect of Plautus’ work has also stressed the comparative sophistication of his audiences.61 Comparison with modern evidence strengthens this picture. It indicates that Plautus lived in society that possessed a vibrant theatrical culture. It seems extremely unlikely that such a self-conscious style of drama, even when cloaked in a heavy layer of slapstick and farce, could be appreciated in an environment in which the theatre was not both well-establia VI Conclusions

Recent years have witnessed a number of new productions that are characterized by both a combination of models and by metatheatricality. Similar characteristics are observed in Plautine comedy. It is therefore likely that certain conditions that exist in modern theatre were also present in Republican Rome. These consist of exposure to a range of theatrical traditions, both native and foreign and a sophisticated appreciation of theatre by its audiences. The application of reception studies to the examination of the ancient world indicates how this modern scholarly approach can help shed light not only on the modern world in which classical tragew B BIBLIOGRAPHY

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