Theater of the People
-
David Kawalko Roselli
About this book
Greek drama has been subject to ongoing textual and historical interpretation, but surprisingly little scholarship has examined the people who composed the theater audiences in Athens. Typically, scholars have presupposed an audience of Athenian male citizens viewing dramas created exclusively for themselves—a model that reduces theater to little more than a medium for propaganda. Women's theater attendance remains controversial, and little attention has been paid to the social class and ethnicity of the spectators. Whose theater was it?
Producing the first book-length work on the subject, David Kawalko Roselli draws on archaeological and epigraphic evidence, economic and social history, performance studies, and ancient stories about the theater to offer a wide-ranging study that addresses the contested authority of audiences and their historical constitution. Space, money, the rise of the theater industry, and broader social forces emerge as key factors in this analysis. In repopulating audiences with foreigners, slaves, women, and the poor, this book challenges the basis of orthodox interpretations of Greek drama and places the politically and socially marginal at the heart of the theater. Featuring an analysis of the audiences of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, and Menander, Theater of the People brings to life perhaps the most powerful influence on the most prominent dramatic poets of their day.
Author / Editor information
Reviews
Topics
-
Download PDFPublicly Available
Frontmatter
i -
Download PDFPublicly Available
Contents
v -
Download PDFPublicly Available
Conventions and Abbreviations Used
vii -
Download PDFPublicly Available
Acknowledgments
xi -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Introduction. Theater and People in At hens
1 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Chapter 1. The Idea of the Audience and Its Role in the Theater
19 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Chapter 2. Space and Spectators in the Theater
63 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Chapter 3. The Economics of the Theater: Theoric Distributions and Class Divisions
87 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Chapter 4. Noncitizens in the Theater
118 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Chapter 5. Women and the Theater Audience
158 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Epilogue
195 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Notes
203 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Bibliography
251 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Index Locorum
275 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
General Index
283
