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 (c. 150 CE)

• An Umbrian from Sarsina

• Unsuccessful merchant

• Successful theater professional

• Contemporary of Cato

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?

• 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

• Boy: a bit dumb

• Girl: clever or innocent

• Old man: does not want to share

• Matron: owns husband or serves him

• Slave: foolish or clever

• Maid: devoted to mistress

Slave, trickster, and director

• Often referring to himself as imperator, architect, engineer

• The poet’s self-centered and conceited alter-ego

• 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

• 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.

• 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 over-

the-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