Theatrical Apparatus
Of The Greco-Hellenic Age
Why yes, as a matter of fact, these periaktoi are okay.
What do these do?
Why yes, as a matter of fact, this ekeklema is okay.
What does this do?
Why yes, as a matter of fact, this aeroma is okay.
What does this do?
Text Analysis
Robyn Accetta, Mary Ruth Baggott, Ben Bartolone
September 24, 2007
Medea
Scorned wife extracts revenge on deserter husband by murdering their children and his new fiancée
Playwright: Euripides (~480 BC – 406 BC)
Themes: Passion, Power, Deception, Vengeance.
Other works by the author Contemporaries
The Trojan Women Aeschylus
Andromache Sophocles
Electra
Bacchae
Characters
Medea Jason Nurse Creon Chorus
Children of Medea Aegeus Tutor Messenger
Highlights of the Times
- The Golden Age in Athens
- Thirty-year truce between Athens & Sparta (455 – 415 BC)
- Sophron of Syracuse initiates mime as a dramatic form (450 BC)
- Consecration of the completed Parthenon (438 BC)
- Rebuilding of the Acropolis (448 – 443 BC)
- Pindar, Greek musician and poet, dies (447 BC)
- Extensive use of carrier pigeons popularized in Greece
Definitions of some related terms
Periaktoi—(plural, from the Greek revolving) a device used for displaying and rapidly changing theatre scenes, of a triangular shape.
Deus Ex Machina—(meaning “God by machine”) a god lowered by stage machinery to resolve a plot or extricate the protagonist from a difficult situation
Ekeklema-- a wheeled-platform on which bodies of dead persons were presented (because a murder or a suicide never took place in front of the spectators)
Amphitheater—(loosely Greek for “with theater on both sides”) An oval or round structure having tiers of seats rising gradually outward from a central open space or arena