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Adelaide Ristori travelled to Athens in 1865, during her tour of the Eastern Mediterranean, which included major economic and cultural centres in the region. She was the first major actress of the time to travel to the Greek capital to present part of her repertoire. Her theatrical presence, her production on stage as well as her personality as a whole marked the theatre audience, the intellectual elite, even the Athenian bourgeoisie who were lucky enough to admire the great artist’s dramatic art. Being an eminent personality of European theatre, she had a profound influence on the style of performances, from an aesthetic point of view, but also on public opinion regarding dramatic art in general and especially the presence of women on the theatre stage. The presentation will focus on the different areas that she marked in the most pregnant and effective way, contributing to the formation of the Greek national theatre. The data presented here comes from primary research and is based on scientific studies, press of the time and relevant bibliography.

One of the founding characters of the ancient drama is the Chorus, the collective voice in front of an individualized actor. Taking the theoretical foundation of chorus as an essential element of dramaturgy, its function is compared in sex plays of two different times, authors, and geographical zones: classical Greek tragedy and the Silver Age of the Spanish theatre. The aim of this work is to study how the chorus relates to other characters through the analysis of social networks that are generated on the scene. The object of the comparative study are three Greek works: Elektra by Sophocles, Iphigenia Among the Taurians by Euripides and The Eumenides by Aeschylus, against three modern Spanish dramas: Luces de bohemia by Valle-Inclán, Yerma and La casa de Bernarda Alba by García Lorca hosted in the Drama Corpora Project (DraCor). Graph visualization and analysis are applied for their digital study.

Thousands of theatres were built during the Hellenistic period in Greece and overseas colonies. The main elements of the Hellenistic theatre are the following: the orchestra, where music and songs were performed to accompany the acting performance, and the koilon, where the audience sat. Hellenistic theatres were built without any ceiling, with an open-air configuration. This paper reports the acoustic characteristics of the Greek (Hellenistic) theatre located in Morgantina (Sicily, Italy) based on the technical data gathered in different listening positions selected across the sitting area (koilon). The theatre of Morgantina was built in the third century BC and renovated a few decades ago. Nowadays, it is the center of important social and cultural activities. The outcomes of the beamforming technique employed for the survey have been discussed in comparison with traditional acoustic parameters, such as ISO 3382. The scope of this article is to assess the usability of this theatre intended to be used for different types of artistic performances.

In this paper, I attempt to map the theatrical landscape in Greece and explore the imprint left by Covid 19. The pause imposed by the pandemic allowed for innovative modes of theatrical practice, including experimentation with digital technology as well as alternative methods of communication, and initiated a retrospective study of the aims and potential sources of support for artistic and cultural practice in general. With an eye to these concerns, I consider the responses of key participants, such as theatre practitioners, producers, the Ministry of Culture, the audience, critics, and scholars, as I discuss their efforts to understand and cope with the Covid crisis. Evaluating the impact of the pandemic crisis, I review two distinct lines of thought. First, I consider artistic trends that emerged during the post-Covid period; second, I examine deeper implications of the crisis that although they emerged as a side-effect they affected theatrical practice at a much deeper institutional level.

The paper is an analysis of Jan Dorman’s theatre practice in the context of the classical tradition. It examines the archival collections of The Theatre Institute documenting the collaboration of Jan Dorman with Anna Świrszczyńska on the staging of O kulawym bogu Hefajstosie (“The Lame God Hephaestus”), Świrszczyńska’s radio play. The extant  correspondence between the creators of the production and the director’s copies permit us to explore and analyse the ways in which classical antiquity inspired Dorman’s work. Although Dorman never adapted any ancient Greek text to the stage, his practice indicates a strong presence of the classical tradition, in particular the Greek comedy, in his mode of theatre.

The relationship between the shape and social use of Greek and Roman theatres has always been overshadowed by the technical and acoustic analyses of these performance spaces. Relevant ruins illustrate the relationship between performance typology, acoustics, and construction development of ancient theatres, which were mainly determined by the requirements of artistic venues. The music in tragedies and comedies, the dances, and the public speeches performed in the same places helped to shape the constructions according to the requirements of the events. In addition to the need to satisfy social and political interactions, the functions of musical performances and public speeches in theatres were maintained across generations so that they organically coexisted in both Greek and Roman times. This paper presents new insights into the relationships between sound and architecture, focusing on the case study of the Greek–Roman theatre of Katane and its evolution through the centuries. Architectural features have been described in terms of the social functions of the theatre rather than as mere results of geometric rules. A brief comparison with the neighboring odeion of Katane and other Greek–Roman theatres has been made regarding destination use.

Director and actor Michael Marmarinos is an iconic figure of the avant-garde Greek theatre of recent decades. One of the most prominent Greek theatre directors active since the 1980s, Marmarinos has been associated with subversive performances of ancient Greek and classical European drama. As a director, he has also worked with Noh theatre, modern and contemporary Greek and international theatre and is renowned for his devised theatre works. Marmarinos’ artistic contributions in devised theatre have been particularly noteworthy, both because he was the first Greek director to reject the notion of the author as authority, foregrounding devising techniques and creating theatrical texts by means of a collective method, and because his performances utilize a distinctive, highly original stage style, especially by Greek standards. The present paper focuses on Marmarinos’ devised performances, National Anthem, A Theorem About Togetherness (2002), 2004-Olympic Games, Instructions Manual (2005), Hairdressers/Metapolitefsi (2020), expounding the reasons these performances constituted a type of powerful intervention in Greek theatre, in terms of both stage practice and themes and ideological content.

En Grèce, la systématisation des productions de pièces grecques anciennes au Théâtre National, notamment après l’inauguration du Festival d’Épidaure dans les années 1950, a introduit et recyclé un modèle interprétatif et performatif largement « classiciste » – et ce recyclage constant a ritualisé, à son tour, sa propre continuité, fixant peu à peu ce que l’on jugeait être le code performatif « authentique », à savoir un code « national », « fidèle » aux textes, significations, héros, etc., originels. Depuis les années 1980, les codes performatifs ont pu se diversifier, mais les codes interprétatifs restent essentiellement classicistes, encourageant un théâtre d’« admiration » qui voue un culte aux héros. Cet essai commence par la mise en scène d’Électre au Théâtre National de Grèce par Peter Stein en 2007. Peter Stein fut le premier metteur en scène non grec à entamer une mise en scène de la Tragédie antique pour le théâtre d’ Epidaure, avec des acteurs grecs et le Théâtre National. Sont ici aussi discutées plusieurs représentations des tragédies, européennes et grecques, pour montrer qu’un certain « classicisme » imprègne aussi la compréhension néo-hellénique de la culture grecque ancienne – c’est à dire les savoirs communément répandus sur l’Antiquité – afin de servir l’idée (et l’idéologie) d’une continuité « nationale » avec le passé antique. In Greece, the systematic production of ancient drama at the National Theatre, especially after the inauguration of the Epidauria Festival in the 1950s, introduced and recycled a largely ‘classicist’ interpretative and performative model – and this constant recycling ritualized, in turn, its own continuity, gradually establishing what was taken to be the “authentic” performative code, indeed a ‘native’ one, ‘faithful’ to the original texts, meanings, heroes etc. Since the 1980s, performative codes have become more pluralistic and yet the interpretative codes remain essentially classicist, promoting a hero-worshipping theatre of ‘admiration’. Taking as its starting point the first performance of Greek Tragedy directed by a foreign director at the Greek National Theatre, Peter Stein’s Electra by Sophocles, in 2007, the paper discusses various European and Greek performances of the play, in order to show that this classicism permeates the modern Greeks’ overall understanding of ancient Greek culture –the common knowledge of Antiquity– that is configured by/in contemporary Greek consciousness, in order to serve the idea (and the ideology) of a ‘native’ continuity with the Ancient Greek past.

The ancient city of Caunus lies on the southwest shore of Anatolia, across the island of Rhodes. In the present time, it is located within the borders Köyceğiz town and is on the western bank of the Dalyan River, which connects Lake Köyceğiz with Mediterranean Sea. A port in earlier times, the city now is at quite a distance from the seashore due to the formation of the Dalyan Delta. Its harbor's location was strategically important for ships sailing between Aegean Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean. The Caunus Theater, situated towards southwest and overlooks the city and sea, is one of the best preserved among the Anatolian theaters as well as other structures of Caunus. Owing to the topography of the site, while the seats situated on the east of the theatre are located on a reformed rock, the seats on the north and west are supported by analemma. Analemma along with some of the seats and the stage are currently in ruins. However, during the process initiated by the founding of an 'archeological park' in the city together with its immediate surroundings, a detailed architectural documentation of the city buildings has been planned. This documentation aims not only to document the buildings in isolation but also to indicate the location of the buildings within the city and the relations between the buildings and the topography. Digital coordinate measuring equipment are used for measuring the land, and the fundamental geometry of the theater are recorded in detail. All structural elements are measured meticulously, and a detailed 3-dimensional picture of the theater is created, from which a restituition model is generated in digital format. We have attempted to identify the principal characteristics of the structure using simulations performed on the digital model.

This series of essays by prominent academics and practitioners investigates in detail the history of performance in the classical Greek and Roman world. Beginning with the earliest examples of 'dramatic' presentation in the epic cycles and reaching through to the latter days of the Roman Empire and beyond, this 2007 Companion covers many aspects of these broad presentational societies. Dramatic performances that are text-based form only one part of cultures where presentation is a major element of all social and political life. Individual chapters range across a two thousand year timescale, and include specific chapters on acting traditions, masks, properties, playing places, festivals, religion and drama, comedy and society, and commodity, concluding with the dramatic legacy of myth and the modern media. The book addresses the needs of students of drama and classics, as well as anyone with an interest in the theatre's history and practice.