Theatrical Performance – X - Comic Actors
Two actors with masks in the role of farmers head towards the market. One carries a calf on his shoulders, the other has a basket in front of him and a sack resting on his back..
In the later part of the fifth and the early fourth century, the actors of comedy as of all Greek drama were males. They wore tights that covered them from neck to wrists and ankles; under the tights they had heavy padding fixed over the belly and backside, and sometimes breasts as well. The seams down the sides of sleeves or leggings were often made clear by painters. On the outside of the tights at the front was affixed a large leather phallos. Earlier depictions show it as long and hanging, but from the last years of the fifth century onwards, more and more productions seem to have had it looped up in a way that, to judge from the texts, was regarded as rather more decent. A performer wearing only this body-costume was regarded as ‘stage-naked’, and it was worn by all actors, even those playing female roles. The modifiers or creators of particular identity were any clothes placed over this costume such as a tunic, a cloak, sandals, a dress for a female, and of course the mask.
In Old Comedy there was not a great range of masks - this and the subtlety they represented came with time - but enough to distinguish between free man and slave, stupid and clever. The other major source of evidence for the appearance of the comic actor from this period on is a huge number of terracotta figurines. An original and influential series was made in Athens, probably in the last years of the fifth century, and it was continued in the same style and reproduced in copies for the next three quarters of a century, and sometimes even beyond.
Part of their attraction must have been that they could be reproduced cheaply in two-part moulds or often just from molds taken from the fronts of existing figurines, so that they reached a very wide public, a much wider public than did painted vases. They could also be (and were) reproduced in towns throughout the Greek world that had no tradition of making painted vases. This local copying also tells us that they had a market in the community which must therefore have known Athenian comedy.
Source: Gregory W. Dobrov, “Brill’s Companion to the Study of Greek Comedy”
Attic clay statuette
Ca. 375 - 350 BC
Munich, Staatliche Antikensammlungen
Theatrical Performance – X - Comic Actors
Two actors with masks in the role of farmers head towards the market. One carries a calf on his shoulders, the other has a basket in front of him and a sack resting on his back..
In the later part of the fifth and the early fourth century, the actors of comedy as of all Greek drama were males. They wore tights that covered them from neck to wrists and ankles; under the tights they had heavy padding fixed over the belly and backside, and sometimes breasts as well. The seams down the sides of sleeves or leggings were often made clear by painters. On the outside of the tights at the front was affixed a large leather phallos. Earlier depictions show it as long and hanging, but from the last years of the fifth century onwards, more and more productions seem to have had it looped up in a way that, to judge from the texts, was regarded as rather more decent. A performer wearing only this body-costume was regarded as ‘stage-naked’, and it was worn by all actors, even those playing female roles. The modifiers or creators of particular identity were any clothes placed over this costume such as a tunic, a cloak, sandals, a dress for a female, and of course the mask.
In Old Comedy there was not a great range of masks - this and the subtlety they represented came with time - but enough to distinguish between free man and slave, stupid and clever. The other major source of evidence for the appearance of the comic actor from this period on is a huge number of terracotta figurines. An original and influential series was made in Athens, probably in the last years of the fifth century, and it was continued in the same style and reproduced in copies for the next three quarters of a century, and sometimes even beyond.
Part of their attraction must have been that they could be reproduced cheaply in two-part moulds or often just from molds taken from the fronts of existing figurines, so that they reached a very wide public, a much wider public than did painted vases. They could also be (and were) reproduced in towns throughout the Greek world that had no tradition of making painted vases. This local copying also tells us that they had a market in the community which must therefore have known Athenian comedy.
Source: Gregory W. Dobrov, “Brill’s Companion to the Study of Greek Comedy”
Attic clay statuette
Ca. 375 - 350 BC
Munich, Staatliche Antikensammlungen