Alan Hughes presents his study of Greek comic performance to meet the needs of instructors and students who find themselves engaged in broad surveys of literary history. He offers a summary of ‘the state of contemporary research’ (p. xiii) and distinguishes his inquiry with a pragmatism directed at ‘a working theatre not unlike others’ (p. xiii). Hughes relies heavily on the evidence of vase paintings and terracotta figurines, taking his cue from studies like Oliver Taplin's Pots and Plays (2007). As in that study, Hughes's conclusions are necessarily speculative, though filtered through his ‘lifetime of experience in the living theatre’ (p. xiii). This experience, combined with a thorough bibliography and first-hand examination of 350 artefacts, results in a solid introduction to the performance of Greek comedy, but readers will not find much more: ‘The author does not pretend to offer significant new perspectives on dramatic literature’ (p. 5).
After a discussion of the sources, their nature, and the development of comic drama in Greece (chapter 1), Hughes surveys the poets of Old and Middle Comedy (chapter 2) and describes ancient theatres and stagecraft (chapter 3). Six chapters explore the elements of comic performance: the comic chorus (4), music in comedy (5), acting (6 and 7), masks (8) and costumes (9). An examination of the role of women in the plays as well as in the audience (10) and a chapter on New Comedy (11) round out the study.
The book is most engaging when Hughes uses his knowledge of world drama to compare Greek practice to that of other cultures, as when he discusses the mask in Balinese, Japanese and Greek theatre (pp. 168–9) or compares the Theatre of Dionysus to the Metropolitan Opera House, the Bolshoi and the Four Seasons Centre (p. 222).
Throughout, Hughes maintains that for comic subjects ‘vase painters used a highly realistic technique; tragic subjects were idealized’ (p. xiv). Because comedy did not invite the audience to suspend disbelief, vase painters recorded what they saw (p. 7). Hughes even suggests that painters depicted particular scenes and performances (p. 162). Hughes provides no evidence to allow the conclusion that comic actors, as painted, are not idealizations themselves. The moods evoked on the stage more by technique than by mask – ‘To change his mood, the actor had only to look down’ (p. 161) – could be depicted freely by painters and sculptors. ‘An actor wearing a good comic mask can express half a dozen [moods]’ (p. 168), but a painter has no limit at all. The wide range of expression found in the material record, therefore, is possibly heavily idealized.
Those readers who seek an introduction to the evidence and major elements of the theatricality of Greek comedy will find that in this book, and for whatever shortcomings it may have, all readers will find ample opportunities in the thorough notes and bibliography to delve more deeply into the questions and controversies of the subject.
