Unlike tragedy, Old Comedy openly acknowledges its own festival context and the existence of a world beyond the one created for and occupied by its masked characters. Admission of the theatrical setting is a standard well-documented feature and was an effective way of drawing spectators into the drama's fiction.Footnote 1 To the same end, speaking directly to the audience formed an integral part of Aristophanes' plays and very probably of the comic genre as a whole.Footnote 2 We can therefore think of comedy as an ‘inclusive’ art form, one that (self-)consciously attempted to involve and engage its consumers, in particular via explicit verbal address. On the other hand, the evidence is much slimmer for actors moving outside of the performance area or otherwise physically bringing the audience members and the fictional cast into contact and, regardless of how attractive it might seem, this type of spatial negotiation is far from established.Footnote 3 It may well be the case that in spite of comedy's relative liberty, certain barriers continued to exist, including the invisible barrier that divided the acting area from the auditorium.
There are, however, clear indications for at least one type of breaching of the orchestral space in comedy, namely the distribution of snacks.Footnote 4 Aristophanes' rivals, the poet polemically claims, would curry favour with their audiences by having slaves (Vesp. 58-9; it is not clear from the text if real slaves or slave characters are meant) or their choruses perform this task (Plut. 796–9). Aristophanes, for his part, esteems the act demagogic and he criticizes it as lowbrow (φόρτος), although he admits that it can force a laugh (Plut. 799). He may have used the technique in one of his own plays (Pax 962).Footnote 5 We are told that more enthused audience members would stand up from their seats to catch the food items (Plut. 800–2), presumably adding to the interactive nature of the practice. And yet, these snacks were thrown and not handed to the spectators—the verbs employed are διαρρίπτω, προβάλλω and ῥίπτω in Wasps, Wealth and Peace respectively.Footnote 6 In this way, physical distance between the auditorium and the acting areas was maintained and the actors involved were not required to leave the orchestra.Footnote 7
PEACE (877–906)
More difficult to determine is if, or to what extent, comic actors could move beyond the traditional performance areas and interact with the audience, but one generally accepted instance occurs in Peace. At the end of that play's parabasis, Trygaeus re-enters accompanied by the silent characters Opora and Theoria. Symbolic of his venture's success, the protagonist shall take Opora for his bride and he sends her into the house to prepare for the wedding. However, he is ready to relinquish the second girl for safe keeping so long as he finds the right person (τίς ἐσθ’ ὑμῶν δίκαιος, 877), perhaps gesturing toward the audience (ὑμῶν) as he speaks. Heeding Hermes' earlier request (713–4), he specifies that Theoria's keeper should be somebody from the Council (τῇ βουλῇ, 878; cf. 846, 887, 905). This, it turns out, is a reference to the real seats in the Theatre of Dionysus reserved for members of the boulē (the βουλευτικὸν [μέρος]).Footnote 8 Trygaeus then announces that he shall lead the girl and place her in the council members' midst (καταθήσομαι γὰρ εἰς μέσους αὐτοὺς ἄγων, 882),Footnote 9 and after a little comic stalling he hands over the actor dressed as a naked woman (or perhaps a real naked prostitute)Footnote 10 to a πρύτανις sitting among the audience. The plural ὦ πρυτάνεις δέχεσθε τὴν Θεωρίαν (905) implies that, with peace now restored, Theoria is for all the council members to enjoy (as had already been made clear, 887–8),Footnote 11 although only one spectator could actually have received her. The most obvious choice would be someone sitting either on the outer edge of the auditorium or next to an ascending thoroughfare and thus with free space to his side, but the exact seating arrangements in the prohedria for council members, epheboi and other dignitaries in the fifth century is unknown.Footnote 12 In his commentary on the play,Footnote 13 Olson suggests that she was gifted to ‘a confederate of the playwright … coached in advance as to how he is to behave and who therefore greets her enthusiastically’ but προθύμως (906) would be equally funny, if not funnier, to describe a reluctant council member's reaction. Either way, the joke about the council member's response demonstrates that the girl was really handed over (incidentally forming a nice visual foil to Peace's earlier out-and-out rejection of the spectators, 658–9), and thus we have a clear example of an actor stepping outside of the orchestra in order to interact with the audience.
Some have argued that this scene serves to strengthen the seriousness of the poet's pro-peace message, that we are no longer dealing with mere theatrics and make-believe, rather that the rewards associated with ending the war are genuine, pleasurable and indeed very tangible (cf. 1357–9).Footnote 14 On the other hand, we ought not to lose sight of the crude sexual humour and general comic ribaldry that dominates the entire passage, nor the other aspects that continued to differentiate the stage characters from the spectators, most saliently their masks and costumes.Footnote 15 Whatever the effect, Aristophanes seems to be probing the limits of the theatrical space: what happens when the normally demarcated performance areas and auditorium are stripped of their usual boundaries? What happens when the θέατρον, the place of watching, becomes a place of touching and interaction? This is probably less a reinforcement of the appeal for peace, if appealing for peace was even a serious intention of the playwright; rather it underscores the ritual, festive and inclusive nature of the comic genre, similar to invitations asking the audience to share in a feast (as, for example, occurs toward the end of Peace) or the real distribution of snacks discussed above. On the other hand, given the context of the interaction in Peace, it is hard to deny that Aristophanes was also encouraging his audience to reflect upon the nature of his art and its relationship with the real world—a recurring theme in his plays. In other words, if a member of the cast can shed his/her theatrical accoutrements (literally, 886) and become a member of the audience, how easy would it be (flying beetles and fantasy aside) for a spectator to appropriate the hopes of a comic hero, perhaps even become one? Physical contact with the theatre-goers, incorporating them into the action so to speak, would seem to be an effective way of posing such a question, but the example from Peace is actually the only firmly establishable instance in the poet's corpus.Footnote 16 In what follows, three further Aristophanic scenes are discussed in which physical contact with the audience may have taken place, but none of these instances offers any conclusive evidence for a transgression of the actor/audience divide.
ACHARNIANS (257–83)
In Peace we find a single actor moving to the very edges of the performance area in order to interact with one of the spectators. In Acharnians we may have a case of several actors leaving the orchestra and entering or approaching the auditorium. Dicaeopolis has just arranged for his private peace treaty and is preparing to sacrifice to Dionysus as part of his celebration of the Rural Dionysia. He emerges from the stage building accompanied by his daughter and a pair of slaves, one of whom is carrying the requisite processional phallus (243).Footnote 17 All of the actors move forward into the empty orchestra (242), whilst the Acharnians, who are already on the lookout for the protagonist, take cover to observe. The chorus probably gathers out of the way (ἐκποδών) beside one of the eisodoi.Footnote 18 Following some preliminary remarks addressed to Dionysus and to his daughter (247–56), Dicaeopolis orders the procession to begin: ‘March on and take extra care that no one in the crowd secretly pinches your golden accessories' (πρόβαινε, κἀν τὤχλῳ φυλάττεσθαι σφόδρα | μή τις λαθών σου περιτράγῃ τὰ χρυσία, 257–8). The ‘crowd’ referred to here cannot be the chorus. They are hidden and Dicaeopolis has already dismissed them as hostile to his intentions (186, 200). It seems unlikely that Dicaeopolis is imagining a throng of observers,Footnote 19 since his peace treaty is a private one and explicitly not to be shared with anybody alien to his household (130-2).Footnote 20 In terms of plot, the location has also shifted from the Pnyx to Dicaeopolis' deme, and the rest of the Athenian population, having rejected peace, is to be imagined as remaining within the city walls. Unless the mention of a crowd is to be taken ironically then, the most economic way to interpret the passage is to have ὄχλος refer to the spectators.Footnote 21 In this way, the protagonist would sing his hymn to Φαλῆς (263–79) as he, the slaves and his daughter were walking amongst the audience, or perhaps more plausibly, tight alongside the front seats of the auditorium (see below). With the characters approaching the spectators, the latter are able, as they are in Peace, to participate in the fictive celebration of the war's end and in the protagonist's resumption of the rural festivities that had, in reality, been denied to much of the population for the past five years (Thuc. 2.16.2).
The staging proposed here would seem to find support in an oft-cited parallel from Athenaeus (quoting Semos).Footnote 22 In that passage we hear how, prior to a popular Dionysian procession, garlanded and masked ithyphalloi would turn toward the audience (ἐπιστρέφουσιν εἰς τὸ θέατρον) and announce that the upright god (i.e. the phallus) wished to ‘walk in their midst’ (θέλει γὰρ ὁ θεὸς … διὰ μέσου βαδίζειν). The ithyphalloi would presumably then parade the phallus through the group of onlookers, thereby including them in the celebration. This is the type of procession that Dicaeopolis is organizing in Acharnians.Footnote 23 In terms of the Aristophanic scene's staging, modern reconstructions of the fifth-century Theatre of Dionysus allow for vertical passages extending from the orchestra up into the koilon that divided the auditorium into several sections, similar to what is still visible today;Footnote 24 these thoroughfares could have been exploited by Aristophanes during Dicaeopolis' πομπή, effectively allowing the actors to march the phallus through the midst of the spectators.Footnote 25 Navigation of these vertical passages would not, however, have been a simple task both because of the oversized phallus being manipulated by the slaves and because of the basket probably balanced on the girl's head (which Dicaeopolis has expressly asked his daughter to carry with dignity, 253–4),Footnote 26 not to mention the general risk of tripping or stumbling. All things considered, the most practical solution, if we do accept that the actors approached the audience here, is to have them walk close alongside (that is, within touching distance of) the front row of seats, but without venturing beyond this point.
Envisaging the Acharnians passage in this way not only has the advantage of easily explaining the reference to an ὄχλος, but also clarifies the otherwise desultory line about thieves, which now becomes a humorous slight directed toward the audience (cf. Eccl. 436–40). The joke may even reflect the choregos' real concerns about losing valuable costume material in what was doubtless an unusual manoeuvre.Footnote 27 Finally, the entire episode takes on a further interactive dimension if Dicaeopolis is still standing among or close to the audience, when the angry chorus confirms his identity and begins pelting him (280–3), perhaps with some kind of ‘stones’ made from cloth or other soft material.Footnote 28 In this way, the protagonist finds himself positioned between the audience and the chorus as he comes under attack. If those sitting in the auditorium are also in the firing line, the playwright could be exploiting this spatial configuration to encourage audience sympathy with Dicaeopolis against the motives of the Acharnians, and this just prior to the protagonist's first real attempt to justify his controversial peace treaty.
THESMOPHORIAZUSAE (659–87)
A comparable type of interaction, with actors walking close to the audience, is hinted at in the Thesmophoriazusae, but the evidence is again debatable.Footnote 29 When the chorus of women discovers that Euripides’ kinsman has infiltrated their group, they are justifiably aggrieved. They strip and insult him (636–54) and decide to make sure there are no more imposters. They remove their cloaks, presumably for ease of movement,Footnote 30 and it is announced that they shall ‘run around all the Pnyx and thoroughly examine the tents and the passages’ ([χρὴ] ζητεῖν, εἴ που κἄλλος τις ἀνὴρ ἐπελήλυθε, καὶ περιθρέξαι | τὴν πύκνα πᾶσαν καὶ τὰς σκηνὰς καὶ τὰς διόδους διαθρῆσαι, 657–8). It is tempting to imagine the chorus splitting up here and running in all directions (διασκοπεῖν … πανταχῇ, 660; πάντ[α], 663; καὶ τὰ τῇδε καὶ τὰ δεῦρο, 666), which would indeed make for a more efficient search and would correspond well with the call to scout the entire Pnyx. Such a staging of the scene would also allow for the character Mica to be left isolated and exposed for her baby/wineskin to be snatched (688-91). Admittedly the kidnapping would also be possible if Mica moves with the kinsman on to the stage, whilst the chorus conducts its search in the orchestra, but this is nowhere indicated in the text.
Importantly, however, the entire passage is steeped in the language of movement that closely mirrors collective choral dance. Although we must proceed cautiously when attempting any type of choreutic reconstruction for the original performances, the reference to running in a circle (τρέχειν … κύκλῳ, 662) strongly suggests that the chorus members remained together, just as they do later in the play at 954–5, where they explicitly link hands εἰς κύκλον (cf. εὐκύκλου χορείας, 967).Footnote 31 Hence Austin and Olson: the chorus ‘run in a circle together’; ‘the chorus … follow the coryphaeus in a circular dance around the perimeter of the orchestra’.Footnote 32 This is the commonly given and most convincing interpretation of the scene's staging. But the reading is not without its complications. For example, at least some of the women carry torches during the search scene (655), which would seem to exclude the possibility of linking hands in a circle and reduces the parallels with the more clearly signalled circular dance described at 953-8. Furthermore, adverbial κύκλῳ, when taken without an object as in the Thesmophoriazusae passage, can also mean just ‘around’ (e.g. Av. 1196: κύκλῳ σκοπῶν). Thus τρέχειν … κύκλῳ may simply imply ‘run around’, and it is not necessary to translate our passage as ‘run in a circle’. Indeed, in the only other place where κύκλῳ is used without a preposition or without an object to describe a dance in Aristophanes, it surely indicates not a movement in a (linked) circle, but rapid twirling (Vesp. 1529). The change in metre after 662 to trochaics emphasizes, if anything, the women's aggression and/or the urgent nature of the search (660–1), but trochaics cannot be exclusively associated with any particular type of choral movement.Footnote 33 We note, none the less, that it is different to the metre employed in the more explicit circular dance of 953-8,Footnote 34 introducing a further difference between the two passages. Accepting Colin Austin's textual supplement, a final question arises from the fact that the chorus-leader in the Thesmophoriazusae passage, for no apparently obvious reason, singles herself out at the beginning of the search: ‘I must be the first to run’, or perhaps ‘I, as the first woman, must run’, she exclaims (τὴν πρώτην τρέχειν χρή <μ’>, 662).Footnote 35 Austin and Olson would read this as a sign of her leadership of the dance, but being the first to run implies only that the others were also expected to run, not that they were explicitly meant to follow behind the coryphaeus. At any rate, nowhere else in Aristophanes does a coryphaeus single himself out from the rest of the chorus as a dance's leader and, as such, we should be wary about drawing any conclusions from this self-referential exhortation.
If we accept the possibility of a separated chorus here, then some of the dancers may have moved among or at least very close to the audience.Footnote 36 This would explain their wish to check if anyone is seated in the areas of their search (ἴχνευε καὶ μάτευε ταχὺ πάντ’, εἴ τις ἐν τόποις ἑδραῖος Ĥ ἄλλος αὖ λέληθεν ὤν, 663-4; cf. οὐχ ὁρῶμεν γοῦν ἔτ’ ἄλλον οὐδέν’ ἐγκαθήμενον, 687), although we should recall that the women's own assembly also sat (184, 292, 600; cf. Eccl. 57). The threats of punishment (677-85), and perhaps especially the threat of making an example (παράδειγμ’, 670) of any perpetrator (stripping him like they did to Euripides’ kinsman or, more explicitly, having a god drive him mad [679-85]),Footnote 37 would then be comically directed toward the audience. The effect would be all the more startling and menacing if some of the women actually walked through the auditorium, since the audience is in fact ‘guilty’ of the same crime as the kinsman, that is to say, of having voyeuristically infiltrated an all-female celebration and seen what normally was forbidden to their eyes—a motif that Euripides would later exploit to its fullest in his Bacchae. The final punch line arrives when the chorus proclaims that they have been unsuccessful in their search for another man (687), having just scoured an audience made up mostly, if not entirely, of male spectators.Footnote 38 This signals the end of the short episode and redirects the play's action away from the largely extra-dramatical search-scene back toward the arrested kinsman.
To conclude, the original staging of this scene must remain obscure, but perhaps the easiest way to understand any ambiguities in the text is to accept that Aristophanes himself was creating and exploiting two-fold meanings. That is to say, the chorus likely did dance in some kind of circular motion (but not with linked hands), probably threateningly close to the front row of seats, thus incorporating the ‘seated’ audience into their search, but without necessarily making any physical contact with the spectators. We can at least be certain that the chorus was moving at some distance from the orchestra's centre, leaving the area around the altar unprotected for the kinsman to run to. There is nothing, on the other hand, to prove that the women entered the auditorium and moved among the spectators, in spite of the intrinsic appeal of such a staging.
CLOUDS (275–355)
Finally we turn our attention to Clouds. The entrance of the chorus, as in several other of Aristophanes’ plays, must certainly have been spectacular. There can be no surety as regards the costumes,Footnote 39 but it has been suggested that the chorus (or at least some of its members) entered not from the eisodoi but from the auditorium itself.Footnote 40 After the initial song (275–90), sung by the hidden chorus and accompanied by thunder claps, Strepsiades expresses his eager desire to see the Clouds (322). Socrates therefore bids him to ‘look over there toward Mount Parnes’ (βλέπε νυν δευρὶ πρὸς τὴν Πάρνηθ’, 323), where the philosopher has already spotted the chorus ‘coming down silently’ (ἤδη γὰρ ὁρῶ κατιούσας | ἡσυχῇ αὐτάς, 323–4). It has been pointed out that the theatre of Dionysus and thus the audience faced southwards, but that Mt Parnes lies to the north, about 25 kilometres from the acropolis. If Socrates is respecting the true geography of Attica, this would mean that the two characters are facing the audience, with Socrates directing Strepsiades’ gaze to somewhere beyond and behind the auditorium. In addition to this, the Clouds are described as descending, presumably from the high place whence they are said to survey the earth (290). One suggestion is therefore that the chorus did not enter via the eisodoi, but rather beginning at the back of the auditorium came down the sides of the theatre flanking the audience or, alternatively, down through the vertical thoroughfares of the koilon moving separately like a giant swarm of bees (μέγα σμῆνος, 297). Hence the clouds are πλάγιαι ‘on the side’ (325) before they are finally spotted παρὰ τὴν εἴσοδον (326), ready to enter the orchestra (if we accept these two Greek terms as indicating different locations). The complexity of such a manoeuvre might explain why the normally singing chorus first appears silently (ἡσυχῇ, 324) in this play.Footnote 41 It would also help to explain why Strepsiades does not immediately see the Clouds—they are at the back of the auditorium and ‘too far away’, although his inability to recognize the chorus is doubtless indicative of his uninitiated status too. Finally, the chorus are said to be arriving διὰ τῶν κοίλων καὶ τῶν δασέων (325): ‘through the hollows and thickets’, a possible pun on the word κοῖλον, the hollow of the auditorium.Footnote 42
Peter von Möllendorff, in his analysis of the entrance, offers several additional arguments in support of an entrance via the auditorium. He observes that the time between the end of the chorus’ entrance song and its first contact with the on-stage actors is by far the longest for any Aristophanic play (65 lines when taken from the end of the first strophe)—so long as there are other characters on stage, the norm in Aristophanes is for the chorus to make verbal contact as quickly as possible. The reason for the exception in Clouds, von Möllendorff proposes, is that the chorus was in fact singing from the auditorium (after its initial silence) and had to navigate the seating area before finally reaching the orchestra. Von Möllendorff also claims that the chorus was split (αὗται … αὗται, 324), with some members coming down through or next to the auditorium whilst others entered from one or both of the eisodoi. This would explain the reference to the side entrance but at the same time allow other chorus members to arrive walking through the audience. According to von Möllendorff's schema, πάντα … κατέχουσιν (328) not only describes the chorus members filling the orchestra, but also the part of the theatre occupied by the spectators. This, we can add, would correspond nicely with the earlier announcement that the Clouds could arrive from anywhere or any direction (269–74). It would also not be entirely unique: in Ecclesiazusae the chorus members gradually trickle in one by one or in small groups before forming a whole in the orchestra, although in that play they almost certainly arrive via the eisodoi. This being said, Sommerstein's objection to the theory of a divided chorus, namely that we would expect αὗται μέν … αὗται δέ for such a configuration, is a persuasive one.Footnote 43 Indeed, the straightforward reading of the passage in question is simply ‘there they are, so very many moving forward through the hollows and thickets, there they are on the side’ (χωροῦσ’ αὗται πάνυ πολλαὶ | διὰ τῶν κοίλων καὶ τῶν δασέων αὗται πλάγιαι, 324-5), and there is no real need to imagine the repeated αὗται as referring to two distinct groups. If anything, the repetition would seem simply to emphasize the difficulty Strepsiades is having in seeing the chorus (325-6).Footnote 44 We should also note that the use of repetition is not exceptional when announcing the arrival of characters or groups on stage.Footnote 45 If we do accept an entrance through the auditorium, then it is probably best to envisage all the chorus members arriving in this way.
On the other hand, it is entirely possible that the chorus members simply entered the orchestra as per convention from one or both of the eisodoi,Footnote 46 with the remaining description of them coming through the hollows and thickets being pure imagination (or a reference to the real flora that covered Mt Parnes; cf. 280), just as the audience may be expected to imagine Mt Parnes lying in another direction than it really does.Footnote 47 ‘Coming down’ might be a mere reference to the fact that the Clouds were thought of as descending from the sky and not at all that they were walking down through the auditorium.Footnote 48 Curious also is Strepsiades’ claim to see the chorus ‘with difficulty’ (μόλις, 326) when they are already at the eisodos, casting doubts on how seriously we can take other comments that hint at staging here. This option would seem to call for a lot of imagination, however, especially for a poet who happily exploited the visual potential of his theatre. There is no reason to believe that, unlike his tragic counterparts, Aristophanes would prefer the economy of verbal description over showing something to his audience.
A different solution has yet to be proposed, namely that the Clouds, or some of them, begin singing upon the roof of the stage house (an appropriately high place for celestial beings to gather), then climb down to arrive at the eisodoi where they finally rejoin the orchestra. We know that the roof of the fifth-century stage building could hold the weight of at least three people (Eur. Or. 1574) and that Aristophanes was not averse to placing actors there.Footnote 49 Such an entrance could also explain why it takes the chorus an unusual amount of time to arrive and it fits well with the description of them as ‘raised from the ground’ (μετέωροι, 266). Unlike an entrance via the auditorium, this option does not eliminate the difficulty of Mt Parnes’ location, but having Strepsiades look north at least ensures that he speaks facing the audience (the acoustically preferable solution), which would not be the case if he turned toward the stage. This reading would also allow for the Clouds to be concealed from view behind the stage building during the initial strophe and antistrophe. Such a choral entrance admittedly finds no parallels in comedy, but the similarly elusive arrival of the Oceanids in Prometheus Bound who, alongside the Furies in Aeschylus’ Eumenides and the Clouds in our play form the only other divine chorus in extant Greek drama, displays some similarities. Firstly, the chorus of Clouds twice refers to Ocean as their ‘father’ (πατήρ, 271, 276–7), a non-standard epithet for the divinity despite his traditional prolificacy (although the Clouds’ real father is apparently Aether [569–70]). Secondly, the chorus in Prometheus Bound arrives through the air (PV 282) as do the Clouds in the Aristophanic play. Thirdly, the Oceanids are initially heard but not seen by Prometheus (PV 124–6), just like the chorus in Clouds is first heard by Strepsiades before it is seen, although in Prometheus Bound verbal contact is quickly established after the chorus’ arrival in spite of the fact that the Oceanids remain elevated for another 160 lines. Importantly, it has also been noted that, much like the chorus in Clouds, when the chorus members in Prometheus Bound finally agree to come down to ground level (PV 272-85), they surprisingly and against general stage convention take no part in the following scene. The most convincing explanation for this anomaly is that the chorus was absent from the orchestra because they needed time to descend from atop the stage building,Footnote 50 a place where divinities are wont to arrive in tragedy. It is suggested that the entire chorus appeared on the roof (therefore explaining Prometheus’ request for them to come down to the ground) before moving into the open orchestra.Footnote 51 Unfortunately, this remains a reconstruction, albeit an attractive one, and there is no irrefutable evidence to show that the Oceanids were actually on top of the stage building. In a similar fashion, the staging of the chorus’ entrance in Clouds must remain difficult, if not impossible, to reconstruct with any level of certainty. The Clouds, or some of them, may have begun on the roof of the stage building, they may have entered via the eisodoi, or they may have entered by walking down through the auditorium between the spectators. Unlike the scenes from Peace, Acharnians and Thesmophoriazusae, however, any contact with the audience (as the latter of these three stagings presupposes) would serve little more than to be a novel way of introducing the chorus into the orchestra, even if entering from the high auditorium would accord with the Clouds’ nature.
CONCLUSION
Of the examples presented here, only that from Peace provides us with unequivocal evidence of physical audience-actor contact, and even in that case the actors were not required to move any further than the front row of seats. The other instances, if admitted, would have involved actors walking amongst the spectators, but without interacting with them. They are far from certain, however, and upon balance it seems unlikely that Aristophanes (or any of his comic rivals, as far as we can tell) ever employed movement within the auditorium. This was doubtless due, at least in part, to the practical difficulties associated with navigating the steps of a full theatre. In addition, the boundaries of the orchestra might have acted as a sort of barrier between the ‘real world’ and the fictions of the plays. That is to say, by imposing spatial (as well as temporal, i.e. the duration of the dramatic festival) limits on comedy we are reminded that, in spite of what Aristophanes might otherwise claim, his plays were something strictly contextual, that the ephemeral/carnivalesque/transgressive comic universe and the real world were two different entities that occupied two different defined spaces. In this way it would seem that spatial transgressions were also considered more severe than merely addressing the audience or engaging with current events, since the latter occur frequently in Old Comedy. There may, of course, have been instances of audience-actor contact that were simply not scripted into the surviving texts and which are thus undetectable to modern eyes. It is perhaps no coincidence either that three of the four scenes for which audience contact has been proposed are thematically related. Two of the examples (Acharnians and Thesmophoriazusae) have been linked to the ritualistic, that is to say, the inclusive nature of the comic genre;Footnote 52 the scene from Acharnians is, in addition, akin to that from Peace in so far as both enact celebrations of war's end. Further investigation into these thematic resemblances might shed more light on the matter of staging and help sway opinions in one direction or the other. For the moment, however, it seems as though Aristophanes’ comedies were indeed confined to the theatrical areas constructed for the festivals of Dionysus, and that physical contact between the actors and the audience was something that remained exceedingly unusual.
