The Dramaturgy of Senecan Tragedy Read online

  The Dramaturgy of Senecan Tragedy

  THOMAS D. KOHN

  The University of Michigan Press

  Ann Arbor

  Copyright © by Thomas D. Kohn 2013

  All rights reserved

  This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publisher.

  Published in the United States of America by The University of Michigan Press

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  Printed on acid-free paper

  2016 2015 2014 2013 4 3 2 1

  A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Kohn, Thomas D., 1968–

  The dramaturgy of Senecan tragedy / Thomas D. Kohn.

  pages cm

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  ISBN 978-0-472-11857-1 (hardback) — ISBN 978-0-472-02882-5 (e-book)

  1. Seneca, Lucius Annaeus, ca. 4 B.C.–65 A.D.—Tragedies. 2. Seneca, Lucius Annaeus, ca. 4 B.C.–65 A.D.—Criticism and interpretation. 3. Latin drama (Tragedy)—History and criticism. I. Title.

  PA6685.K64 2012

  872'.01—dc23 2012042615

  Acknowledgments

  It is trite, but true, to say that any project such as this is not exclusively the product of one individual. But to truthfully acknowledge everyone who made a contribution to my work would require a preface longer than the book itself. Therefore, like an actor who has just won an Academy Award, I will do my best to credit as many people as I can before the orchestra plays me off. My most sincere thanks and gratitude go to Robert Sonkowsky, who first introduced me to Seneca the Tragedian; C. W. Marshall, R. Scott Smith, and Dana Sutton for their generosity in reading and commenting on earlier drafts of various chapters; the more than several anonymous reviewers, who provided honest critiques and helpful suggestions that resulted in a better finished product than I could have reasonably hoped for; Wayne State University, which not only gave me a permanent position and an office, but also a University Research Grant during which the original manuscript was completed; Jennifer Sheridan Moss, Joel Itzkowitz, Kathleen McNamee, and Donald Haase for their constant support, assistance, and encouragement; Ellen Bauerle, who believed in the project as soon as she set eyes on it and expertly shepherded it through the publication process; Michelle Welch, without whose presence in my life none of this would have been possible.

  Finally, this book is dedicated to you, the reader, and to everyone who ever has been or will be moved and affected by Senecan tragedy. I can only hope that my efforts do little to harm and more than a little to foster the appreciation for these outstanding examples of dramatic artistry.

  Contents

  Introduction: Dramaturgical Methodology

  1. Seneca and His Dramatic Resources

  2. Oedipus

  3. Agamemnon

  4. Phaedra

  5. Medea

  6. Hercules Furens (Mad Hercules)

  7. Troades (Trojan Women)

  8. Thyestes

  9. Phoenissae (Women of Phoenicia)

  Conclusion

  NOTES

  WORKS CITED

  INDEX

  Introduction

  Dramaturgical Methodology

  This project owes a great debt to the groundbreaking work of both Oliver Taplin and Dana Sutton. In his 1977 book, The Stagecraft of Aeschylus, Taplin set out three purposes: to begin the creation of a “‘grammar’ of the dramatic technique of the Greek tragedians,” to provide a “scene-by-scene commentary on Aeschylus’ surviving tragedies from the aspects of dramatic and theatrical technique,” and “to do something towards showing what Aeschylus is about.”1 Sutton, in his Seneca on the Stage of 1986, followed Taplin's lead and took the first steps toward creating a grammar of the dramatic technique of Seneca tragicus. Sutton, however, looked at Seneca's stagecraft, and only at his stagecraft, merely insofar as was necessary to support his contention that Seneca was composing for actual stage production and to refute the detailed arguments of Zwierlein and others that he was not.2 Sutton was not engaging in performance criticism, of the sort that Taplin used, for its own sake. This study proposes to do just that: to apply the methods and goals of Taplin to the plays of Seneca and to build on the work of Sutton in order to illuminate Seneca's dramaturgy.

  Before going on, we must determine what is meant by “dramaturgy.” The term is variously and controversially defined, complicated in part by the multiplicity of functions of the “dramaturge” in the American theater, from critic to translator to literary manager, from researcher to private advisor to collaborator.3 But the present purposes allow for a more simple and basic meaning of dramaturgy as “the art of making drama.” As such, it is more than simply stagecraft, although how the playwright uses the physical resources of his stage, how his actors move around, what the audience sees, and so forth, are certainly concerns. But that is only a part of the dramatist's technique. Consider as an example the modern stage directions (called didaskalia by theater theorists) that Arthur Miller provides at the start of his Death of a Salesman. The directions, which take up nearly two pages of text before anyone speaks, do not simply inform that Willie Loman enters, and that his wife, Linda, hears him. The reader is told that there is flute music, which is “small and fine, telling of grass and trees and the horizon.” The set is elaborately described. Instead of only marking Willy Loman's entrance, his actions are listed in great detail, and his age and his attire are specified. Further, Miller goes on to tell about Willy's emotional state: “his exhaustion is apparent,” and he “thankfully lets his burden down” (my emphasis). Finally, Linda, we are told, is

  [m]ost often jovial, she has developed an iron repression of her exceptions to Willy's behavior—she more than loves him, she admires him, as though his mercurial nature, his temper, his massive dreams and little cruelties, served her only as sharp reminders of the turbulent longings with him, longings which she shares, but lacks the temperament to utter and follow to their end.

  This lengthy description gives us backstory, insight into both characters, and foreshadowing for the drama to come. Thus, for Miller, the job of the playwright, the “maker of drama,” is not limited to the words spoken and simple actions performed by the actors (i.e., “Willy Loman enters”). He also considers the set, the effects, and the emotions and motivations of the characters to be part of his craft.4 Sutton was interested only in physical elements—entrances and exits, properties, scenic features, and so forth. But the true “maker of drama” is concerned with all aspects of the art, including the inner life of the characters. This study aims to show that Seneca tragicus was a dramaturge in that sense.

  Our Roman playwright, of course, did not have recourse to external stage directions.5 Instead, he had to embed such cues in his dialogue, monologues, and songs. But these cues, the sorts of things that Goffman raises in his discussion of radio dramas,6 are readily identifiable. A careful reading of Seneca's plays makes it clear when characters enter and exit, what they do while onstage, and how they feel. Taplin set forth the principle that for Greek tragedy “the significant stage instructions are implicit in the words,” and indeed that “[i]t would be a good start if it could be broadly accepted that the words, if we know how to use them, give the significant action, and that there was no significant action other than that indicated by the words.”7 Revermann, after commenting that Taplin's principle has, in fact, been “broadly accepted,” shows a difficulty inherent
in it: Taplin assumes the presence of “insignificant action,” which runs counter to the theatrical truth that everything onstage happens for a reason.8 Goffman supports Revermann's assertion, noting that in the theater “nothing that occurs will be unportentous or insignificant…the audience need not select what to attend to: whatever is made available can be taken as present for a good reason.”9 Accordingly, Revermann modifies Taplin's principle with three assumptions: no interpretation can be adopted if it can be proven false by the text; any interpretation not thusly falsified must fit with the conventions of the time; and performance critics must be transparent concerning the possibilities and why they chose their favored interpretation.10 I would add to all this formal theory the famous dictum of Sherlock Holmes: “when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”11

  This study depends on the assumption that Seneca meant for his text to indicate certain stage events, which are motivated by the text. As we saw in the didaskalia of Miller, “stage events” can include entrances, exits, gestures, movements, indications of mental state, physical appearance of characters, stage settings, and more. “Motivated,” however, does not necessarily mean “marked.” For example, while many entrances in Senecan tragedy are announced by another character who is already onstage, not all are; but when someone who had not previously been present speaks, that new person clearly has entered.12 Similarly, if someone stops speaking and is never heard from again, one can safely assume the character has exited. The disappearance is as much a motivation for withdrawal as a line like “I'm leaving.” Further, if one character says, “Give that sword to me,” as Jocasta does at Oedipus 1034, we can infer that someone else has been carrying a sword.

  It should not be thought, however, that the interpretations of stage events found in this study are definitive. In many instances, there are several possibilities. As in the History of Herodotus, the alternatives will be laid out; and following the dictates of Revermann, the advantages of a particular interpretation will be explained. Along these lines are the judicious words of Davis: “I believe that there is an openness about the Senecan texts which admits of a variety of possible theatrical solutions. It is important to recognize here the fact that, even if all problems of staging Seneca's plays can be solved, it does not follow that each problem admits of only one solution. Just as there is no one right way of staging Shakespeare, so there is no single correct way of staging Seneca.”13 The absence of entrance or exit announcements in Seneca can cause disagreement as to exactly when a character comes on or off. Likewise, there are sometimes multiple options for distributing roles among a limited number of actors. For example, in the Hercules Furens, Sutton assigns Lycus and Hercules to one actor, Juno and Amphitryo to a second, and Megara and Theseus to a third,14 while it is equally possible to give Juno, Lycus, and Theseus to one actor, Megara and Hercules to a second, and only Amphitryo to the third. Either distribution of roles is possible according to Sutton's “sound dramaturgical principles: have the same character played by the same actor, engineer your entrances and exits so as to leave ample time for costume changes, try to protect your protagonist from the distracting duty of playing multiple roles, etc.”15 These principles are sensible. But the process is complicated by Seneca's practice, discussed further in chapter 1, of using the doubling of roles to produce significant patterns, which add an additional layer of depth and meaning to the tragedies. The purpose here is not to provide the “correct” or even the “authentic” stage direction. Even if desirable, such a thing is impossible, given the lack of didaskalia such as is found in modern play scripts, which give information about the original production.16 Rather, the intent is to show that it is possible to determine motivated stage events, while demonstrating how the alternatives are evaluated.

  When it comes to the actors themselves, Sutton labels them “protagonist,” “deuteragonist,” and “tritagonist,” and thus must decide which roles are more important, that is, which parts were played by the best or most experienced actor.17 The present study will simply refer to them as actors A, B, and C, with the occasional D. Such designations rely only on the order in which characters enter, and in some cases are arbitrary, as in the Agamemnon, where Clytemnestra and the Nurse enter together, and so either could be called actor B, and the other labeled actor C. One could just as easily call the performers Tom, Dick, and Harry (or perhaps, Marcus, Lucius, and Gaius).

  In the modern theater, it is customary to break a script down into units smaller than acts and scenes.18 French scenes “begin with the entrance and exit of a character.” Action units “are reasonably complete (although ordinarily inconclusive) interactions between characters.” And beats “are the smallest units of meaning that can be clearly communicated to an audience.” French scenes are adequately covered by the didaskalia in the manuscripts. There are too many beats in a script to make them helpful. But for our purposes, the division into action units, which according to Cohen and Harrop “are less easily pinned down, insofar as every director (and actor) will have his or her own scale of determining what actions are reasonably complete,” is beneficial.19 In this study, therefore, I identify these action units at the start of each act, in order to show how Seneca has structured the development of the play. It should be noted that Seneca's action units sometimes are monologues, and not “interactions between characters”; but that should not invalidate their usefulness for interpretation.

  It is impossible to date the plays, except in the most general terms.20 There are clear echoes of Vergil, Horace, and Ovid in the tragedies,21 giving a terminus post quem of the beginning of the first century CE. Quintilian quotes a line from the Medea apud Senecam (Institutio Oratia 9.2.9), providing an absolute terminus ante quem of 96 CE. A line from the Agamemnon preserved as a piece of graffito on the walls of Pompeii shows that at least that play was composed prior to 79 CE. And Fitch detects intertextuality between the Hercules Furens and the Apocolocyntosis of 54 CE.22

  But the plays may be dated relatively. By studying midline sense pauses and certain metrical shortening, Fitch has divided the tragedies into three groups: the Early Group, consisting of the Agamemnon, the Oedipus, and the Phaedra; the Middle Group, consisting of the Medea, the Troades, and the Hercules Furens; and the Late Group, consisting of the Thyestes and the unfinished Phoenissae.23 These groupings make a certain amount of sense from a dramaturgical point of view as well. For example, two plays in the Early Group, the Oedipus and the Agamemnon, have the only instances where a fourth speaking actor is required; and in the three plays of the Middle Group, the center doors represent something other than the royal palace. On the other hand, other features are not exclusive to groups: ghosts appear onstage in the Agamemnon and the Thyestes, and thus the trap door is necessary for a play in the Early Group and one in the Late Group. And plays from all three groups, the Phaedra, the Medea, and possibly the Phoenissae, require the use of a balcony. Nevertheless, it is sensible to think that the practical elements of dramaturgy would change and develop both within groups as well as from one stage to the next. Thus, this study will present the plays not in the order in which they appear in the manuscripts, that is, the order followed both in Zwierlein's Oxford Classical Texts and in Fitch's Loeb volumes, but in something resembling chronological order of composition.

  The tragedies come to us in two branches:24 E, or codex Etruscus, represented by one manuscript written in Italy in the late eleventh century; and A, which survives in most of the other—more than 300—extant texts. The earliest come from central or northern France in the second half of the twelfth century, and seem to have spread from there to England. Tarrant thinks it likely that the two traditions derive from a fourth- or early fifth-century archetype.25 In addition to the manuscripts, there is a tradition of performing Senecan tragedy, as well as adaptations, throughout Europe during the Renaissance and up to today. The Archive of Performance of Greek and Roman Drama has 362 entries under “Seneca,” with the earliest
datable example being a 1474 production of Phaedra in France.26 Seneca's plays influenced Renaissance drama both in England and on the continent, providing quotes and allusions, ideas, and even theatrical conventions.27 The latest datable production in the APGRD is a 2011 English performance of Seneca's Medea directed by Helen Slaney. Recent scholars have been giving attention to the numerous stagings in the last 100 years, especially those in English. Perhaps the best known is Ted Hughes’ adaptation of the Oedipus, first performed at the Old Vic Theatre in 1968. Davis discusses several significant performances of the Thyestes,28 and Boyle mentions a few recent productions of the Octavia.29 Boyle's own translation of the Troades was performed in Melbourne, Australia in 1988,30 Caryl Churchill's Thyestes in London in 1994, and Rutenberg's adaptation of the Oedipus at Hunter College in 1999 and again in 2005 at the University of Haifa. I myself have seen two productions: the Troades, using Ahl's translation, at Xavier University in 1998;31 and Hughes’ version of the Oedipus at Grand Valley State University in 2007. I can thus testify firsthand of the power, effectiveness, and indeed entertainment that can be achieved through the staging of Senecan tragedy in the modern world.

  This study generally follows Otto Zwierlein's 1986 OCT of Seneca's tragedies.32 In a few places I do adopt an alternate reading that makes more sense dramaturgically. But I am only interested in textual issues that affect what happens onstage.

  At this point, the issue of how these plays would have been delivered to their audience must be considered, since it seems counterintuitive to discuss the staging of these plays if full-scale theatrical performance could be definitely disproven.33 Unfortunately, the question is difficult to answer definitively, for a number of reasons. Since modern scholars have no idea how or why the plays were preserved, it is even conceivable that the playwright published them as a book, intending individuals to recite them privately. No serious tragedian in antiquity, however, is known to have written exclusively with this delivery mode in mind. Some form of public, oral performance was usually expected. Although there exists no evidence that Seneca's plays actually were performed in a theater during the first century, as discussed above, they certainly were staged in later times.34 It was only relatively recently that scholars, primarily German,35 began to question the producibility of the tragedies, as well as Seneca's intentions for them. It is argued that the plays only superficially resemble dramas, that they are far too rhetorical, and that their quality is vastly inferior to the fifth-century Attic tragedies.36 Schlegel apparently started the trend when he declared that the tragedies were so poor that they could not have been meant for performance, but rather were to be read.37 Marti picked up this idea, maintaining that Seneca was merely writing philosophy in verse form, and that the tragedies were meant to be read silently in the order they appear in the E branch of manuscripts.38 But this mode of reception is doubtful, since Roman literature, following from its Greek models, still had a large aural component,39 even in the early empire. Silent reading, while perhaps not unheard of,40 does not seem to have been the primary method of enjoyment of literature, especially of tragedy.