A Gander at the Goose Play

The close examination in recent years of red-figure vases from South Italy by classical theatre historians has led to a number of significant realizations concerning the so-called "phlyax" plays.¹ In particular, the clear identification of one vase, the Würzburg Telephus,² with a scene from Aristophanes' Thesmophoriazusae (a play initially produced in 411 BC), has confirmed that the phlyax scenes, or at least some of them,³ are representations of Athenian Old Comedy within the material culture of South Italy.⁴ The Würzburg Telephus suggests that audiences were laughing at the Athenocentric political and literary jokes of Aristophanes, decades after they had been written. Two vases among those reinterpreted along these lines appear to show different scenes from the same play,⁵ a play almost certainly written in fifth-century Athens. While both the play and its author remain unknown, it has been dubbed "the Goose Play" because of the presence of a goose in both scenes.

This paper is a study of one of those vases—"the New York Goose Play"—but the conclusions are applicable to many South Italian theatrical scenes. Section I examines the way that the painter represents the passage of time within the panel of a single vase, which also permits discussion on related matters, including the relationship between the two Goose Play scenes. Section II examines the upper register of the New York Goose Play and argues that the painter of theatrical vases may at times use this upper level to provide metatheatrical information about the primary scene. In both cases, the vases may represent a sophisticated understanding of Attic theatrical production far outside its original venue, and the depiction of this understanding by the painter could presumably have been found in his intended audience as well.

I

The principal vase I am examining is an Apulian calyx-crater by the Tarporley Painter,⁶ dating c. 400 BC, which, because of its current location, is known as the New York Goose Play (see Fig. 1). The scene shows three figures in the foreground. A man, beardless and "stage-naked" (i.e., wearing the exaggeratedly padded body suit which is part of the costume of all male comic characters in Athens), holds a staff in his right hand and faces the second figure. In the center of the panel is an older man (his hair and close-shaved beard are white), also stage naked, standing on tiptoe with his arms raised, looking back over his shoulder at the first figure. Both are standing in the orchêstra. On the right is a raised stage, which is evidently over a meter high. On it is a dead goose, its neck dangling over the stage edge, a basket containing two⁷ kids, a discarded chitôn that might belong to the old man, and an old woman, her right hand outstretched to the two men below her. Behind her, on the far right, the skênê is visible.

Of particular interest are the words coming from the mouths of the characters, spoken in Athenian dialect—three fragments from the missing play! The center figure speaks the beginning of a perfectly acceptable iambic line, , "he/ she [the subject is not clear] has tied my hands up." The Old Woman on the stage says , "I shall hand over." Perhaps the verse continued, and included a direct object (Csapo and Slater favor "my slave" as the implied object, at whom she is pointing).⁸ Without an object, the verb can be understood in a legal context, "I shall stand surety." The Young Man on the left seems to be speaking some sort of gibberish, ,⁹ and for this reason it has been suggested that he may be one of the Scythian (barbarian) policemen that were employed in Athens.¹⁰ While there are some problems with reading these fragments as continuous dialogue,¹¹ some sense of what is transpiring begins to emerge: a standard interpretation holds that a legal dispute of some sort is under way.

The vase also presents an upper register containing two objects. On the far left...