Quis Hic Loquitur?: Plautine Delivery and the “Double Aside”

Quis Hic Loquitur? Plautine Delivery and the “Double Aside” C.W. Marshall When an actor puts on a mask for a Roman theatrical performance , a spotlight, in effect, is created.1 Like a spotlight, a mask can This paper was originally delivered at the Crossing the Stages conference in Saskatoon , Saskatchewan, in October, 1997, and was prepared at Concordia University in Montréal, and at the Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. John’s. Much of what is here discussed is drawn from my experience directing Plautus in outdoor , masked productions: Curculio (Peter L. Smith, translator; C.W. Marshall, director and producer, Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario; March 1996); Asinaria (Peter L. Smith, translator; C.W. Marshall, director and producer, University of Victoria, Victoria, B.C.; March 1997). As a result, I must recognize a considerable element of subjectivity in what I say: merely because an effect worked (or failed to work) in my productions does not prescribe how Plautus must have staged the play. Nevertheless, it is possible to use the productions as experiments, to test hypotheses about ancient performance, and thereby corroborate and modify conclusions that would otherwise remain theoretical. All citations of Plautus are from W. M. Lindsay’s OCT (Oxford 1904–05). I offer particular thanks to Peter L. Smith for invaluable discussion and for permission to use his unpublished translations of Asinaria and Curculio here, to my fellow editors for their valuable comments, and to the actors who suffered through what were at times sub-zero temperatures during performance in order to get a laugh. 1 I do not believe the scant evidence that might suggest Plautus’ actors would not have worn masks. Every staged performance tradition in Greece and Rome 106 Syllecta Classica 10 (1999) be seen from a great distance away. A mask on a stage draws and holds the audience’s attention: “The wide-eyed gaze of the tragic [or comic] mask does not scatter or divide, but focuses and encompasses, compelling the attention of the entire theatre.”2 The mask fills space and commands notice, and makes the character it represents appear larger than life. This is true in varying degrees with any given mask, and is clearly so when compared to an unmasked face. The fact that ancient performances were masked, were out of doors, and employed an acting style that was not naturalistic by modern standards (in that no passer-by could ever confuse a theatrical scene for a nontheatrical event from real life) are three related factors in a complex of concomitant features that exist for mutually dependent reasons. The “spotlight” metaphor also points to the fact that masks function better without the artifice of modern (indoor) lighting techniques. While modern stage lighting can create mood and emotion in an unmasked theater, a general wash of light, such as is provided by daylight , allows a mask to change appearance much more effectively than modern indoor lighting techniques can.3 used masks, and anything else would have been inconceivable. Greek New Comedy and the fabulae Atellanae were masked theater traditions, and these were Plautus’ principal influences. Further, later Roman New Comedy was masked. It seems perverse to propose an intermediary unmasked stage of comic development. cf. A.S.F. Gow, “On the Use of Masks in Roman Comedy,” JRS 2 (1912) 65–77; George E. Duckworth, The Nature of Roman Comedy: A Study in Popular Entertainment (Princeton 1952; 2 Norman, OK 1994) 92–94; W. Beare, The Roman Stage, 3rd ed. (London 1964) 192–94, 303–09; H. D. Jocelyn, The Tragedies of Ennius (Cambridge 1967) 22 n. 1. 2 Rush Rehm, Greek Tragic Theatre (London and New York 1992) 40. I describe some of the ways masks work on the Greek stage in “Some Fifth-Century Masking Conventions,” forthcoming in G&R 46 (1999) 188–202. 3 John Rudlin (Commedia dell’Arte: An Actor’s Handbook [London and New York 1994] 165) discusses Edward Gordon Craig’s mask work, noting “it was reliance on facial acting, aided and abetted by artificial light, that in his view was preventing the actor from transcending personal emotional tics and participating fully as a plastic entity in the art of the scene.” He...