§ 2 The Distribution of the Parts Among the Actors
It has been shown that the number of the actors in a Greek play was limited to three. The principal actor was called the protagonist; next in importance came the deuteragonist; the tritagonist played the inferior characters.693 The importance of the protagonist on the Greek stage has been pointed out already.694 In the ordinary theatrical language of the time a play was said to be ‘acted by’ the protagonist, as if the other actors were of no account. The protagonist was publicly appointed by the state, but was allowed to choose the second and third actors at his own discretion. In the same way the prize for acting at each festival was confined to the protagonists. In tragedy more especially the protagonist was a person of the greatest importance. The whole structure of a Greek tragedy was designed with the object of fixing the interest upon some grand central figure. The significance of the other characters consisted mainly in their capacity to excite the passions and draw forth the sentiments of the leading personage. This being so, it was essential that the protagonist should concentrate the interest upon himself; otherwise the harmony and balance of the play would have been destroyed. Hence the subordinate actors were strictly forbidden to attempt to outshine the protagonist. Even if they had finer voices than the protagonist, they were made to moderate and restrain their powers, so as to allow the protagonist to retain the superiority, and rivet the attention of the spectators upon the central character.695 The jealousy of protagonists towards their fellow-actors is well exemplified by the story about Theodorus, who had a theory that the first speaker in a play always attracted the sympathies of the audience, and therefore would never allow any other actor, however inferior, to appear upon the stage before himself.696
The distribution of the different parts among the actors was undertaken by the poet if the play was a new one.697 But if an old play was being reproduced, the matter would be arranged by the protagonist who had the management of the performance. The three actors between them filled all the parts in a play, appearing in various characters successively. Such a practice was rendered possible by the use of masks. An actor had only to change his mask and his dress, and he could then reappear in a new character. Changes of this kind could be effected in a very few moments, as is shown by the one or two traditions on the subject which have been preserved by the ancient scholiasts. For example, in the opening scene of the Phoenissae Jocasta speaks the prologue, and then leaves the stage. Thereupon Antigone and an old attendant mount by a staircase on to the roof of the palace, in order to view the Argive army encamped outside the walls. The scholiast tells us that the protagonist played the parts both of Jocasta and of Antigone. It was necessary, therefore, after Jocasta had left the stage, that there should be a slight interval before Antigone appeared upon the palace roof, to give the actor time to change his mask and dress. Euripides managed this by making the attendant come out alone upon the roof at first, and look about him to see that the coast is clear, while he addresses a few words to Antigone, who is still inside the palace. When he sees that all is safe, he calls on Antigone to follow after him, and she thereupon mounts the staircase, and appears to the spectators. The speech of the attendant, while he is looking about upon the roof, consists of only fifteen iambic lines. Thus the space of time required to speak fifteen lines was enough to enable an actor to change from one character to another.698 There is a further instance which shows that even less time was necessary. In the Choephori, when Aegisthus is murdered, a servant rushes out upon the stage and calls to Clytaemnestra. As Clytaemnestra comes out, he apparently runs back into the palace. Clytaemnestra speaks five lines, and then Orestes hastens out of the palace, followed by Pylades. In the scene which ensues Pylades has three lines to speak; and the scholiast says that his part was taken by the servant who had just left the stage, so as to avoid the necessity of four actors. The servant must therefore have changed his mask in a very few moments.699
In the distribution of parts the protagonist took the principal character. The parts of Oedipus, Electra, and Antigone, in the plays of the same name by Sophocles, are specially mentioned as having been acted by celebrated protagonists. Orestes in the play of Euripides is also described as the part of the protagonist.700 Usually, as in the above instances, the chief personage gave the name to the piece. But this was not always the case. In the Oenomaus of Sophocles the part of Oenomaus was played by the tritagonist Aeschines. In the Cresphontes of Euripides the principal character was Merope, and was taken by Theodorus. The part of Cresphontes fell to Aeschines as tritagonist.701 In the Agamemnon of Aeschylus most likely the protagonist played the part of Clytaemnestra, as this is certainly the most impressive character in the play, though not the one with which the spectators are in sympathy. The protagonist had also to take his share of the subordinate characters when he could be spared. It has already been mentioned that in the Phoenissae of Euripides the protagonist appeared in the part of Antigone as well as in that of Jocasta. At times he took even the smallest characters if the necessities of the play demanded it. Plutarch states that the protagonist, in the part of a messenger or an attendant, often gained more applause than the actor who bore the sceptre and the crown.702 It was, in fact, the chief advantage of the Greek system that even the subordinate characters were played with as much excellence as the more important ones. The tritagonist took what in modern times would be called the ‘heavy’ parts. It was his special privilege, as Demosthenes remarks, to play the tyrant and the sceptred monarch.703 Aeschines, in his career as tritagonist, often had to act gloomy tyrants of this kind, such as Creon, Cresphontes, and Oenomaus. Such characters did not require great powers in the actor. There was no pathos to be excited, no play of conflicting emotions to be exhibited. All that was necessary was a powerful voice, and a capacity for declaiming verses. Most likely for the same reason the tritagonist usually spoke the prologues, which also did not require much more in the actor than good powers of elocution. Thus the ghost of Polydorus, which speaks the prologue in the Hecuba of Euripides, was acted by Aeschines as tritagonist.704 The deuteragonist took the parts which, in point of interest, were intermediate between the leading characters and the heavy parts which fell to the tritagonist. There are not, however, any traditions as to particular characters having been played by the deuteragonist. Attempts have been made in modern times to assign the characters in the extant Greek dramas to the protagonist, deuteragonist, and tritagonist respectively.705 Such speculations are interesting, in so far as they show that all the existing plays could be perfectly well performed by three actors. Otherwise they are not of very great value. There is generally no difficulty in deciding which was the leading character. But it is obvious that the subordinate parts might be distributed in various ways; and no doubt the arrangement differed at different periods. There are no traditions on the subject in addition to those already mentioned. Any attempt, therefore, to reproduce the exact arrangement adopted at a particular period must depend more or less upon conjecture.