planning the construction of his dramas, and of facility in representing them. Scanty as the resources were even thus, in comparison with the requirements of later dramatic poets, it was an immense step forward. In the first, or Thespian, stage of the art, the performance was, strictly speaking, hardly more than a monologue. One actor appeared conversing with the chorus, now in one character, now in another, changing his costume as occasion might require. It is obvious that within such limits the range of art was miserably scanty, and something was gained when Æschylos introduced a second actor in addition to himself. With two performers, able each of them to appear in different characters, with appropriate masks and dresses, it was possible to have a considerable number of permutations and combinations, but so long as the rule was adhered to, the action was limited to dialogues between two persons at a time; and, strange as it may seem to us, some of the extant works of Æschylos[1] were produced under these conditions. The introduction of a third performer by Sophocles[2]
- ↑ The Supplices and the Persae. In the Prometheus three actors seem to have been almost indispensable, though a mechanical contrivance might possibly have substituted in one scene a figure of Prometheus for the living person. In the Oresteian Trilogy the older poet adopted the improvement of the younger, and we find three appearing on the stage again and again, (Schöll, p. 52.)
- ↑ Aristot., Poetic., c. iv.
to have continued, (Athen., i. p. 20.) It has to be noted also that the parts do not seem to have been such as to call for much, if for any, dramatic recitation.
