and in which Betterton acted. And in its turn, this Restoration playhouse was very unlike the Elizabethan theater for which Shakspere wrote and in which Burbage acted. Even more apparent is the difference between the theater of Dionysus at Athens and the Roman theater at Orange, in the south of France. These several theaters, ancient and modern, are sharply distinguished from one another by their size, by their shape, by their method of illumination, by the absence or presence of real scenery, and also by the arrangement of the seats for the spectators; and as we study these successive changes, we are confirmed in the conviction that the physical conditions of the playhouse must always have exerted a powerful influence upon the dramatic poets who followed each other down through the centuries.

1

The theater of Dionysus at Athens is accepted as the earliest of the great Greek theaters, yet it is so well preserved that it is possible for a traveler now to sit on its marble benches and look down into the orchestra where the chorus circled with solemn chant about the altar of the god in whose honor the drama had come into being. For a long time, the primitive Greek plays were acted in the market-place, and the spectators sat on temporary benches. After one of these rows of seats had broken down, a space was leveled at the foot of the Acropolis, and the spectators grouped themselves on the hollow hillside above. In time, the slope was rounded out, and from the level space where the actors stood, tiers of marble seats rose high up the shoulders of the mountain. The orchestra itself was paved; and some kind of low structure must have been 1 See illustration facing page 74.

erected behind the semi-circular space of the orchestra to serve as a background for the movements of the actors and for the evolutions of the chorus. It is generally admitted now that there was no elevated stage in the Attic theater; and the acting took place in the orchestra itself, the semi-circular level space which bowed out into the curving tiers of seats. It is coming to be admitted also that there was no scenery, although there may have been properties. Of course, the author was free to avail himself of the doors and of the roof of the low structure which shut in the orchestra, and which probably served also for a dressing-room for all those who took part in the performance.

The arc of the semi-circle, where this structure stood, was seventy-two feet long; and the farthest point of the prolonged semi-circle was about the same distance away. And above this level space, there rose nearly eighty tiers of seats. It has been asserted that more than twenty thousand spectators could be present at a performance. As we sit on those benches to-day, and glance down to the orchestra and see how small a single figure looks so far away, and how impossible it is to perceive any play of feature, we are not surprised that the Greek actors were raised on lofty boots and wore masks that towered above their heads, increasing their apparent stature. We recognize that under such circumstances the dramatist was wise to avoid all acts of physical violence impossible to performers thus accoutered. We perceive that he was well advised when he preferred a plot already familiar to his spectators, so that they would not lose the thread of the story, even if a sudden gust of wind from the Ægean might now and again wrap the floating draperies about

PLAN OF THE ROMAN THEATER AT ORANGE A, orchestra; B, stage; C, postscenium