questionsTragedyOct16

Julia wants to know how expensive it was to put on a tragedy.

I don't honestly know. Wealthy Athenians were asked to do "liturgies," by which was meant pay for things like the tragedies of an author for the year, fund a trireme (a warship), etc. It was an honor, but came with a bill. That's what I know. I hadn't heard what Jeremiah talked about, namely Athenians who resisted being named to pay a liturgy, although it makes perfect sense.
It's a good question, and I bet there is more to say.

Brynn wants to know if tragedies were more common than comedies.

They had different festivals at which they were staged. It wasn't as if whoever wanted to and could find finances could put on tragedies or comedies: they were part of official festivals that were sponsored by what we might call governmental institutions (although the institutionalization we have today is a lot larger and more entrenched and more bureaucratic).

Autumn wants to know if playwrights were afraid of making their plays too political, for fear of repercussions.

Well, I know that Aristophanes the comic poet had no such fears. I think that tragedy was just much more dignified.

Eggy wants to know if Agamemnon deserved death for capturing a concubine.

No, he was not considered deserving of death, from all that I know: what he did was not abnormal or wrong or officially punishable in any way that I know of. It was a wrong to one's wife, however, to commit adultery or have children with other women, just not a punishable one. It also raised the possibility of children who might rival one's other children, which could be a problem for a spouse. Basically your spouse might try to get back at you.

Robb wants to know what is considered the best translation of a Greek comedy.

I have none to recommend to you. I don't know of any that really preserve all the raunchiness and comic content. It's not non-stop raunchy, however. Just now and then it takes a deep dive into the gutter. And it's usually done in a clever ambiguous way, so it sort of preserves plausible deniability, if you know what I mean. But it's certainly there.
Look for translations made after the 1990's or so, I guess. The ones before that are more likely to be proper and prim. The translations done in the 1800's can be so prim and proper that when things go into the gutter they leave the text entirely untranslated or translate it into Italian or French instead of English like the rest of the translation (as if those who knew French or Italian could handle the impropriety better).

Cole wants to know when the midterms will be handed back and whether we'll go thru them in class.

I don't know yet. I'm working on it.
I don't think we'll go thru them in class. I always find that kind of anti-climactic at best. But if there's a strong desire to do so, we could.

Noah wants to know how the tragedies were religious.

Well, the festival was religious in honor of Dionysus.
They weren't religious like a religious service is religious: they weren't explicitly spiritual or ritualistic in the sense of explicit celebrations of some dealing with a god, and yet they took place within the context of a festival that was clearly part of the religious fabric of the society.
I suppose they were religious in the same way that a sacrifice of a goat is religious: it is for a certain god or gods, and you give them the bones and fat and a bit of meat (the parts you might not want), and so it's for the god. But it's also a meal, a sort of barbecue. If you attended one, the "religious" part might be quite quickly over, and then the cooking and eating takes a long time, I imagine.

Noah also wants to know about satyr plays.

Funny things, satyr plays. Look them up.
We have one: the Rhesus of Euripides.
The chorus costumes might surprise you.

Alex wants to know what happened with Helen.

She went back home with Menelaus.
In the version in which she went to Egypt while a simulacrum went to Troy, Menelaus got the simulacrum at Troy, and then on his way home stopped at Egypt and accidentally got the real one and the simulacrum just goes away. Kind of a happy coincidence?

Natalie Lynch wants to know about the Theban plays: why weren't they a trilogy?

Sophocles wrote Antigone, then Oedipus Rex, and then Oedipus at Colonus, but between writing the first and the third, there are 36 years of Sophocles' life. So they are not a trilogy: they are three separate plays staged in widely different years, all having to do with the part of the epic cycle that has to do with Thebes.

Ruby wants to know what the root of "tragedy" is.

As a word, Tragedy looks like it comes from goat+ song. Why it was called a goat song is a bit uncertain.
As for what a tragedy is, you should read all the plays we read and then form your own judgement.
You can also read Aristotle's definition and many many modern definitions.
I am not so interested in identifying what a "tragedy" is as I am interested in engaging with these plays. Inevitably, any definition we come up with either won't fit every play or will be so vague as to be a bit uninformative. I'd say a tragedy is a usually-serious treatment of a myth or important happening that usually doesn't end happily ever after.
It has a typical plot structure.
It often involves a recognition scene, a reversal of fortune, or other turning point.
For Aristotle, it was cathartic of pity: what does "cathartic" mean? Purifying/purging. So maybe you felt pity there and didn't need to feel it elsewhere? seems wrong. Maybe your pity and fear were shaped and made into healthier emotions? not sure how that could really work. Maybe you just felt pity and it was somehow satisfying to let it out? OK. But why only pity? I'm not sure I can explain it, because I've never bought it. I think Aristotle was looking at what he thought the best tragedies did and were and basing his definition on that, but in fact tragedy was much more than that.

Juliette asks if Aeschylus was a real person and who had access to these stories.

Yes, Aeschylus fought at the battle of Marathon and really lived and wrote in Athens. He lived from roughly 525 until 456 BCE.
All Athenians had access to the stories. Perhaps only males attended the plays, but they became part of popular culture, and so the women might have gained indirect access even if they weren't at the plays.
These plays, by the way, were performed once. Once.
The best of them were sometimes revived and performed again many years later.
Also, other cities began emulating Athens and staging plays: they invited Athenians to come stage the plays. I wish i knew more about that.

Amos asks for tips for reading Aeschylus.

Definitelyl read the introduction. Also, go get the online typical student aids. It will help you follow it and enjoy it.

Will thinks Agamemnon had a pretty good life: top of his society, glory, power, wealth, etc. Was it only his death that was cursed?

Yes. Only his death. That seems to be enough.
I like the question a lot. Why does it matter how one dies if one has lived a good life up until then? Does it erase the previous goodness?

Paige was glad to hear where the term Thespian comes from.

Look up Thespis. He's a bit shrouded in the mystery of the past in that as far as I know, we have nothing written by him and only reports by other people, probably mostly Aristotle.

Sierra wants to know how one won the contest of tragedies.

All I know is that the judges were selected by lots. I don't know how many there were or who was put into the urn of lots that could be drawn. I bet there is a bit more to be known about this.
Many many things were done by lot in Athenian government. It's fascinating.

Henry wants to know if Clytemnestra knew that Aigisthus was related to Agamemnon and Menelaus.

I don't know. I have always assumed so. We should look for that: does she say she knows?

Henry wants to know what happens to Demeter after she eats Pelops' shoulder.

Ooh. Yuck. Don't know.
Can anyone find out? If you do, find out which author talks about it. My money is on Ovid.

Cassia wants to know why only 3 actors.

No idea. I suppose it just never occurred to them to have more: maybe it was finances: the financeer (called a choregos) paid for three actors for each tragedian. Maybe it was just fixed that way. Maybe it had to do with the contest: maybe giving each tragedian roughly the same resources to stage a tragedy made it "fair."

Cassia wants to know why women weren't allowed to perform.

Don't know for sure. I could make something up, but I won't.

Lucas asks, since morality didn't really exist back then, was it justified for Agamemnon to be killed.

I think morality did exist: it was what custom dictated, and customs conflicted. Clearly it was wrong to commit adultery, but if you got away with it as a man, it was OK: captives and slaves probably didn't count for the man. For the woman, it seems it was never OK, no matter whom it was with. Double standard.
Homer, however, doesn't speak in moral terms too much: for him, it doesn't seem to be a question of right or wrong too much, although occasionally he speaks of the justice of Zeus.
In tragedy, I think you will find a lot of moral debate, a lot of conflicting ideas about right and wrong. That makes for explicit discussion of right and wrong.

Nathan G wants to know when actors stopped using masks.

Don't know. Great question.
Both Greek and Roman comedies had masks, so it outlasted Greek theater's golden age by a long shot.
I'd like to know why and how masks got started in the first place. Was it for some mechanical/practical reason: to make expressions visible to the top row people? to make men playing women more convincing/easy to accept? Or was is just attractive artistically?