by JM Alvey
‘We’ll see you later.’ Zosime gave me a quick hug and kiss.
I watched them climb up the rocky slope. Kadous followed close behind until Nymenios claimed an empty bench scant moments before some other family reached it. The Phrygian continued on to the very topmost seats where other slaves with permission to enjoy the holiday were already gathering.
I skirted the stage and its buildings, heading for the rehearsal ground on the theatre’s eastern side. Whatever Pericles might have in mind to replace it, for the moment temporary wooden walls and awnings divided up the space. Officially this was to stop rival choruses distracting one another. This close to the competition, with everyone’s nerves as ragged as a barbarian’s beard, the flimsy barriers mostly stopped actors, dancers and singers coming to blows.
A lanky youth trod on my foot, recoiling without looking behind him when he realised he was about to walk into the wrong enclosure.
‘Watch where you’re going!’ I snapped.
As he turned, I saw he barely had a bristle on his chin. Too young to be singing in any play’s chorus, he must be here for the youth choir competition between the ten voting tribes. I took pity on him. ‘Who are you looking for?’
‘Cecropis,’ he quavered, his accent fresh from the slopes of Hymettos.
‘Over that way.’ I took hold of his shoulders and turned him around.
‘Philocles!’ a voice trilled. A plump matron in a vivid yellow gown flapped eager hands to attract my attention, blocking the entrance to a sailcloth gateway.
‘Is everyone here?’ I tried to swallow my apprehension.
Lysicrates wagged a disapproving finger. ‘Tell me if you like my new dress,’ he chided in a breathy falsetto.
He turned and preened, tossing his close-cropped head as though he was already wearing the ludicrously bewigged mask he held in his other hand.
I grinned. ‘Darling, you look fabulous.’
‘Don’t I just?’ he chuckled in his usual tone: resonant and masculine and invariably startling for anyone who’d only ever heard him on the stage.
Anyone who thinks any actor can play a woman’s role is a fool. There’s so much more to a convincing performance than hiding a man’s beard behind a mask and cloaking his muscles in draperies. An array of subtle hints persuades an audience that they’re watching a woman: the way a character walks; her manner as she stands; how she reacts to the men around her. Onlookers might never notice, or rather they won’t realise that they’re noticing, such details, but without these unobtrusive tricks an audience really has to force themselves to forget that they’re watching a man in a dress.
Then there’s the voice. Even experienced actors can all too easily sound like they’re mimicking their mother after too many cups of wine. Lysicrates could find the right tones for any woman from a slender, soulful nymph to a bawdy brothel madam with bosom and buttocks so fat with padding she’s as broad as she is tall.
As soon as I’d had his promise to play his part, I knew that Zosime, Melina and Kleio wouldn’t be scorning the women in my play as foolish caricatures.
‘Why are you standing sentry?’
Lysicrates grinned. ‘The other choruses are all trying to see our costumes. No one knows what to make of The Builders as a title for a play.’
‘Really?’ So Aristarchos was right. I hoped that was a good omen.
‘Not that there’s much to see,’ Lysicrates chuckled.
I surveyed the assembled men helping each other secure their masks. They all wore the customary body-stockings from the neck down, and Aristarchos’s coin had paid for tightly woven cloth. No seams or folds sagged or drooped to embarrass this chorus with catcalls from the audience. Over those stage skins, each man wore a plain tunic, some of them smudged with paint, others powdered with plaster and stone dust, a few stained with clay.
‘Good day to you!’ Chrysion appeared.
I glanced meaningfully at his groin. ‘There hasn’t been anything to see, I hope?’
‘Everyone knows to be discreet,’ he assured me. ‘No one will suspect a thing until the performance.’
I could only hope so. ‘Have you seen Euxenos’s costumes?’
‘His Butterflies?’ Chrysion snorted. ‘Very gaudy but hardly practical. If that chorus gets through their first dance without treading on each other’s wings, I will eat Lysicrates’s wig.’
‘Really?’ My spirits rose. ‘Have you drawn the lots to see who goes first? Where are we in the procession?’
‘Third. Now—’ he shooed me away ‘—we’ve got everything in hand. Go and see our patron arrive. Say a prayer to Dionysus Eleutherios.’
Menekles snapped urgent fingers from the far side of the chorus to attract my attention. ‘Go and find out who the judges will be!’
‘Of course.’ I hurried to the eastern side of the stage. Every head in the crowd was turning westwards, hearing the dulcet song of the double flutes. The patrons’ procession was approaching.
Chapter Eight
Today’s rites had none of last night’s ribaldry. The Dionysia’s patrons were to be honoured for pouring out their silver like wine in tribute to the gods, bringing glory to our city. Ten of Athens’ wealthiest men had financed the men’s choirs from each voting tribe and ten more had financed the boys’. Comedy was picking the pockets of five others, one for each play, while Tragedy gravely accepted tribute from a further three.
Now all those well-born men could breathe easier knowing this public service meant their fortunes were safe from the Archons for this year and the next. Better yet, they wouldn’t be called on to finance a trireme; a public honour incurring considerably greater cost than staging a play, and winning far less widespread acclaim.
Well-born youths and girls carried offerings of oil and wine. Others held baskets of bread and grain. They led the procession across the dancing floor to Dionysos’s statue. The masked effigy stood there, inscrutable.
Aristarchos and the other noble patrons were entering the theatre. He walked with calm composure, as though having thousands of citizens stare at him was of no particular consequence.
His white tunic of pristine, pleated linen was sumptuously embroidered with tiny flowers and leaves in vivid blues and greens. I wondered if that was his wife’s or daughters’ work, to show the city their pride and devotion. More likely, I suspected, some talented slave had spent her last few months bent over that cloth with needle and thread. Gold plaques adorned his broad leather belt, doubtless embossed with mythological scenes to impress those who got close enough to see. The tunic’s hem brushed his equally expensive shoes, the sunlight catching their bronze-tipped laces. A formal cloak with generous folds was elegantly draped around his broad shoulders, deep-dyed the colour of a dusky sea. Phytalids need never skimp on fabric out of consideration for the cost. Crowned with the golden diadem that a festival patron’s generosity earns from the grateful city, Aristarchos carried his finery with enviable poise. I suspect he’d practised. Some of those other influential men had doubtless looked very fine standing before their admiring households, but after processing across the city they mostly arrived at the theatre looking like an unmade bed, clutching at slipping swathes.
What would such an untidy display do for their standing, the next time jurors of modest means listened to them prosecute a case in the law courts? What would traders and craftsmen remember, when these men argued for some new law proposed in the People’s Assembly? This chance to impress Athens’ citizens, to convince us that men of substance should be heeded and obeyed, was the unspoken repayment for their coin.
For the moment, these patrons were courteously ushered to their marble seats of honour, already softened with cushions. Now everyone heard the clacking hooves and sedate murmurs of the cattle brought for sacrifice before Dionysos’s shrine. The consecrated beasts, their horns decorated with spring flowers and trailing ribbons, were carefully guided through the theatre and past the god’s statue. The audience nudged each other, eyes bright as they an
ticipated the feasting to come. These were fine, plump beasts, reared in peace and plenty now the strife of recent years with Euboea, Boeotia and the Spartans was over.
Eagle-eyed theatre hands darted out with shovels and brushes to remove unseemly traces left by the cattle as the Archon for Religious Affairs rose from his own seat of honour and climbed the steps at the side of the stage. ‘We will now select the judges for this year’s competition!’ His words were lost in cheers from the audience, all the way up to the slaves on the topmost benches.
Down in the front few rows, I could see some individuals acknowledging applause around them with nods and smiles. These must be the candidates put forward by each voting tribe. Not as richly dressed as Aristarchos and his fellow patrons, they were still men with well-filled strongboxes, and clearly flattered at being the centre of attention.
A voting tribe’s officials always listen whenever a play’s patron suggests they propose a particular man as a potential judge. That’s why the final choice rests with the lottery guided by the gods and goddesses. Even then, only five of the ten judges’ votes will count towards winning a victory, making any attempt at swaying the competitions’ results futile. Mortal men must work hard to secure divine favour.
A stagehand carried the first tall, narrow-necked urn onto the stage. He knelt before the Archon and offered it up.
‘The judge from Acamantis will be…’ The magistrate reached in, ostentatiously looking away even though the urn’s mouth was barely wide enough for his clenched fist to withdraw a potsherd. He opened his fingers and looked at the name scratched on the broken pottery. ‘Agathokles Apollodorou.’
The man made his way to the end of the row where he’d been sitting and was escorted to the very front seats. He was trying to look suitably modest at being selected by Dionysos but he couldn’t restrain his smile of delight once his backside hit the cushioned marble.
I waited, tense, for the name to be drawn from the next urn. Would the judge for Hippothontis be one of the men who’d so openly sneered at my play for the Lenaia? What if it was someone with political reasons to vote against any victory honouring Aristarchos?
‘Timon Pamphilou.’
No, I didn’t know him either. That was a relief. By the time the last seat was filled, only one of the men now enjoying the best view of the stage gave me any concern.
Apollonides insisted that Dracontides, son of Euathlos, held a grudge against him. The influential landowner from Aiantis had been mercilessly mocked in Morsimos’s last play, The Ploughmen. Apollonides had played the lead role of the country farmer whose savagely cutting lines had been directed at a thinly disguised caricature of Dracontides. Naturally the audience had greeted such ridicule with howls of laughter, even the ones who hadn’t set foot outside the city since the walls to Piraeus were built.
It was hard to believe a judge would punish a completely different performance because of words another playwright once put in a hired actor’s mouth. Well, there was nothing we could do if he was so petty. We’d just have to pray that tainted vote wasn’t one of the five that counted. I glanced at Dionysos’s masked effigy with a silent appeal.
As the stagehand retreated with the last of the urns, the religious Archon raised his hands high, first to the crowd and then turning to the god’s ancient statue. ‘The city of Athens dedicates this festival to Dionysos!’
As the magistrate left the stage, the crowd shuffled and murmured, eager to get their first look at the choruses and actors who’d be entertaining them for the next few days.
My time had come. The moment was finally here. I was about to take the stage in front of the largest audience I had ever known. My stomach felt so hollow, I might not have eaten for days. Not that I could have swallowed anything. My throat had a lump in it like the stone that tricked Kronos, out to devour the infant Zeus.
This was a hundred times worse than the Lenaia. There were thousands more people out there. If they didn’t like my play, I’d be humiliated to the end of my days. My legs were as stiff as carved marble. I couldn’t take a single step.
‘Mind your back, Philodemos!’ Euxenos shoved me aside as he led his Butterflies out. The chorus scurried after him, flapping wings of painted cloth sewn to the side seams of their costumes and tied to wrist and ankle. His actors were a trio of men dressed for travel, escorted by Diagoras. Their musician raised his double pipes with a flourish of familiar notes that won a ripple of happy recognition from the crowd.
Bastard. Anger burned through my nausea. If I could have reached Euxenos, I’d have punched him for calling me Philodemos. He knew what my name was and as Zeus was my witness, he’d better fear it. Now this competition really was underway.
As I clenched my fists, Pittalos walked past, alongside a suave man about town, a frivolous nymph and a stooped old countryman. His chorus of Sheep trailed after their leader, whose mask was complete with leather collar and bell. Their pipe player was making an excellent job of mimicking plaintive bleating, already prompting laughter from the upper benches.
‘Ready?’ Lysicrates appeared at my side, masked and wigged. ‘Any disasters among the judges?’
‘I don’t think so. All right, let’s go.’ Discreetly wiping my sweating palms on the sides of my tunic, I walked out onto the circular dancing floor with Lysicrates on my arm throwing flirtatious nods and gestures in all directions.
Apollonides and Menekles marched on either side of us, bold heroes in breastplates and helmets. Chrysion followed, leading our gang of workmen who could have strolled off any building site in Athens. Almost as plainly dressed, in contrast to the other musicians’ fancy tunics, Hyanthidas brought up the rear. He was playing a jaunty medley of the tunes such labourers favoured. We’d agreed he’d keep his original compositions for the performance itself.
I fixed a smile on my face, as immoveable as the one on a comedy mask. Acknowledging the massive crowd with a wave, I tried to look as though I didn’t have a care in the world. Inside, I was quaking. I could already see this vast audience weren’t interested in us. Most were looking over our heads in hopes of some more impressive spectacle.
They got it in Strato’s Brigands, who swaggered on wearing those red-headed Thracian masks, with swirling barbarian tattoos painted all over their body-stockings. The trio of actors dressed as Athenian travellers, mother, father and youthful son, all cringed with appropriate terror as this chorus capered to raucous northern rhythms.
While the audience clapped and murmured, I stole a discreet sideways glance at Chrysion’s men. I could see the end of a cheeky red leather phallus poking out below the hem of a couple of tunics, but there was nothing more obvious to see than any of the other traditional comedy cocks worn by every other actor in male garb. So far, so good.
Last and, after the Brigands, clearly least in the eyes of the audience, Trygaeos led on his chorus of Philosophers, all wrapped up in faded cloaks with flowing white beards and wigs. Seeing his actors were two callow youths and a stern father, muttering suggested the crowd had already worked out that play’s plot for themselves.
As the comedy companies followed each other around the dancing floor, I saw Chrysion was right about Euxenos’s Butterflies. Those gaudily painted wings trailed tantalisingly on the ground whenever a chorus member let his arms hang down, just waiting for someone to step on that painted cloth and tear it loose. If I’d been a little closer, I might even have done so myself. That’s probably why Lysicrates’s firm hold on my arm held me back to a stately, measured pace.
Coming full circle, we slowed to allow Pittalos’s Sheep to leave the theatre ahead of us. Menekles gave me a long, slow wink through his mask’s eyehole. I could hear him smiling with satisfaction as he spoke.
‘We’re going to give them all a good run for our patron’s money.’
‘Oh yes.’ Apollonides had no doubt. ‘Oh, sorry, please excuse us.’
We stepped aside to allow the first of the tragedy choruses to go past. They were ominously costumed as
Odysseus’s men gaunt with hunger on the Isle of Helios. I was looking forward to Zoilos’s tragedies and seeing what new twists he’d found amid Homer’s canny hero’s misadventures.
Once we returned to our designated enclosure, Lysicrates knelt down to allow one of the chorus to unpin his colossal wig. ‘So what are your plans for the rest of the day?’ he asked me.
‘Come and watch the choir competition with us,’ urged Menekles. ‘We should look for some up-and-coming talent.’
Chrysion nodded as he removed his own mask. ‘It’s never too early to approach good singers for next year’s Lenaia.’
‘They’ll all be singing because they’ve chosen to,’ said Menekles with mingled relief and satisfaction. ‘Not just to get the military deferment.’
‘Have you had any thoughts?’ Apollonides looked expectantly at me. ‘For your next play?’
I blinked. ‘We don’t even know who’ll be called to read for the Archons at New Year.’
All three actors laughed. Lysicrates grinned. ‘I don’t think you need worry.’
‘Really?’ I didn’t know whether to be flattered or terrified by their confidence in me.
‘Right, you lot!’ With an ear-splitting shout, Chrysion turned to the chorus. They were busy undressing and stowing their masks and costumes in vast wicker baskets. Stagehands were waiting to get everything safely stowed under lock and key in the theatre buildings.
‘Enjoy the choir competition. Go home and feast with your families. Do not get so drunk you can’t get out of bed bright and early,’ he said with emphasis. ‘I want you all here in good time tomorrow, in case we draw first place in the order.’
Hyanthidas raised his hand. ‘Would that be to our advantage or not?’
He was endlessly curious about the ins and outs of Athens’ drama competitions. Music and poetry contests at Corinth’s Isthmian Games were very different, from what he’d told me.
‘You can argue that coming and going,’ Chrysion told the pipe player. ‘Go first and everyone who comes after has to measure up to you.’
