Static Actors, Silent Singers

What is it about?

This paper analyses a choice of fifth-century BCE theatrical scenes which featured static and silent actors, and how such scenes concretely affected the musical and movement design of the plays in which they were embedded. It also reconstructs these, quite literally, iconic scenes entered the stage repertoire and developed with it until the last quart of the fourth century BCE. While the new pieces of acting remained outwardly identical to their much earlier selves, they were now reassigned to minor characters, meaning to second or third-best singers, as it was more functional to the monodic-auletic agendas of fourth century BCE theatre.

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