“In the theatre the
Athenians have portraits of the poets of tragedy and comedy, mostly of the
obscurer poets...”
When I last came to the Theatre of Dionysos, on the south
slope of the Acropolis, it was a rather low-key site; a poor bridesmaid to the
eternal bride of the rock above. It was
full of pine trees and ants’ nests, and beetles, and broken statuary, and
columns and blocks of Classical masonry stacked up in storage. There was almost no signage and with the
exception of the theatre itself with its wide auditorium it was all rather hard
to make sense of. What it did have was a
tremendous atmosphere.
That last visit would have been in the early ‘90s. There’s been a lot of restoration work since
then, and some of that atmosphere has been lost; whether this is cause and
effect I don’t know. It might feel less
atmospheric to me now because I’m twenty-some years older and more phlegmatic. Or it might be because this is hot sunny
weather and the tourists are out in force; my previous trip was in winter when
even the Acropolis was half-empty.
Perhaps the restoration work is bringing more visitors, now that
there is, in conventional terms, more to see.
It’s probably helping too that someone has come up with the very
sensible innovation of a multi-site pass to replace single tickets (so once
you’ve visited the Acropolis you want to do some of the other sites on the list
to get value for your money). If
developments like these are bringing more people here to discover the ancient
home of theatre, that’s a good thing and I ought not to grumble. But just the same, I’m glad I saw this place
when it was almost untouched, a confusion of ruins full of asphodels and Spartium juncium.
A carved Roman altar
The ruins of one of the two temples of Dionysos; this is one of the two shrines Pausanias saw. One of them, he says, had a statue brought from Eleutherai and the other had a cryselephantine statue by Alkamenes.
Looking up across the site, towards the south wall of the Acropolis; the sacred cave is underneath the white scaffolding
Proper concreted paths have been laid out between the
monuments, now, and the same clear, informative interpretation signs as on the
Acropolis have been added. The works are
ongoing, too; the sacred cave above the theatre, where Pausanias saw a bronze
gorgon’s-head mask and a painting of the slaughter of the children of Niobe, is
swathed in scaffolding and closed off with a fence. I’m sorry I won’t be able to go up there; it
was another of those places where the atmosphere of the past caught one by the
throat. It had become a Christian
cave-chapel, and I remember looking around it at paper icons and candle stubs,
and thinking how extraordinary the continuity of the sacred can be.
On the other hand, one bit of completed restoration has
really pleased me. At some point the
base of a late Classical statue of the comic writer Menander was found here; it
has “Menandros; Kephisodotos and Timarchos made it” carved on the front. Pausanias records seeing a statue of Menander
here by these same two sculptors; they were brothers, the sons of
Praxiteles. So this is the support for
the same statue he saw. And because this
particular statue was much admired in Roman times, there are a number of
well-known copies extant from elsewhere in the Empire. So we now have a cast of one of those copies,
mounted on the original base and sited where it would have stood among other
portraits of dramatists, in the parodos, off-stage right.
The restored statue of the Classical playwright Menander
It is rather extraordinary, to think that this is the place
where what we know as theatre began.
Religious rituals for the god Dionysos, involving choral singing and
dancing, gradually metamorphosed into public performances, and at some point a
man, traditionally remembered as having the name Thespis, stepped out of the
chorus and delivered a section of song or speech as a solo. Right here, in this place.
Most of the seats are just stone benches, but the front row are proper stone chairs, for a higher class of patron such as priests and civic dignitaries; their titles are engraved on the seat base, and some of the very best seats are also decorated
Within a few generations this notion of the
choral song with a solo had evolved into a whole new art form, with actors and
a chorus playing roles from religious stories and legends. As a hardcore theatre-lover, I find it
astonishing and moving to be in the place where the whole western tradition of
acting and stage performance began. Modern drama, comedy, musical theatre, opera,
ballet, not forgetting cinema and TV drama, all owe their very existence to
that semi-mythical chap delivering his solo in front of an audience of ancient
Athenians celebrating the Dionysia some 2600 years ago, right here.
The front of the stage building
The cavea (an amphitheatral seating area with a steep rake)
Looking into the Orchestra, a circular performance space in front of the stage
The Orchestra and seating
The potency of the place is strong enough to withstand a bit
of tidying up.
And there are still ants
and beetles here, and the inevitable choir of cicadas in the trees. I’ve never been in Athens in cicada-season
before; I had no idea what a profusion of them there would be. It’s a din, to be honest; but rather a
magical one.
Ants busy building a nest in the Temple of Dionysos
Later (after lunch).
I shut the laptop down after I’d written the above, and got
out my sketchbook and got stuck in to trying to draw the retaining wall of the
theatre cavea, the great bank of seating, and the south flank of the Acropolis
above it. I had been working for about
40 minutes, and was completely absorbed in my task; trying to make the
stonework look solid, and if I'm honest, wondering why I’d chosen that
particular view, since masonry isn’t really my favourite thing to draw. Suddenly one of the site guards came over and
told me to stop, saying that drawing is not allowed. It completely threw me: I gaped and apologised, and then I tried to
ask her why. Her English wasn’t great,
and of course my Greek is mostly tourist-level.
So we had a very stilted conversation, which ended with her telling me
to go back to the gate and ask them for a permit.
I did so, and three of the staff got involved in trying to
sort out the question. The upshot of
which was, they weren’t entirely sure whether I needed a permit or not, as I
was drawing in pencil, and I hadn’t been doing it inside the theatre
itself. After a bit of debate they came
to an agreement that they would let me draw in pencil but that any painting
would be forbidden. But by then I felt
rather flattened, and not entirely happy about going back to the previous
member of staff to try to communicate that to her. I have no idea what is the Greek for pencil,
or painting. I cut my losses and packed
up, and left the site, with my drawing half finished.
I wandered up Vironos Street, discovering that it has got
very up-market in twenty years (no wonder I couldn’t afford the Hotel Byron
anymore; that has undoubtedly risen in the world too!).
I found the little Monument of Lysicrates, now restored and accessible in the little sunken park between two tavernas. This is the last remaining example of the celebratory dedications set up by men who'd won prizes at the Dionysia for theatrical productions.
I mooched through the eastern half of Plaka,
along Adrianou as far as the Roman Agora; found a bit of the Roman and Byzantine fortification walls exposed where a building has been taken down, and read all the information boards
about the restoration of the Tower of the Winds (more restoration! – but
clearly much needed).
Late Roman and Byzantine city walls
Then I staggered
here, a taverna called The Veranda, overlooking the Library of Hadrian, and
wilted at a table in the shade. I’ve
just been eating another huge salad, and some delicious fava bean puree; and
drinking yet more water. I feel much
restored, and no more than a scrap blue about being stopped in mid-sketch like
that earlier.
I’d just acquired my dish of bean puree when a young policewoman
arrived and stationed herself on the corner, just opposite my table. I’d noticed a lot of police earlier as I came
through Plaka. This one was talking on
her walkie-talkie sometimes, and turning back cars that tried to come up Panos
Street, but mostly giving directions to lost-looking tourists (“Acropolis is
this way... Monastiraki is that
way...”). Then suddenly down Panos St
came a series of very large, very smart cars with very loud engines, carrying
people in very smart business suits.
Some of them even had motorcycle outriders, and one had blacked-out
windows as well. Our policewoman
directed them all east into Pelopidas St, and off they all roared. She then had a long chat with the head waiter
before being picked up by another police officer on a socking great
motorcycle. I wonder if maybe some of
the government (or the opposition, I suppose) have just gone past me? But they could have been businessfolk of some
high-level kind, or diplomats...
Goodness only knows where they were coming from or going,
mind you; they came from the direction of the entrance to the Acropolis, and
headed into the winding depths of Plaka.
I suppose if you wanted to take a route to parliament that avoided the
kind of streets where trouble might start, then cutting through the tourist
quarter might be one solution. It gave
me a bit of harmless fun, anyway, watching them all trundle by in their shiny
new cars with blue number plates.
Anyway, I feel better for a good meal. My Cretan-style salad was gorgeous. Dakos, tomatoes, cucumber, olives, myzithra
cheese and greens, including some of the crunchiest, punchiest rocket I’ve
tasted in years. Eating out in Athens
may be a little bit more expensive than in the kind of small resorts I’m used
to, but so far I’m eating very well.
I was sad to find that Eden, the famous vegetarian
restaurant that used to be near here, has closed. It’s depressing when things I remember
vividly turn out to have vanished forever, to have closed down or been redeveloped. And even sadder, I suppose, to be saddened by
it; to have reached the age where one looks at change and thinks “Damn, why did
that have to happen? Wasn’t it fine the
way it was?” The rows of posh boutiques
and smart tourist restaurants lining Adrianou these days, where I remember
jolly-but-tacky souvenir stores and old-fashioned jewellers, and cafes that
sold fluorescent red and orange slush-puppy and Mr Whippy ice-cream. The Hotel Byron looking uber-chic instead of
thoroughly scruffy and comfortable. The
printed headscarf emporium on Metropolis Square has gone, and the leather shop
beside it where I once bought a superb handbag... The loss of Eden. But of course, it isn’t really the loss of an
Eden; merely of things that I, with my personal tastes and interests, remember
as having been good. And if everything
stayed the same, always, what hell that would be...
Later; evening
After lunch I wandered back through the side-streets of
Plaka, managing to get rather lost at one point in the very windy twisty lanes
of the Anafiotika. And I went to the new
Acropolis Museum.
Wandering through Plaka; the church of the Metamorphosis
And the church of Agios Simeon
And the twisty narrow lanes of the Anafiotika district, a real labyrinth
Approaching the New Acropolis Museum
...which is built over an archaeological excavation - late Roman and Byzantine houses, workshops and baths
They don’t allow photography there, so I won’t be dumping
several hundred picture of statues on you this time. But I can report that it’s a terrific museum. I could go on at some length about how terrific it is. A perfect example of how to do a top-notch job of developing a new museum.
Then I headed back to my hotel, trying (not always successfully) not to get distracted too much.
A decorative May-day wreath on the gate of someone's car-port on Tripodon St
I had a quick shower and a
change of clothes, and went back out for supper.
Quick meal tip, in case anyone is going to be in Athens. I’m
eating in the evenings at a place called Oinopoleion, which means something
like Wine-maker or Winery. The wine there is good, too; and the food is
tremendous. It’s on Aeschylus Street, just five minutes’
walk from my hotel. I've had three meals there and I'll be able to have three more before I leave; I don't plan to have an evening meal anywhere else. Why would I bother, when I'm eating like a prince?
I’m very tired tonight, though.
I did a lot of walking today and my legs are really aching.
No comments:
Post a Comment