Aristophanes* - He Who Laughs Last, Laughs Best
Aristophanes* - He Who Laughs Last, Laughs Best
We will spend a little longer here and catch up on comedy. When our last tragic writer, Euripides*, is having his first victory, little Aristophanes* is three
years old. The comic plays have been part of the contest in the big festival* for forty-one years. It will be another hundred and ten, or so, years before comic actors* can compete for the prizes. All this time comedy* has been developing from dozens of comic traditions. It has become a lot more than the humble popular farce we examined at the end of the last chapter.
Keep in mind that it is only the really important things that make up the ideas in good comedy. Things like sex and religion and politics are always good for a laugh. If something isn't important, dear to our hearts, central to our society, it's not likely to show up in our comedies. If we don't care about it we won't find a joke about it very funny. Take personal dignity, for example, we care about that, that's why we laugh when a guy who's trying so hard to be dignified slips on a banana peel. Think about it.
When comedy began its association with Dionysus there wan't much shape to the thing. It starts with a comus*. This is a ritual that can best be described as a Greek version of a cross between a Mickey Mouse parade and "Hee Haw" with dirty songs (remember it is a fertility ritual). A bunch of performers, dressed up in masks and costumes, as all kinds of animals: horses (a particular favorite of Dionysus), birds, frogs, etc. They dance, sing, crack jokes with the audience, and generally make whoophee, which is the whole point of the thing.
As the rural festivals grow they tack on the farces and mimes, add some satire on current events, and gradually evolve what we know as Old Comedy*. It is really big in the colonies.
The best writers seem to come from Italy and Sicily*, so it's likely they picked up a few things from the Etruscans, who are into farce in a big way and have just passed their height as
a power in Italy. Anyway, other than the plays of Aristophanes*, we don't have any other examples of Old
Comedy. It is not a form that is easy to turn into a written script. It's rather like trying to read
a written copy of "Saturday Night Live". The jokes are there but the dances and songs are missing, and if you don't know the people that are being referred to, or what is happening in the country when the show aired, you can't even follow the jokes. It's obvious that the quality of the writing and the logic of the way the pieces are put together keep improving because we still enjoy Aristophanes* and we can see what he is up to. In contemporary productions it is easy to rewrite most of his references to people and events. They fit a lot of what is going on now.
Aristophanes* - born c. 445 BCE, dies c. 385 BCE PERSONAL LIFE: He is born into a wealthy family and starts his career at the early age of
eighteen. Very little is known of his life beyond the name of three of his sons. He must have been a member of aristocratic society since he appears in Plato*'s Symposium on friendly terms with Socrates* and Agathon*. This is surprising when you consider how badly these two people are treated in his last two plays. Apparently he disliked handling the production details of his productions and often has them produced by his friends. His last two plays are produced by his son. He is noted for his biting satire. Aristophanes* writes approximately 40 plays, most of these are written during the Peloponnesian* War. He is the only writer of Old Comedy whose plays are extant. His first production is 427 BCE
EXTANT PLAYS - DATES EXTANT PLAYS - DATES The Acharnians* 425 BCE Lysistrata* 411 BCE The Birds* 414 BCE Peace* 421 BCE The Clouds* 423 BCE Plutus* 388 BCE Ecclesiazusae* 392 BCE Thesmophoriazusuae* 411 BCE The Frogs* 405 BCE The Wasps* 422 BCE The Knights* 424 BCE