Ekkyklema
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"The Prometheus Bound also involves the use of machinery for bringing on divine persons, and of stage thunder; while the ekkyklema is in full use in the Oresteia. In the Persae, 472 B.C., there must have been some."--A Guide to Greek Tragedy for English Readers (1891) by Lewis Campbell |
Illustration:Theatrum Orbi engraving by Theodor de Bry from the chapter on Ars Memoriae in Utriusque cosmi maioris scilicet et minoris metaphysica by Robert Fludd.
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An ekkyklêma ("roll-out machine") was a wheeled platform rolled out through a skênê in ancient Greek theatre. It was used to bring interior scenes out into the sight of the audience. Some ancient sources suggest that it may have been revolved or turned. It can be considered as an early form of the tableau vivant.
It is mainly used in tragedies for revealing dead bodies, such as Hippolytus' dying body in the final scene of Euripides' Hippolytus, or the corpse of Eurydice draped over the household altar in Sophocles' Antigone. Other uses include the revelation in Sophocles' Ajax of Ajax surrounded by the sheep he killed whilst under the delusion that they were Greeks. The ekkyklêma is also used in comedy to parody the tragic effect. An example of this is in Aristophanes' Thesmophoriazusae when Agathon, portrayed as an effeminate, is wheeled onstage on an ekkyklêma to enhance the comic absurdity of the scene.
See also
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Euripides, Tragedy, Stagecraft, Theatre of ancient Greece, Theatre of Dionysus, Choregos, Dyskolos, Uvo Hölscher, Hodological space, Index of ancient Greece-related articles
