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Tragedy upholds traditional values and comedy attacks them-which explain much of the change from Aristophanes to Plautus, from Old Comedy to New, reflecting as it does the change from Athenian democracy to Roman totalitarianism. Wary of creating permanent spaces that might be used for mass meetings, the Romans constructed temporary wooden structures to house their theatrical productions. Since these structures were made of wood, they did not survive. To determine how Roman comedy was staged, evidence must be sought elsewhere-in surviving artifacts, contemporary Latin descriptions, and, above all, in the texts themselves. This program uses Plautus' Miles Gloriosus (The Braggart Warrior) to test the stageability of a classical comedy as authentically as possible, combining a full-scale reconstruction of the lost stage, the ancient text, and a still-vital comic style. (36 minutes)
