Slaves of Dionysus:
Mark Griffith finds hidden tensions in Greek drama and society

When the National Theater of Greece came to Berkeley in September 2003 to perform Euripides’ Medea, Mark Griffith, a professor in the Classics and Theater, Dance and Performance Studies Departments, was a natural choice to introduce the troupe’s performance at the Greek Theater.

Mark Griffith

“Medea raises so many contemporary issues,” Griffith says of the play, in which the title character murders her own children to take revenge on her husband. “You see how she is mistreated and think about her position as a woman and a foreigner.”

In his classes and his research, Griffith has focused on the societal tensions alluded to in Greek theater and cultural rites. “Greek drama raises issues of class, gender, race, ethnicity, and the building of a good citizen. There are issues of identity and competing Athenian values,” Griffith says.

One area to which Griffith brings a new analysis is Greek satyr plays, on which he wrote a recent article, “Slaves of Dionysus: Satyrs, Audience, and the Ends of the Oresteia,” and has two more articles in progress. In Athenian theater, the satyr plays were performed once a year as part of a four play cycle, the other three being tragedies. While the satyr plays adopted the plots of tragedies and featured gods and mythological heroes as the main characters, the traditional Greek choruses were replaced by randy young men in animal skins adorned with decorations such as phalluses and horses’ tails.

The text of only one complete satyr plays exists today – Cyclops by Euripides – as well as a large part of a satyr play by Sophocles and several smaller fragments. While some say the plays are simply expressions of humor, Griffith finds in them references to the rigid Athenian class system.

“These plays were surreptitiously dealing with slavery,” he says. “Satyrs were children who never grew up. They were always rowdy trouble-makers and perpetual little boys. Like slaves in the Greek imagination, they were always dependent on their betters.”

Detail of a Greek vase depicting a satyr chorus

In contrast to the noble and heroic lead characters of the plays, the satyrs were portrayed as fun loving and silly. Griffith notes a relationship with the 19th Century American blackface minstrel acts that persisted until the 1950s.

“The plays probably produced a mixture of disgust and desire,” he says. “They allowed the citizens to feel superior and fantasize about a happy coexistence with the slaves. It’s a reminder that we, the audience, are different, and entitled to the comfort of natural division. We’re free and others are barely human. They wouldn’t be happy if they had the same duties as us.”

At the same time, the average Greek might have seen his or her own reflection in the chorus of satyrs, too.

“In the last few years, there has been a strong emphasis on the democratic nature of Greek tragedies and the extent to which the Athenians argued in an open way,” Griffith says. “But the satyr never does anything effective. The problem is always taken care of by Poseidon or some other god or hero. The satyr’s helplessness deepened the audience’s sense of its own dependence and inability to change things.”

Griffith has also examined Greek class relations through the prism of early Athenian systems of education. Before there were schools, young people were trained in military style rites that involved athletics and singing. The upper classes focused on skills that would set them apart, such as athletic and musical proficiency, Griffith says. As Athenian democracy developed, instruction in debate and verbal self-presentation became more important, and a key to upward mobility.

“It’s really striking,” Griffith says. “Although public debate was open to all citizens, a relatively small group ended up obtaining this specialized training. As the democracy evolved, there was more jockeying for position. It’s interesting to look into the different educational structures that allow people to advance in society. There are a lot of points of comparison with modern society.”

The National Theater of Greece performing Medea

Griffith, who in 1986 received the UC Berkeley’s Distinguished Teaching Award, finds that the parallels with current society grab the interest of his students. The exchange helps his scholarship as well.

“The students clear my mind of preconceptions and assumptions. Greek plays are so immediate, they strike undergraduates as contemporary,” he says. “Students ask themselves, ‘In that situation, what would I do? What could I do?’ The plays were exploring psychological frontiers, just as nowadays movies and TV do.”

But unlike current drama, little remains of the stage direction for Greek theater. In his role as a performance studies professor, Griffith has viewed and critiqued many modern productions that have set about performing Ancient plays.

“Interfacing with directors and actors keeps me fresh,” he says. “Scholars can argue with performers about lighting, staging and the interpretation of these plays. It’s very healthy. The National Greek Theater’s Medea was totally different from last year’s production of Medea by the Abbey Theatre of Dublin, with Fiona Shaw. It’s always a challenge to think about the plays in a different way.”

-- Doug Merlino