Editing Old Comedy (section)

==Topicality==
Old Comedy's emphasis on real personalities and local issues makes the plays difficult to appreciate today without the aid of scholarly commentaries—see for example articles on ''[[The Knights]]'', ''[[The Wasps]]'' and ''[[Peace (play)|Peace]]'' for lists of topical references. The topicality of the plays had unique consequences for both the writing and the production of the plays in ancient Athens.
* '''Individual masks''': All actors in [[classical Athens]] wore masks, but whereas in tragedy and New Comedy these identified stereotypical characters, in Old Comedy the masks were often caricatures of real people. Perhaps Socrates attracted a lot of attention in Old Comedy because his face lent itself easily to caricature by mask-makers.<ref>''Aristophanes: Lysistrata, The Acharnians, Clouds'' A. Sommerstein, Penguin Classics 1975, p. 31</ref> In ''The Knights'' we are told that the mask makers were too afraid to make a caricature of Cleon (there represented as a Paphlagonian slave) but we are assured that the audience is clever enough to identify him anyway.<ref>''Knights'' lines 230–233</ref>
* '''The real scene of action''': Since Old Comedy makes numerous references to people in the audience, the theatre itself was the real scene of action and theatrical illusion was treated as something of a joke. In ''The Acharnians'', for example, the [[Pnyx]] is just a few steps from the hero's front door, and in ''Peace'' Olympus is separated from Athens by a few moments' supposed flight on a dung beetle. The audience is sometimes drawn or even dragged into the action. When the hero in ''Peace'' returns to Athens from his flight to Olympus, he tells the audience that they looked like rascals when seen from the heavens, and seen up close they look even worse.<ref>''Peace'' 821–823</ref> In ''The Acharnians'' the hero confronts the [[archon basileus]],<ref>''The Acharnians'' [http://el.wikisource.org/wiki/%CE%91%CF%87%CE%B1%CF%81%CE%BD%CE%B5%CE%AF%CF%82 ] Wikisource (original Greek) lines 1224–1225</ref> sitting in the front row, and demands to be awarded first prize for a drinking competition, which is a none too subtle way for Aristophanes to request first prize for the drama competition.
* '''Self-mocking theatre''': Frequent parodying of tragedy is an aspect of Old Comedy that modern audiences find difficult to understand. But the Lenaia and City Dionysia included performances of both comedies and tragedies, and thus references to tragedy were highly topical and immediately relevant to the original audience.<ref>"Greek Drama" Peter Levi in ''The Oxford History of the Classical World'' J. Boardman, J. Griffin and O. Murray (eds), Oxford University Press 1986, p. 176</ref> The comic dramatist also poked fun at comic poets and he even ridiculed himself. It is possible, as indicated earlier, that Aristophanes mocked his own baldness. In ''The Clouds'', the Chorus compares him to an unwed, young mother<ref>''Clouds'' lines 528–533</ref> and in ''The Acharnians'' the Chorus mockingly depicts him as Athens' greatest weapon in the war against Sparta.<ref>''The Acharnians'' lines 646-651</ref>
* '''Political theatre''': The Lenaia and City Dionysia were state-sponsored, religious festivals, and though the latter was the more prestigious of the two, both were occasions for official pomp and circumstance. The ceremonies for the Lenaia were overseen by the [[archon basileus]] and by officials of the [[Eleusinian mysteries]]. The City Dionysia was overseen by the [[archon eponymos]] and the priest of Dionysus. Opening ceremonies for the City Dionysia featured, in addition to the ceremonial arrival of the god, a parade in full armour of the sons of warriors who died fighting for the polis and, until the end of the Peloponnesian War, a presentation of annual tribute from subject states.<ref>Sommerstein, Alan (ed). ''Aristophanes: Lysistrata, The Acharnians, The Clouds''. Penguin Classics 1973, pp. 18–19</ref> Religious and political issues were topics that could hardly be ignored in such a setting and the plays often treat them quite seriously. Even jokes can be serious when the topic is politics—especially in wartime. The butts of the most savage jokes are opportunists who prey on the gullibility of their fellow citizens, including oracle-mongers,<ref>e.g. ''Knights'' lines 997–1095; ''Birds'' lines 959–991</ref> the exponents of new religious practices,<ref>e.g. ''Clouds'' lines 263–66, ''Frogs'' lines 891–94</ref> war-profiteers and political fanatics. In ''The Acharnians'', for example, [[Lamachus]] is represented as a crazed militarist whose preparations for war are hilariously compared to the hero's preparations for a dinner party.<ref>''The Acharnians'' lines 1097–1142 lines</ref> [[Cleon]] emerges from numerous similes and metaphors in ''The Knights'' as a protean form of comic evil, clinging to political power by every possible means for as long as he can, yet the play also includes simple hymns invoking Poseidon and Athena,<ref>''Knights'' lines 551–564 and 581–594</ref> and it ends with visions of a miraculously transformed Demos (i.e. the morally reformed citizenry of Athens).<ref>''Knights'' lines 1321–1338</ref> Imaginative visions of a return to peaceful activities resulting from peace with Sparta,<ref>e.g. ''Peace'' lines 551–597</ref> and a plea for leniency for citizens suspected of complicity in an oligarchic revolt<ref>''Frogs'' lines 686–705</ref> are other examples of a serious purpose behind the plays.
* '''Teasing and taunting''': A festival audience presented the comic dramatist with a wide range of targets, not just political or religious ones—anyone known to the audience could be mocked for any reason, such as diseases, physical deformities, ugliness, family misfortunes, bad manners, perversions, dishonesty, cowardice in battle, and clumsiness.<ref>{{harvid|Dover|1970|pp=xiii–xiv}}</ref> Foreigners, a conspicuous presence in imperial Athens, particularly at the City Dionysia, often appear in the plays comically mispronouncing Attic words—these include Spartans (''Lysistrata''), Scythians (''Thesmophoriazusae''), Persians, Boeotians and Megarians (''The Acharnians'').