Bursting the Grape - Set and Prop Use

   Many of my classmates have beaten me to the punch on this one so it was a bit of a struggle to find something that hadn’t been touched on already!  What struck me about “Bursting the Grape” however, was the fact that there was minimal prop use/set changes used throughout the play.  This left the actors to rely on the imagination of the audience and the interesting structure of the outdoor theatre to create a believable setting and story.

   For example, instead of creating some huge and intricate maze system, they simply used “red tape manipulated by members of the cast, into a hugely effective labyrinth for Theseus to enter.”  Another example is when the back of the theatre house, which was nothing more than a cliff, was utilized as a way of making Ariadne seem as though she were in the heavens shining as a star.

   According to Didaskalia - The Journal for Ancient Performance there was very little, if any scenery and scene changes in ancient Greek theatre as well.  The skene, which is the hut located behind the orchestra where the actors go to change masks and costumes, was sometimes used “to suggest the type of location required for a particular play, but such properties and scenery as existed appear to have been more symbolic than illusionistic.”

 

Bibliography:

Didaskalia - The Journal for Ancient Performance. 1994-2012. 29 January 2012 <http://www.didaskalia.net/studyarea/greekstagecraft.html>.