Greece
Right now, I am in Greece, where I’ve been many times and done pretty much every tourist thing several times. So now when I come here, I have to do other things as if I lived here. I have to shop and cook and learn where is the hardware store and local street markets, to use the transit, and deal with Greek bureaucracy, which is a real pain in the neck. So then I discover, or actually create this other George, or Yorgos, that is in Athens and is different than the Geo that is in San Francisco.
Also I am finding that speaking the language is really fun. It makes me feel like a kid again, since the last time I spoke with my parents and my grandma and the other grownups who spoke Greek was when I was a kid. Well, they’re all dead now so I have no opportunity to speak Greek except when I come here.
It takes like 2 or 3 days to come back fluently. Also my accent is not great, although they don't guess I'm American. They often ask me where I'm from. Επίσης, το γράψιμό μου έχει γίνει πολύ καλύτερο, τα γράμματα και η ορθογραφία.
I run into problems, however. when the conversation turns to politics or technology. I never when to higher education in Greek, only Greek School in the church basement twice a week, and naturally, we hated it.
Acropolis
The big temple at top is the Parthenon, and the small one is to Athena Nike, Goddess of Victory. The other ones including the Porch of the Maidens (the Caryatids) are part of the Erechtheum, a sort of multi-purpose temple. At right is the Propylaia or Gates at sunset, and at lower right is part of the Odeon of Herodes Atticus
Above is me, and my dear friends Scott and Val. We (and a few more) are the theatrical company PUS or Performers Under Stress. Together we 3 paid a visit to the ruins of the Theater of Dionysus Eleutherios, so we could pour a libation (a shot of Metaxa Greek brandy -- above right) to Dionysus, the god of our craft. The theater and altar are just below the Acropolis, and there is not much left, only a semicircular stage, a few rows of marble benches, some figures. But this is a holy place for actors because it was here that our art form began, in the worship of the god, in 534 BCE. That date and many details of this story are disputed by scholars. Aristotle himself is our source for most of this, but remember, he was writing some 200 years after.
Athena was patroness of Athens, of course. But around 600 BCE the cult of Dionysus was introduced. At first the Athenians rejected him because he seemed rather effeminate, and caused women to behave in a strange and bold manner. However they changed their minds after a plague of genital disease attacked the men, and the new god was credited with ending it (as he probably caused it). He was the newest and youngest of the 12 gods, and the only one with a human mother. He is sometimes called Dionysios Eleutherios (Liberator) because his cult practices of alcohol and ecstasy liberated people, especially women, from their inhibitions. His annual festival was called the Dionysia, and featured recitations of choral poems called dithyrambs. These dithyrambs were heavily narrative and spoken by a chorus of men and a single man, the 'answerer' (or hypocrités). Remember that the chorus chanted and danced their lines, that chorus means dance in Greek, and orchestra means dancing place.
A performer named Thespis (hence thespians) is credited with coming up with the innovation of speaking the lines as if he were the protagonist instead of merely a narrator, speaking ninth first person 'I', instead of the third person 'he'. In other words, instead of talking about Heracles, he pretended to BE Heracles, changing the pronouns from 'he' did thus and so, to 'I'. We don't know if he did this spontaneously or rather worked out the new lines in advance. Did he tell the chorus or surprise them?
I imagine the innovation came to him while he was home rehearsing his lines -- instead of "Heracles thrust his sword into the monster and he was covered with the hot blood" Thespis was seized by the the god (and his imagination) and said "I thrust my sword into the monster and I was covered with the hot blood, etc."
I further imagine before the performance that afternoon, he says to the chorus, "Listen you guys, I've changed a few lines."
"What?!" they said, "Are you nuts? You can't do that..."
"Don't worry," says Thespis. "All the cues are the same. It's just a few of my lines. If the audience hates it, it will be on me."
I'm sure the chorus was terrified. What would the audience do? Suppose they hated it? Would they riot and tear the performers apart? Would they lose their positions and never work in theater again? Would the god be insulted and furious? No small matter!
BUT, the audience did NOT hate it. Instead they were electrified. Not all approved. The great lawgiver Solon is said to have called Thespis into his office, or wherever he ruled from, and scolded him for his audacity. "Are you not ashamed? Ashamed to be telling such great lies before so many people?" he asked. "Nothing good can come of this."
"But sir," replied Thespis, "I'n not trying to fool people and make them think I'm Heracles. No one would be fooled anyway. Do I look anything like Heracles?"
Old Solon shook his grey locks. He was a famous lawgiver, but he was wrong about this. What was born that year was the great unspoken compact between actor and audience that today we call 'suspension of disbelief'. They know we're not really Heracles, or Hamlet, or whoever, but they go along with the absurdity because it's exciting, engrossing, cathartic or at least entertaining .
Still, sitting there on the old marble benches, I wondered -- what it was like for the first spectators to witness the innovation. Was there a murmuring? "What?! What did he say? Did he make a mistake? I think he made a mistake. What! He did it again! What's going on?' And from the next bench -- "Shh! Let him finish! I'm liking this. It's wild." "No, no, it's not how it goes..."
"Yeah, but it's cool, and I like it..."
And the people were talking about it all day, probably all year... They STILL are... And it all began in the place below.
Above is the Acropolis Museum, showing the excavated remains of an ancient village discovered during construction. It's now possible to explore that lower area. At right is a view from the Acropolis looking down to the Hephaistion, a temple to Hephaestus, god of volcanos, metallurgy, iron-making, & engineering. Below is Anafiotika, a village on a steep side of the Acropolis, built and settled by islanders from Anafi.
