Gary Corby: Death Ex Machina

“By the power of the Lady Artemis, goddess of the hunt,” Diotima finished. “She’s the only goddess I’m qualified to officiate for.”

Sophocles nodded his appreciation. “The Huntress is a fine choice for chasing an evil spirit.” Then he frowned, in afterthought. “Should we not also sacrifice to Dionysos? It is his theater after all.”

That was a good point.

“We’ll need a priest of Dionysos,” Diotima said.

“That will be no problem,” said Sophocles. “The high priest of Dionysos is known to me.”

Sophocles was clearly a man who moved in exalted circles. There was another important man who should be present, but I hadn’t seen him. I asked, “Who is the choregos of your play, sir? Where is he?”

“His name is Thodis, of the deme Pallene. He returned to his home when it became clear that the actors could not be moved. Probably to weep in private.”

Pallene was one of the most ancient demes, so old that it had once been its own city, until Athens grew to encompass it. It was a place of wealthy estate owners and old money. I could easily see how a man of Pallene would have the funds to back a tragedy in the Great Dionysia.

Diotima said, “You spoke of accidents.”

“Things have gone wrong during rehearsals,” Sophocles said. “But only since my play was given use of the theater. Before that, everything was running smoothly.”

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“There are ten choral performances, five comedies, and three tragedies to be played, in that order. It’s the custom that we take turns for use of the theater, to practice our work, in the order in which we appear.”

“I see,” I said.

“The tragedies occupy the final three days because they are the most important event,” Sophocles said without the slightest hint of modesty. “By the drawing of lots my play is the final performance. I am therefore last to rehearse in the theater. There were problems from the moment we took possession. No one noticed at first because things always go wrong during rehearsals. Then the wave of little problems mounted until even the stage crew began to mutter. Each incident on its own was entirely trivial, or obvious bad luck.”

“Could you list them, please?” I said.

“The first was the broom left lying at the stage entrance. Romanos tripped over it as he made an entrance.”

“Romanos is?”

“Our third actor-the tritagonist. It was only a little thing, really, but it spoke of sloppiness on the part of the stagehands. Kiron-he’s the stage manager-had harsh words for everyone who works backstage. They all denied dropping it.”

“It doesn’t seem like much,” I said dubiously.

“That’s what I just told you,” Sophocles said in exasperation. “But then we all fell ill.”

“Surely a ghost couldn’t cause that.”

“No, but the tainted water in the water bottles could.”

Sophocles pointed to the back tables, where amongst all the stage kit was a row of ceramic water coolers and clay cups.

“We drink from those. The slave who sees to filling them must have collected bad water, because after a rehearsal a few days ago every one of us fell ill. Half of us had vomiting and diarrhoea. We couldn’t work the next day, and it was a struggle the day after.”

Bad water happens to every household from time to time. It only needs the house slave to fill the water bottles from the public fountain at an unlucky time.

“What else?” I asked.

“The broken props. We came in one morning to find that the masks had been torn.”

Diotima had walked to the back wall. A row of tables was arrayed along it.

“These?” Diotima asked. She picked up a mask that lay on the prop tables.

Sophocles nodded. “Precisely. The actors wear them, to represent different characters. All our masks were damaged one night. We arrived to find them slashed.”

“By a knife?”

“It looked more like claw marks to me. I thought some animal must have got at them. Perhaps a wild cat. I had to ask the choregos to pay for new masks. Fortunately the maskmaker was available. He’d finished all the masks for the festival. But he charged extra. He at least didn’t think there was a ghost. Oh no. He thought we hadn’t taken proper care of his work.” Sophocles threw his arms up in frustration. “By this time the muttering among the men had turned to open talk. They are convinced it’s the ghost of Thespis.”

“Who’s Thespis?”

“The first man ever to act on stage. He’s long dead. My friend Aeschylus tells of seeing Thespis act when he was but a small boy. Aeschylus says Thespis was not only the first actor, but the best he’s ever seen.”

I knew Aeschylus. He was an old man about to retire. If he’d seen this Thespis as a small boy, then Thespis had indeed lived long ago. I pointed out the obvious, “If it’s the ghost of Thespis, then why did he wait all this time to appear?”

Sophocles grimaced. “It’s nonsense of course. I’m afraid it was me who put the idea of Thespis in their heads. Rehearsals haven’t been going well. You can see why. To lighten the mood I made a half-hearted joke that Thespis would be furious with us if he saw the state of our play. Someone latched onto my comment and magnified it into an angry spirit. The worst was when one of the men saw the ghost.”

“What?”

“Akamas. He’s one of the stagehands. The one who was rude to you out back. He’s also a troublemaker. He says he was in here late one night and saw the ghost. That was the over-active imagination I told you about. He turned up next morning babbling about a ghost in the theater.”

I made a mental note to talk to this Akamas.

Sophocles went on, “That same morning, the railing on the balcony suddenly collapsed. No one was hurt, fortunately, but it was a close call for Lakon, who was standing on it at the time. That was the end of any chance of getting the players to play.”

“Where’s the balcony?” I asked.

Sophocles led us around the skene and onto the stage.

The balcony was directly above us, held up on four long wooden legs that had been painted white. It looked sturdy enough.

Sophocles pointed. “The actors stand there when they are playing a god. During the incident with the railing, Lakon leaned upon it, and the railing simply fell away. He almost went over with it, which would have been a disaster for the play. Lakon is our first actor, our protagonist. He’s irreplaceable.” He sighed. “I had harsh words for the carpenters. They fixed it at once, but what’s the point if the actors won’t play?”

“Must gods stand upon the balcony?” I asked. “Maybe you could avoid it.”

Sophocles held his hands up in horror. “Don’t even suggest it. Imagine if you were the goddess Athena, I mean the real goddess , and you looked down from Mount Olympos to see that someone in Athens was not only pretending to be you, but stood on the same level as ordinary mortals. How would you feel?”

I thought about it. “Not good,” I said.

“Exactly. Our gods stand above the crowd, to avoid insulting the real ones.”

“Does Athena appear in your play, Sophocles?” Diotima asked.

“No. I have Zeus, the king of the Gods, and Thanatos, the god of death.”

“Death! What’s the play about?” I asked. “Or shouldn’t I ask?”

“Certainly you may ask. The title is Sisyphus, King of Corinth. The story is of that ancient king’s fall from power due to his serious personality defects, and his subsequent terrible punishment in Hades.”

“Doomed to push the boulder uphill, only to have it roll back down again, for all eternity,” I said.

“Yes, that’s how the play ends.” Sophocles sighed. “The net result of all these problems is that, even if the actors and crew return to work at once, we still won’t be ready in time for the Great Dionysia.”