The marble theatrical faces of the Hellenistic period were found in 1865 during the excavations of the oldest theater in the world in Athens, the Dionysian Theater on the southern slopes of the Acropolis hill. They are a copy of an older sculpture from the second half of the (4th century BC). It is a relief slab of Penteli marble with a height of (0.675 m.), and a length of (0.73 m.), dated to (2nd century BC), and has been welded together from three parts. They depict six (6) female theatrical faces arranged in threes in two rows, and are identical with only minor differences in the rendering of the hair. They probably belong to members of the Chorus who play young women in a drama performance, and are housed in the Acropolis Museum.
Theatrical masks with their sophisticated expression allowed the audience to be entranced, as they facilitated the disguise of actors who played two or more roles, male or female, in the same play, and on the other hand served to directly identify the audience with the characters being played in the theatrical performance, directly stimulating their emotional world. The male masks were dark-colored, while the female masks were light-colored, as would be the non-surviving paint on the specific relief from the Dionysian theater. In the Hellenistic period, greater emphasis was placed on the front of the masks, which became longer and more voluminous for a frontal view of the actors. This development is linked to the establishment of the l o g e i o u ,
where the actors performed with their foreheads facing the spectators, and later they were largely standardized, especially the dance masks.
As we contemplate these marble masks, we contemplate the tragedy of the story unfolding on stage!
Source:
- Archaeological Museum of the Acropolis
- Archaeological Museum of Athens
Marble theatrical mask in the type of the young woman or courtesan of New Comedy (4th century BC), from the National Archaeological Museum of Athens
Relief tombstone from the Archaeological Museum of Piraeus, with the figure of the deceased (probably an actor) ostentatiously holding a theatrical mask
