Niall W. Slater

Plautus in Performance:The Theatre of the Mind

Princeton:PrincetonUniversity Press, 1985

Published Reviews (in English):

  • Segal The Times Literary Supplement 84 (1985) 768 
  • Fantham Classical Outlook 64 (1986) 33-35 
  • Harvey The Classical World 80 (1986) 52-53 
  • Smith Phoenix 60 (1986) 218-220


SUMMARY


 
Section
Pages
Summary
Chapter 1
3-18
Introduction: The Performance Dimension

The experience of a play is created by the interaction of the actors, the audience, and the play itself.In this book, Slater uses six plays in which he says, “a certain theatrical self-consciousness is essential to the play’s overall impact.”Metatheatre is defined as “theatrically self-conscious theatre.”Plautine theatre has both illusory and non-illusory components.Non-illusory components to be explored in the following chapters include:the monologue, the aside, eavesdropping, role-playing, and the play-within-the-play.Plautus’ plays are written in an improvisational style – they imitate improvisation.
Chapter 2
19-36
Epidicus

This chapter uses the play Epidicus to explore the aside, the monologue or soliloquy, and eavesdropping.Emphasis is placed on the play’s self-creation, with the servus callidus, Epidicus, as the improvising creator of the plot.Of particular interest is an opening scene of the play in which Epidicus talks himself into his role.
Chapter 3
37-54
The Ruse of Persia~ or~ The Story-Telling Slaves

This chapter examines the Persa, which portrays the slave Toxilus, who is taking on the role of the adulescens amans, in a drastic departure from comedic stock types.Toxilus is the author of the play-within-the-play.Emphasis is on Plautus’ creation of an unusual persona in the servus amans.
Chapter 4
55-69
Six Authors in Search of a Character~ Asinaria as Guerilla Theatre

In the play Asinaria, control of the plot is tossed about from character to character before finally resting on the matrona at the end.Slater contributes the failure of the plot to too many authors, rather than confusion caused by contaminatio.The audience has a role in the play.They are told at the end that their applause will determine the fate of Demaenetus, a lecherous senex who tries to bargain for one night with the mistress he helped obtain for his son.
Chapter 5
70-93
The Pilots of Penance ~ or~ The Slave of Lust

The prologue and epilogue of Casina are examples of supplement, rather than explication.Also explored is the convention of soliloquy, which is a step outside the action of the play.The play is a dark comedy, nearly tragic in the excessive, joyless lust of Lysidamus, the senex amator.A theme in the play is role reversals, with the senex taking over the role of the adulescens amans and the matrona fulfilling the servus callidus stock role.
Chapter 6
94-117
The Double Dealer ~ or~ The Skin-Changer

The slave Chrysalus is seen as the character-playwright in the Bacchides.Monologue and soliloquy are again important.The play is an example of the “duality method,” with two each of the important characters.Also noted are seduction/induction and re-beginning of the comedy at the end of the play.Slater points out the frustration of Chrysalus at the end of the play with his too-predictable stock character role.
Chapter 7
118-146
Words, Words, Words

This chapter examines the character of Pseudolus in the play that bears his name.Pseudolus, the play’s internal playwright, is suspected of coming to represent Plautus himself toward the end of the play, much as Prospero is thought to represent William Shakespeare in the Tempest.It is here that we are exposed to the idea of Plautus’ improvisational style arising from his background as an actor – “this is actor’s, not director’s, theatre.”
Chapter 8
147-167
Convention and Reaction

This chapter revisits the non-illusory conventions of prologue and epilogue, monologue and soliloquy, aside, role-playing, eavesdropping, play-within-the-play, and improvisation in various other plays of Plautus.Explored are his reaction to and use of conventions of Greek New Comedy.It ends with a summary in which the non-illusory techniques of Plautus are compared with the illusory ones of Menander.
Chapter 9
168-178
Playwriting as Heroism

The final chapter comments on the “phenomenon of metatheatre,” and Plautus’ unique contributions to the comedy of the Greek plays he adapted from.The Persa, Bacchides, Casina, and Pseudolus are revisited and the leading player looked at in the context of metatheatre.The book ends with comments on the power of imagination in theatre.

*Bibliography (pp. 180-183), Index Locorum (pp. 184-187), and Index NominumetRerum (pp. 188-190) may be found at the end of the book.

Praise for Plautus in Performance:

“…to be recommended to students of drama and classicists reading Plautus for the first time.” 

-Fantham, The Classical Outlook

“…successful in depicting Plautus as a comic craftsman.”

-Harvey, The Classical World

“Niall Slater has produced a work of literary criticism that is guaranteed to instruct, challenge, delight, and provoke every student of Roman drama.”

“If Plautus in Performance has any significant fault, it is merely that Slater’s ideas deserve more expansive treatment than is possible in a book of this size.”

-Smith, ThePhoenix