Mechane
This article is about the ancient theater machine. For dramatic implications and modern implementations, especially in film, see Deus ex machina.
A mêchanê (μηχανῆ, plural: mêchanai) was a crane used in ancient Greek and Roman theater and was probably in wide use since the fourth century BC. The device was used to lift a harnessed actor into the air, whenever the plot required a character to fly. The stage machine was later used to also bring gods onto the stage from above,[1] hence the Latin term deus ex machina ("god from the machine").[2]
Construction and operation
Since the mêchanê had to carry weights of up to one ton, the device was probably supported by the projection of stone which extended into the orchestra from the terrace wall, and affixed to one of the posts which supported the skene.[3] When not in use it was hidden behind the upper level of the skene.[4] The mêchanê itself consisted of wooden beams and a pulley system, i.e. wheels and ropes which could raise considerable weights and, in some cases, move them back and forth violently, when the play demanded it. The vertical dimensions were over four meters, while the horizontal travel could be more than eight meters.[5] The mêchanai must have been well-balanced with sufficient counter-weights and were operated by the theater's engineer, the so-called mêchanopóios, a term also used for the builder of the mêchanê. The crucial dramatic timing between stage and engineering can in theory be deduced from the specific lines sung by the choros, which hints at the amount of time that the engineers were granted to unload, reload or operate the mêchanê.
Original dramatic use
Euripides
Euripides' use of the mêchanê in Medea (431 BC) is a notable early application of the machine for a non-divine character, providing a means of escape for Medea from Corinth after she murders her children. It was used by Euripides to counter the reality of domestic murder featured at stage level, elevating Medea to godhead. The mechanical ascension possibly symbolized the underestimated power of her evilness.[6] In his play The Bacchae Euripides however used the theater machine in a divine manner to present Dionysus as his own deus ex machina, first by introducing him as a god disguised as a man, then revealing him in an epiphany at the end of the play, reintroduced to the stage by use of the mêchanê.[7] Euripides' concluding use of the device became his infamous trademark, which he also used in more venturesome ways, as e.g. shown in the hero's ascension on a Pegasus in his lost play Bellerophon.[8]
Other Greek authors
The earliest known use of the mêchanê is possibly found in The Eumenides by Aeschylus, who utilized several theatrical devices for the staging of his tragedy, including a theater machine, on which he placed the god Apollo. Sophocles in his old age utilized the mêchanê to introduce Heracles at the end of Philoctetes to induce the title character to leave for Troy. The mêchanê was used in tragedies and comedies alike, a representative for the latter being Aristophanes, who was all-too happy to parody Euripides' notorious use of the theater machine, e.g. in Peace, where the peasant hero, in an blatant take on Euripides' Pegasus-exit, embarks on a hazardous, heavenward stage flight, riding a giant dung beetle and shouting: "Crane-driver, take good care of me!"
Other uses
Stage machines were also used in ancient Rome, e.g. during the sometimes highly dramatic performances at funerals. For Julius Caesar's funeral service Appian reports a rotating mêchanê that was used to present a blood-stained wax effigy of the deceased dictator to the funeral crowd.[9] Geoffrey Sumi proposed that the use of the mêchanê "hinted at Caesar's divinity".[10] This is highly unlikely because Appian doesn't describe the mêchanê as a genuine deus-ex-machina device. Furthermore Caesar's apotheosis wasn't legally conducted until 42 BC, and Caesar had only been worshipped inofficially as divus during his lifetime. First and foremost Mark Antony, who functioned as choregós and probably as master of ceremonies during the funeral, attempted to arouse the masses as a means to strengthen Caesar's esteem as well as his own political power.[11]
In Christian liturgy the mêchanê has been identified with the cross. Ignatius calls the cross the "theater machine" of Jesus Christ.[12] The theatrical character of the Christian cross is still visible in the slanted suppedaneum ("footrest") of the original Crux Orthodoxa, which indicates the rotating movement of the cross that had been very prominent in depictions of the Christ's crucifixion, especially in the Orthodox Church, but also in the Western Church until early Baroque, e.g. on the famous Isenheim Altarpiece by Matthias Grünewald.
Notes
- ↑ Plato, Cratylus 425d; Clitophon 407a
- ↑ The mêchanê as a means for introducing a deus ex machina onto the stage was probably not in widespread use before the 4th century BC: "Gods who intervene in fifth century tragedies probably appeared through a trap-door on the roof of the skene to address mortals from a higher level." (Roger Dunkle, Introduction to Greek Tragedy)
- ↑ "Introduction to Greek Stagecraft", in Didaskalia, Berkeley 2002
- ↑ Edwin Wilson & Alvin Goldfarb, Living Theatre: A History, McGraw-Hill 2003, p. 50 sq.
- ↑ Dimarogonas, "Mechanics of the Ancient Greek Theater", ASME Design Conference, Phoenix 1992, quoted here (including reconstructional images).
- ↑ Maurice P. Cunningham, "Medea Aπο Mηχανης", in Classical Philology, Vol. 49, No. 3, 1954, pp. 151–160
- ↑ J. Michael Walton, Greek Sense of Theatre: Tragedy Reviewed, Amsterdam 1939, p. 128
- ↑ Harold C. Baldry, "Theatre and society in Greek and Roman antiquity", in: James Redmond (ed.), Drama and Society (Themes in Drama Series 1), Cambridge 1979, p. 8
- ↑ Appian, Civil Wars 2.147: τὸ μὲν γὰρ σῶμα, ὡς ὕπτιον ἐπὶ λέχους, οὐχ ἑωρᾶτο. τὸ δὲ ἀνδρείκελον ἐκ μηχανῆς ἐπεστρέφετο πάντῃ. Appian's mêchanê probably describes the device (or part of the device) that Suetonius rendered as the tropaeum, which was covered by Caesar's blood-stained robe and to which possibly also the effigy (simulacrum) was affixed. (Divus Iulius 84; here tropaeum has been erroneously translated as "pillar".)
- ↑ Geoffrey S. Sumi, Ceremony and Power. Performing Politics in Rome between Republic and Empire, Ann Arbor 2005, pp. 107–109, chapter: "Caesar ex machina", ISBN 978-0-472-11517-4
- ↑ The fact that Caesar's resurrectio as god was believed to have happened later during the funeral as he was cremated, and that it spawned the early Caesarian cult by the Pseudo-Marius, can't explain Antony's intentions for using a mêchanê during the funeral, since the cremation occured after the fact.
- ↑ Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Ephesians IX 1: ἀναφερόμενοι εἰς τὰ ὕψη διὰ τῆς μηχανῆς Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, ὅς ἐστιν σταυρός.