Let us consider briefly, for purposes of illustration, certain obvious ways
in which the art of the great Greek tragic dramatists was affected by the
nature of the Attic stage. The theatre of Dionysus was an enormous edifice
carved out of a hillside. It was so large that the dramatists were obliged
to deal only with subjects that were traditional,--stories which had long
been familiar to the entire theatre-going public, including the poorer and
less educated spectators who sat farthest from the actors. Since most of
the audience was grouped above the stage and at a considerable distance,
the actors, in order not to appear dwarfed, were obliged to walk on stilted
boots. A performer so accoutred could not move impetuously or enact a scene
of violence; and this practical limitation is sufficient to account for the
measured and majestic movement of Greek tragedy, and the convention that
murders and other violent deeds must always be imagined off the stage and
be merely recounted to the audience by messengers. Facial expression could
not be seen in so large a theatre; and the actors therefore wore masks,
conventionalised to represent the dominant mood of a character during a
scene. This limitation forced the performer to depend for his effect mainly
on his voice; and Greek tragedy was therefore necessarily more lyrical than
later types of drama.

The few points which we have briefly touched upon are usually explained, by
academic critics, on literary grounds; but it is surely more sane to
explain them on grounds of common sense, in the light of what we know of
the conditions of the Attic stage. Similarly, it would be easy to show how
Terence and Calderon, Shakespeare and Molière, adapted the form of their
plays to the form of their theatres; but enough has already been said to
indicate the principle which underlies this particular phase of the theory
of the theatre. The successive changes in the physical aspect of the
English theatre during the last three centuries have all tended toward
greater naturalness, intimacy, and subtlety, in the drama itself and in the