Theater of Epidauros

All ancient Greek theaters were open-air structures with no proscenium arch or curtain as we expect in our modern theaters.  Poets sometimes took advantage of the fact that the Greek theater was not a building enclosed by walls and a roof by incorporating nature into the plot. The chorus’s first song in Sophocles’ Antigone was supposed to take place early in the morning of the day after the Thebans had driven back the invading Argives.  Since we know that the presentation of tragedies began early in the morning, the chorus in this play no doubt faced the sun shining above them when they sung the following words:

 O ray of the sun,
the most beautiful light ever to illuminate seven-gated Thebes,
then you appeared, O eye of the golden day,
proceeding over Dirce’s stream,
having put to headlong flight the full-armored man with a white shield
who had come from Argos. (Sophocles, Antigone, 100 ff.)

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