THESPIS: THE "FIRST" TRAGIC ACTOR

WE'VE BEEN "THESBIANS" EVER SINCE

Fiechter's sketch of possible Theater of Dionysus in the days of Thespis (source).

"Playwright, actor, stage director, and producer" (the division of theatrical labor had not yet emerged), "Thespis is credited with a number of innovations. He is said to have connected the chorus with a plot; he seems to have evolved the protagonist (hypokrités, the “answerer”), destined to face a tragic dilemma and forced to answer the ever-questioning chorus; he discarded the cruder dithyrambic make-up by making use of unpainted linen masks; and, if we care to trust Horace, Thespis travelled about with a company of strolling players on a wagon.

Pisistratus, having seized the castle and power of Athens by a coup d’état in 560 B.C., decided to enlarge the artistic scope of the City Dionysia by including plays in the official program of the festival. He asked Thespis, the Attic peasant-artist, to participate with his troupe. The date was 534 B.C., though this hardly marks the first appearance of Thespis in Athens, as, earlier, he may have participated in the Lenaea Festival.

On one such festive occasion, Solon, the legislator, came to witness one of Thespis’ performances and afterward went to see the artist. Plutarch saved this oldest “backstage” scene from oblivion:

Thespis, at this time, beginning to act tragedies, and the thing, because it was new, taking very much with the multitude, though it was not yet made a matter of competition, Solon, being by nature fond of hearing and learning something new, and now, in his old age, living idly, and enjoying himself, indeed, with music and with wine, went to see Thespis himself, as the ancient custom was, act: and after the play was done, he addressed him, and asked him if he was not ashamed to tell so many lies before such a number of people; and Thespis replying that it was no harm to say or do so in play, Solon vehemently struck his staff against the ground: 'Ah,' said he, 'if we honor and commend such play as this, we shall find it some day in our business.'"

All text above from Nagler, A Source Book in Theatrical History, p. 3-4.

Plutarch was one of Shakespeare's major sources (a name to learn for folks interested in Shakespeare, for sure!), and here he is in his The Lives of Noble Grecians and Romans (translated by John Dryden and Arthur Hugh Clough, p. 115) recounting Solon's visit to the theater. 
AMAZING primary document!! What can we learn from it?

Pages by Mrs. D

"One of the most admirable things about history is, that almost as a rule, we get as much information out of what it does not say as we get out of what it does say. . . . History is a frog; half of it is submerged, but he knows it is there, and he knows the shape of it."

"The Secret History of Eddypus", Mark Twain