Playing the Other: Theater, Theatricality, and the Feminine in Greek Drama Author(s): Froma I. Zeitlin Source: Representations, No. 11 (Summer, 1985), pp. 63-94 Published by: University of California Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2928427 . Accessed: 16/01/2014 14:04 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. University of California Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Representations. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 140.233.185.52 on Thu, 16 Jan 2014 14:04:49 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions FROMA I. ZEITLIN Playing the Other: Theater, Theatricality,and the Feminine in Greek Drama FOR A SPECIMEN OF SHEER theatricalpower, it wouldbe difficult to matchthe climactic scene of Euripides'Bacchae (788-861) wherePentheus at lastcomes under the spell of hisadversary, the god Dionysus,and acknowledges his secretdesire to spyupon thewomen of Thebes who haveleft the city to go as maenadsto themountain. His violentantagonism toward the women who, in abandoningtheir homes, children, and domestictasks, have challenged the civic, masculineauthority of the king gives way to a suddensoftening of will-a yielding to the cunningwiles of the god disguisedon stageas the Asiaticstranger, the leaderof hisown troops of maenads.This firstsurrender is followedby another. Givingup now his originalintention to marshalhis forcesfor an open combat of menagainst women, Pentheus gives up his stubbornclaim to an unequivocal masculineidentity. To see whatthe women are doingwithout himself being seen, Pentheusmust trade his hoplite military tactics for an undercoveroperation that involvesadopting a deviousstratagem and assuminga remarkabledisguise. He mustlet the god takehim inside the palace and dresshim as a womanin a flowing wig and headdress,a long pleatedrobe and belt,to whichhe adds the typical insigniaof the maenads-the dappled fawnskinand ritualthyrsus. When the god completesthis elaborate toilette, Pentheus will also resembleDionysus him- self,whose effeminate appearance the kinghad earliermocked.' But as much as theymight seem doubletsof one another,the powerrelations between them have been decisivelyreversed. Now Dionysuswill turn Pentheus from the one whoacts to theone whois actedupon, from the one whowould inflict pain and suffering,even death,on theother, to the one who willundergo those experi- enceshimself. For now,however, the preliminary sign of Pentheus'total defeat, firstat the handsof Dionysusand thenat the handsof thewomen, is givento us on stagein thevisual feminization of Pentheuswhen he is inducedagainst all inhibitionsof shameto adopt thecostume and gesturesof thewoman. But iffeminization is theemblem of Pentheus'defeat, Dionysus' effeminacy is a signof his hiddenpower. Here are twomales, cousins in factthrough their genealogicalties, both engaged in a masculinecontest for supremacy. One, how- ever,gains mastery by manipulatinga feminizedidentity and the otheris van- REPRESENTATIONS 11 * Summer 1985 ? THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 63 This content downloaded from 140.233.185.52 on Thu, 16 Jan 2014 14:04:49 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions quished when he finallysuccumbs to it. What we mightperceive in theirensemble at the moment when the two males appear togetheron stage in similardress is an instructivespectacle of the inclusivefunctions of the femininein the drama- one on the side of femininityas power and the other on the side of femininity as weakness. Pentheus, firstashamed of wearing women's clothing,and terrifiedthat he make a ridiculous spectacle of himselffor all the cityto see, now has a fleeting intimationof the new force he has acquired, exultingin the surge of unnatural physicalstrength that suffuseshim and dreaming of uprooting mountainswith his bare hands. But under the god's gentleprodding, he just as eagerlyabandons his desire forviolence to acquiesce withpleasure in the contrarytactics of hiding and deception thatwill confrontthe women on theirown terms (953-56). The momentof triumphand confidence,however, is brief.We knowalready in advance what the fateof Pentheuswill be once the feminizedgod Dionysus,who playshis role to perfection,delivers over his disguised victim,his man clumsilyconcealed in women's dress, to the "real" women who will tear the imposter apart in a terribleritual sparagmos, while the god revertsto his functionof divine spectator at the drama he himselfhas arranged on stage. I have chosen to begin withthe robing of Pentheus,for beyond its dramatic impact withinthe contextof the play,the mechanics of this scene also suggests in its details a wider and more emblematicset of significations.These referboth to the conditionsof Dionysiac ritual itselfas a deadly version of initiationinto the mysteriesof the god's worshipand to the conditionsof the theaterof Dionysus and the accepted terms of its artisticrepresentations.2 For the first,Pentheus mustbe dressed as a woman for consecrationto the god as the surrogatebeast- victimhe willbecome in the ritualon the mountain;for the second, the costuming of Pentheus reminds us that the theater requires mimeticdisguise by which it creates and maintainsits statusas dramaticfestival.3 Thus throughthis scene we arrive at the dynamicbasis of Greek drama, catchinga momentaryglimpse of the secretsof its ritual prehistoryas it merges with and is imitatedby the tech- niques of the theater.In particular,the fact that Pentheus dons a femininecos- tume and rehearsesin itbefore our eyes exposes perhaps one of the mostmarked featuresof Greek theatricalmimesis, namely that men are the only actors in this civic theater; in order to representwomen on stage, men must alwaysput on a femininecostume and mask.4 What this means is that it is not a woman who speaks or acts for herselfand in herselfon stage; it is alwaysa man who imper- sonates her.5 Stillfurther, if we also consider thatin order to directthe proceedingsof the drama, to manipulate its theatricaleffects, contrive its plots, set its stage, and controlits mimeticplay of illusion and reality,Dionysus, the god of the theater, mustalso take on womanishtraits, then perhaps we mayventure yet further: can there be some intrinsicconnections linking the phenomenon of Athenian trag- 64 REPRESENTATIONS This content downloaded from 140.233.185.52 on Thu, 16 Jan 2014 14:04:49 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions edy,invented and developed in a historicalcontext as a civicart form,and what the societyculturally defines as femininein its sex/gendersystem?6 There is nothingnew in stressingthe associationsof Dionysus and the fem- inine for the Greek theater.After all, madness, the irrational,and the emotional aspects of life are associated in the culture more with women than with men. The boundaries of women'sbodies are perceived as more fluid,more permeable, more open to affectand entryfrom the outside, less easily controlledby intel- lectual and rational means. This perceived physicaland culturalinstability ren- ders them weaker than men; it is also all the more a source of disturbingpower over them,as reflectedin the factthat in the divine world it is feminineagents, for the most part, who, in addition to Dionysus, inflictmen with madness- whetherHera, Aphrodite,the Erinyes,or even Athena as in Sophocles' Ajax. On the otherhand, we mightwant to viewthe androgynyof Dionysus,already in Aeschylus called a gunnis(womanish man) and pseudanor(counterfeit man, frag. 61 Nauck, 2nd ed.), as a true mixtureof masculine and feminine.This mixture,it can be argued, is one of the emblems of his paradoxical role as dis- rupter of the normal social categories; in his own person he atteststo the coin- cidentiaoppositorum that challenges the hierarchiesand rules of the public mas- culine world,reintroducing into it confusions,conflicts, tensions, and ambiguities, insistingalways on the more complex nature of life than masculine aspirations would allow.7Such a view would stressmale and female aspects alike; it would regard the god as embodyinga dynamicprocess or as configuringin his person an alternate mode of reality.Convincing as this view may be, it runs the risk of underratingthe factthat it is preciselyDionysus' identificationwith the feminine that gives him and his theatertheir power. Along the same lines, in the quest for equivalence between the genders, one could remark,not withoutjustice, thatalthough all the actorsare male in tragedy, we find that within the plays feminized males are countered by masculinized women: for example, Aeschylus' Clytemnestraof the "man-counselingmind" (Agamemnon),Euripides' Medea, and, of course, the maenadic Agave herself, who in the Bacchae boasts of her warriorprowess over the body of Pentheus,as yet unrecognized as the son whom she has killed. This notion of a balanced, symmetricalinversion finds support in Greek festivalsoutside Athenswhere men and women change theircostumes for a day,each imitatingthe appearance and behavior of the other.8Better yet, there is evidence that in initiationrites at pubertyor sometimesin nuptial arrangements,young