This time machine has taken me into the past. I did not believe it was possible when it was brought to me by the mountebank who has been seducing all of society with his tricks, but it works. It has given me a headache, but it works. Now, I can look around and discover the past as no other man of my time has ever been able to do.
I find myself in ancient Greece, and I am fascinated by the opportunity to see the beginnings of the profession in which I have worked for so long. Much about this era is known to us kin my own time, but much is not. After all, not many of the plays from this period survive, and indeed we have only one complete cycle of three plays performed at one sitting in the Oresteia. This three-play pattern was the norm, but no other complete cycle survives (Kitto, 1964: 76). It would be interesting to see some of the other cycles that have not survived.
I will be able to bring back to my time a better understanding of the origins of drama, and perhaps I can find a few plots I can use as well. I have not written much about the ancient world except for a history (Julius Caesar) and a tragedy or two (Troilus and Cressida and Titus Andronicus). I know we have changed the drama since the time of the Greeks. Greek drama took place in an outdoor amphitheater, for one thing, while we have changed the location to indoor theaters (usually) behind a proscenium arch, a concept the Greeks did not have. My beloved Globe has such a structure. It is not large, and we actually do thrust the stage outward from the proscenium so that some of the audience sits on either side of the actors (Beckerman, 1962: 69-70).
This is not as open as the Greek stage, though, which I can now see before me as it was when it was in use. This is a huge outdoor theater, and I can see now why the action of the Greek drama was always set in the outdoors as well. The Greeks were making use of the setting they had in the theater itself. ...