Masterpieces of Greek and Roman Theatre

Menander's Perikeiromene

In Menander’s The Rape of the Locks, interaction between the actors and the audience is achieved through the use of asides and a direct address to the audience. Asides are used to share a character’s private thoughts or feelings with the audience. Typically, asides provide no furtherance to the plot, and are only used to help the audience feel closer to the character.

The first example of this occurs at line 278 (page 110). This aside occurs after Daos tells Moschion that he would like to be a mill manager. Moschion’s aside is, “He’ll go to a mill, all right -- the treadmill.” While it would be rude for Moschion to say this to Daos, it is acceptable for him to say this privately, as to a friend; to do this, he uses an aside. This technique helps Menander build sympathy toward Moschion, and thereby draws the audience into the play.

A longer direct address to the audience occurs on page 117. In this address, Moschion discusses his private unhappiness. He tells the audience that he feels like his mother and servant do not care enough about him. This builds sympathy in the audience toward Moschion. Also, it lets the audience actively visualize a scene, rather than showing it to them, thereby further involving them in the play.

	This technique continues on pages 119 and 120. In these asides, Moschion confides his private thoughts and emotions in the audience. This first occurs at line 782, where he says, “I’m being swept towards a crisis in my life.” Moschion further shares his crisis at lines 785, 792, 818, and, finally, 823. This final aside is, “That settles it!”
These asides carry the audience through Moschion’s entire process of the discovery and acceptance that Glykera is his sister. The audience also learns many details at this point in the play, so the asides give the audience a stronger sense of their own discovery, as well as helping them relate to Moschion through this shared experience.

Another method of interacting with the audience is through lines a character speaks to his or herself. One example of this is at line 762, where Pataikos says to himself, “Now that’s queer, by God it is.” This occurs immediately before the truth that Pataikos is the birth father of Glykera gets revealed. Because the line is spoken by Pataikos to himself, it does not have much bearing in the plot. However, the audience can hear the line, and therefore it intrigues them while it informs them of the character’s private thoughts.

One major way of involving the audience throughout the play was to reveal the key secret to the audience at the beginning of the play. In the play’s prologue, Misapprehension tells the audience that Glykera and Moschion are twins, separated at birth. The entire plot of the play centers around characters not knowing this fact. Telling the audience the secret at the beginning gives them the power to actively try to anticipate the progression of the plot.

*note: Most of the images on this page represent descriptions from the text, particularly the story of circumstances as to why the twins had to be "exposed", and the images described on the embroidery they were wrapped in when found.