The Sound Effect Of Ancient Greek Theatrical Masks

Abstract

All theatrical forms developed in ancient Greece were forms of masked drama. Apart from the obvious change of the visual appearance of the actors, the masks also altered the acoustic characteristics of their voices. Therefore, both from the listener’s and the actor’s points of view these masks significantly modified the acoustic events and inevitably transformed the overall theatrical experience. In this work, we employ recreations of such masks and through controlled experiments, via measurements and simulations, we evaluate their impact on the acoustics of the most typical and famous of the ancient theatres, this one of Epidaurus. Emphasis is given on unraveling the character of the combined acoustics of the voice of masked actor and the response of such a theatre which is famous for its perfect acoustics for speech and drama plays.

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