My paper consists of two parts In the first I sketch the trajectory of Aristophanes' adventure on the modern Greek stage during the 20th century, by briefly presenting the emergence of two main trends, the "archaistic" and the "modernistic", in assessing the interpretation of the surviving comedies The former believed that the ancient Greek drama could only be properly interpreted by resorting to the artistic means and conventions of 5th century B C practice, which in actuality means the reconstruction of an ancient performance on a modern stage-a rather utopian aspiration because of a) the serious gaps in our knowledge about the exact situation in theatrical activities of classical Athens, b)the absence of any substantial form of theatrical tradition in Greece, due to a 1500 lacuna of anti-theatrical periods-christian Byzantines and muslim Turks, and c) as a result of the radical changes in social and cultural conditions, the lack of awareness and sensitivity in modern spectators to such a performance The "modernistic" camp of interpretation, on the contrary, maintained that the classical drama could only be appreciated by modern audiences if portrayed by artistic means and in terms of conventions already familiar to them, which actually means the invention of a completely new performance consisting of various, often incompatible, ingredients, as no form of drama even approximately resembling that of classical Greece exists to serve as a model for reference Needless to say, nearly all attempts to interpret the Greek drama naturally use the texts in translation In the case of Aristophanes, however, additional problems are caused by the dependence of his satire on contemporary socio-political reality, on the one hand, and the proverbial bawdiness of his language on the other It is for this reason that the poet became a taboo and, even through the first half of the 20th century, an easy prey at the hands of amateurs or bad touring groups, playing for the mere titillation of male audiences, exceptions were rare The first serious attempts to rehabilitate the maltreated poet only date from the beginning of the 2nd half of the 20th century, under the auspices of National Theatre in Athens, established in 1932, with two productions, representing the two opposite trends The first, with the Clouds, in 1951, undertaken by Sokratis Karadinos, an experienced director, ardent supporter of the "archaistic" approach, drawing his artistic material from various, mainly indirect, ancient sources (vase paintings, testimonies in later texts etc), although attained a remarkable aesthetic result at all levels, failed to appeal to the audience-completely unfamiliar with the grotesque costumes and masks as well as the static movement and conventional acting-but also divided the critics That failure actually ended the attempts of the "archaistic" approach as far as comedy was concerned Aristophanes' real revival was realized by the initiative of two directors, representing the "modernistic" trend, though in slightly different ways as far as the sources wherefrom they drew their raw material and, consequently, the artistic means applied in their interpretation, were concerned Both based their approach on the self-evident receptive capacity of present day audiences, whose referential experiences are drawn from various forms of, not exclusively theatrical, popular entertainment Therefore, with an eclectic method in choosing and utilizing various elements from relative activities and with the mere aspiration of reaching a simply "analogical", as compared with the ancient productions, result, they both created compact, vivid and extremely appealing compositions, which turned the marginalized poet into the most popular theatrical event every summer The main difference between them was that Alexis Solomos, whose production of
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