Tragicommedia (teatro antico)

It is proposed a survey of the mixed theatre genre called ‘tragicomedy’ that first appears in two Latin verses in the Prologue of Plautus' Amphitryon (vv. 59 and 63). But there is history behind this term. The Asteas krater (Vatican U 19 inv. 17106, about mid 4th century BC) depicts a farcical comedy scene whose protagonists are Jupiter, Mercury and Alcmena and which we find in Plautus' play Amphitryon. This vase shows that around 50 years before Rhinthon of Tarentum (inventor of the hilarotragedy) and around 150 years before Plautus' Amphitryon (which we date to around 200 BC), farcical dramas were staged in Magna Graecia that starred and ridiculed “tragic” gods such as Zeus and Hermes, with an obvious contamination of genres. Investigating the issue of the to satyrikon (the satyric) and of the satyric drama of historical age, we come to the conclusion that the original core of tragicomedy is recognisable in the poetry of tragic mode with speaking satyrs in metre invented by Arion. It appears as the first evolution in spectacular form of that original ritual satire poetry, from which the dramatic genres of the classical age would evolve. The mixed dramatic genre precedes, therefore, the differentiation of dramatic genres, later re-emerging as much in satirical dramas as in some tragedies and comedies. The issue is controversial, but the evidence seems to favour this interpretation rather than leading us to consider tragicomedy as a secondary development of the tragic and comic genres.