Evening star., 1934-03-04
cED1cs UP
the WoRLD's
OLDEST lHEATER
BY EMILY C.. DAVIS.

--HE worlds first theater-did you ever
wonder where it was and whether it
had plush seats, and whether the
curtain stuck temperamentally when
frantic stage hands tried to hide the
business of shifting scenes?
Historians have pointed to the Theater OF
Dionysus in Athens when they were asked how
the theater began The curved auditorium with
its stage in front, they neatly explain, grew out
of the old Greek custom of sitting on a grassy
hillside and watching the exciting dances to the
god of wine and fruitfuness, performed in an
open space at the foot Of the hill. And that
is where got our theater, SO the explana-
tion
But that was not the beginning Of theaters.
Psychologists now realize. That odd Greek
theater evolved only six or seven centuries be-
fore Christ. Civilizations had been working out
their destiny for thousands of years before the
Greeks.
An Italian archeologist Prof. Luigi Pernier.
pushes theater history back to 1000 BIC.
He carries you from Greece southwark to
Crete in the blue Mediterranean. There he
points to the ruins Of the Palace Of Phaestos,
ON hilltop overlooking the sea. And in one
corner of the palace is a stone construction
which makes true ancient history for the
theater. It is an unmistakable theater, planned
and built for a prince who lived a thousand
years and more before the Greeks converted
hisides into galleries.
A BOUT 1000 BIC, the Island Of Crete was
small kingdom in the sea where civiliza-
tion and elegance and beauty had begun to
flower extravagantly. Knossos was the royal
capital. But princes ruled over local districts,
and Phaestos was the capital of such q province
The Italian Archaeological Mission in Crete,
under the leadership Of Prof. Pernier, has for
some years been digging out the ruins Of
Phaestos. Buried in the earth are the floors
of the palace the stairways and stumps Of
walls. The digging reveals some Of the vases
and art objects that adorned the stone palace.
The earth also has preserved attractive drinking
cups and pitchers and stone basins used by the
palace household.
The princes palace cannot compare in splen-
dor with the Palace Of Minos, which Sir Ar
thur Evans unearthed at KnosSos some years
ago. That Palace of Minos first showed an
astonished modern world that Crete, long be-
fore Greece or Rome, was one Of the glamor-
GUS places Of the earth.
Earthquakes and time buried the remains
of Crete SO effectively that it almost lost its
rightful space in the history of civilization.
Now these ruins are being examined and the
part that Crete played its influence on Greece
and other countries is more fully understood.
The theater, tound at Phaestos is one of
these long lost fragments Of history.
Prof Pernier. deeply impressed by the mean
ing of the ruins, writes:
''One cannot doubt the theatrical as well as
the monumental meaning of the construction.
I have seen here the oldest theater in the
world which archaeological excavations have
returned to light"
Even wrecked by time, the plan Is easily seen.
There is . large obluog space paved with
limestone flags That Is the stage. On two
sides of this stage rise broad steps,