Proskenion


Proskenion

 

(1) In the Greek theater of the classical era (fifth and fourth centuries B.C.), the wooden facade of the skene or a special decorative wall erected in front of it. In a tragedy, in which the action often took place in front of a palace or temple, the proskenion usually represented a roofed colonnade of such a building. In a comedy, it usually represented the facade of a dwelling.

(2) In the theater of the Hellenistic era (fourth through first centuries B.C.), the proskenion was a stone structure attached to the skene in the form of a colonnade or portico with a flat wooden roof. Plays were presented on this roof, and the word proskenion came to signify not just the structure but the acting space itself.

proskenion

In the ancient Greek theater, a building before the skene; the earliest high Hellenistic stage; later, the front of the stage.