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...original as the English. Others have changed a few consonantal sounds, in accordance with the usage even of the early centuries of our era, but the vowels have been preserved by them without significant change. In English, however, no sound is sufficiently preserved to be understood by an ancient Roman. It was this ultra perversion of the Roman sounds that led to the adoption of the present system. As a change was necessary there seemed no better course than to adopt the pronunciation which according to sufficient evidence was, so far as any approximation can be made to a foreign...
Then again, as a representative form of amusement in which the Romans took great delight, and which was associated with their great religious festivals, the play is worth attention. A play was originally a rite, a fact which accounts for the extremely conventional character and frequent unreality of the earliest Greek drama. Our modern dramatic realism is a thing of very late development and, though a Roman play was in one sense far from being religious, it retained many traces of its ancient origin. The religion of the Greeks and Romans was almost entirely free from introspection, self-abasement...
...presentation of the Phormio is a unique achievement. Although Latin plays are established features in England, both pronunciation and music are there modernized; and, although once before a Latin play was given in this country, the pronunciation of the Roman Catholic church was then used. No Latin play has ever been given in modern times that so nearly reproduces ancient conditions as does the Phormio. It has meant an immense amount of work; hardly any of the actors had ever made a study of dramatic expression before, and, even if they had, they were confronted by problems which no actor...
...many respects Sanders Theatre is very well suited to the production of a Latin play. There is the semicircular orchestra (where the Roman senators sat), the low Roman stage and the handsome permanent back wall with a Latin inscription at the top of it. As in the Roman theatre, too, the seats for the audience are benches, not chairs, and slope up from around the orchestra in wedges with the stairs between. Unfortunately for the present purpose, these benches do not run to the top of the theatre in one tier. The other important difference from the ancient theatre...
...Roman theatre, it is probable that the scenery did not extend to the top of the permanent back wall. Accordingly, the scenery which Mr. O. B. Story designed reaches only to the base line of the gallery above the stage, leaving this and the inscription over it visible. The scene represents the fronts of three houses in a street in Athens, and is the same throughout the entire play. It is excellently designed and executed; but if possible, even greater success has been achieved in the painting on the curtain...