By: Nicole Massat
Most of us know that ancient Greece was the birthplace of modern-day theater. Dating back to the sixth century BCE, Athens was where performance grew through the culture of song and dance. But how does drag performance fit into the world of Greek theater? Today, we’re going to take a trip back into the her-story of Greek drag, and how the art form has evolved in the country to what it is today.
The word “drag” was first penned in the 1380s, but it didn’t become a widely used term until the 19th century. We’ll talk about the word’s use a little later. Before there was theater in Greece, there were festivals. Tragedy plays were a common occurrence at religious festivals, which in time turned into comedy plays. However, the common theme of these festivities was the lack of female participation. Women were not only forbidden from performing in these plays, but they were banned from watching them, as well. In ancient Greek culture, women were inferior to men in many ways, but the reasoning behind prohibiting women in theater was because men believed performance was too “dangerous” for women- all that fighting and yelling on-stage would be too much for a delicate woman! So men played both male and female roles.
While the ancient Greeks did not think of sexual orientation as a social identifier, and therefore had no issues with playing female roles, a different type of dilemma emerged as theater became a more common concept: playing the role right. Although women were barred from certain privileges such as owning land and working certain jobs, they were still recognized as necessary to society. In order to truly capture the essence of a woman character, male performers would exaggerate their words and gestures to sound more feminine, on top of dressing in skirts and wearing wigs. While both male and female characters wore masks and tunics in typical performances, longer hair and shorter tunics represented a woman on-stage. These physical props, as well the exaggerated feminine tones and body language, were necessary for audience members to differentiate the sex of characters. This is where the performance piece of drag was born.
Let’s go back to the word “drag”. The term was initially used in British theater to describe the petticoats of male performers playing women “dragging” on the ground. Because women character costumes typically consisted of long skirts or dresses, the phrase “putting on drags” became associated with playing a female role. The word jumped out of the theater world in the 1920s and quickly became associated with the gay community, especially in the Western hemisphere. In Greece, homosexuality has always been known and accepted. Pederasty, known as a same-sex relationship between an older man and a younger boy, was a socially accepted commonality in ancient Greece. Greek society did not distinguish sexual desire or behavior by the gender of the participants, but rather by the role that each participant played in the act. While the form is no longer practiced in Greece today, it holds an important piece in the country’s LGBTQ history.
Today, drag in Greece is met with mixed reactions. While Greece is known for being an active ally country to the LGBTQ community and widely accepts same-sex marriage, many misconceptions about drag make Greek residents wary of the art form. Many Greeks believe drag is the act of transitioning to a female identity completely, not just for a performance. Females playing male roles are even more of a rarity. Drag is also associated with only nightlife and drinking, when the performance goes so much deeper than that. There are only five active drag bars in the city of Athens (as of 2018), and performers are paid poorly, if at all. Drag performers are commonly victims of violence and ridicule in the country, especially following the murder of Zak Kostopoulos in 2018, a widely known queen, activist, and member of the LGBTQ community. While police only reported 27 acts of violence against the LGBTQ community in 2018, over 100 acts were committed in reality. These numbers and misbeliefs alone show the progress the country has yet to make in terms of accepting the drag community as a common practice.
In short, ancient Greece has many ties to modern day drag performance. There’s still many speculations about the origins of Greek theater and how it correlates to drag specifically, but it’s clear that theater and drag are closely related regardless of said speculations. With each passing year the community becomes more normalized in Greece, and with every act of violence there are many acts of love. For the near future, there’s hope for complete acceptance of drag representation.
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