Acting and the Remains of the Dead: Remembering Polus on Early Modern Stages

Authors

Tanya Pollard

Abstract

Although scholars have explored early modern playwrights’ debts to classical literary models, few have examined the period’s similar fascination with classical actors. This essay argues that classical anecdotes about actors shaped early modern thinking about the theatrical craft, and especially about the boundary between real and feigned passions. In particular, a famous story from antiquity about the actor Polus and the ashes of his dead son prompted reflections on conjuring passion onstage through the remains of the dead. As later writers revisited this iconic scene, they experimented with other kinds of material remains in order to imagine unsettling acts of reanimation. This essay identifies the period’s preoccupation with onstage skulls and skeletons, and their fabled afterlives, with Polus’s ghost.

Recommended Citation

Pollard, Tanya (2025) "Acting and the Remains of the Dead: Remembering Polus on Early Modern Stages," Comparative Drama: Vol. 59: Iss. 3, Article 1.
Available at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/compdr/vol59/iss3/1