knock-knock

Blackadder the Third (1987)

The 'door-knocking scene' has long been an opportunity for comic business. What I suppose was initially a solution to the problems of entry and exit to  and from the stage quickly became a standard bit in the dramatic comedies of ancient Athens. Door-knocking scenes occur elsewhere in Greek literature: in tragedy, in Plato's dialogues, in Athenian law-court speeches, even in one of Aesop's fables (Perry #246) and yes! in Christian texts. While these incidences may also reflect the simple facts of everyday life - one assumes life ran fairly high in antiquity - the influence of the comic door-knocking scene is never too far away.

Impertinent butler!

Entries and exits are very frequently managed in tragedy by having one character announce the approach of another. These characters then simply enter from one of the parodoi or eisodoi (our stage-left and stage-right). Door-knocking scenes are still required, however, to facilitate interactions between the interior of houses which are 'off-stage' in ancient drama and the stage itself. Aeschylus, despite often being perceived as heavy, old-fashioned, and a little bit "gothic" (for which Aristophanes' Frogs is largely responsible) was quite clearly a big fan of door-knocking scenes and uses them to not only provide tension but also some comic relief. In Libation Bearers, Orestes arrives at the palace of his mother Clytemnestra and her boyfriend Aegisthus, basically with the intention of murdering both of them to avenge his father Agamemnon. Obviously then, since we know what Orestes is planning, his arrival should be a tense scene. His aggressive and impatient knocking on the door is perhaps appropriate if we read it as representing Orestes' nervous energy, but the tension is probably released as we laugh at the porter's response:

Orestes
Boy! Boy! Hear my knocking at the outer door! Who is inside? Boy! Boy! I say again, who is at home? Again for the third time I call for some one to come out of the house, if by Aegisthus' will it offers welcome to strangers.

Servant
Yes, yes, I hear. Of what land is the stranger, and whence?

(Libation Bearers 653-7, trans. H.W. Smyth, full-text available on Perseus) 

Some would argue that there is no real humour intended here, and obviously how the scene is interpreted on-stage will make a big difference, but anyone familiar with Shakespeare's Macbeth knows there's nothing dissonant about having a comic porter in a tragedy. The porter in Aeschylus' play only speaks this line with Orestes' nurse getting the monologue after Clytemnestra admits him unaware of his true identity. The hungover porter of Macbeth perhaps reminds more of the Watchman in the opening scene of Aeschylus' Agamemnon (watch it here). For another, non-door-knocking related example, at a performance of La Traviata recently I was pleasantly surprised by the execution of the comic interlude before Alfredo dishonours Violetta with his winnings from the table. As Fielding has it: 

Before we proceed any farther in this tragedy we shall leave Mr Joseph and Mr Adams to themselves, and imitate the wise conductors of the stage, who in the midst of a grave action entertain you with some excellent piece of satire or humour called a dance... 

(Joseph Andrews Bk. 3 Ch. 10)

Groucho and Chico in Horse Feathers (1932)

Given the importance of door-knocking for drama in general - and not just comedy - we are lucky that monkey business with all sorts of portals has never really gone away. My point here is that modern comedy, since the advent of film, is an extremely underutilized resource for teaching and research when it comes to ancient comedy. It is immensely rewarding to see how a setup can be repeated throughout literary history from Aristophanes and Aeschylus to Shakespeare to Seinfeld or (god forbid) Friends. I am being a tad ironical but I also mean a certain iconoclasm. Comparison need not imply equivalence but why bother teaching Aristophanes if it doesn't also make us reflect on ourselves and our own cultural consumptions. On the other side, if a few scenes from a popular sitcom can get us thinking about physical comedy and stage business then the comparison is worthwhile for stimulating engagement with ancient material. (On this note I should direct the reader to a blog post I wrote last year for my department's blog). Such approaches are vulnerable to criticism about the inappropriateness or invalidity of the comparison. All it takes is one similarity, however, and maybe we can then begin to see the differences in a really productive way. 

The locus classicus for door-knocking scenes in ancient comedy is undoubtedly Dicaeopolis come to Euripides for tragic rags in Aristophanes' Acharnians. It is my personal favourite in any case so I will leave you with this and invite you to think of modern counterparts (so long).

Acharnians 393-404