In recent years, there have been significant advances in the study of comedy dialogues from communicative and pragmatic perspectives. The plays by Plautus and Terence have proven to be a crucial source to investigate linguistic politeness, discourse markers and speech acts, to name but a few. The present paper aims to show how the insights from those pragmatically oriented studies might shed more light on the on-stage interaction, as designed in the text at our disposal. During my presentation, I will focus on the dynamics of taking turns speaking by the characters of one selected play, Plautus' Casina. Different conversational styles (collaborative vs disruptive) will be related to the speakers' social status and gender, while the pace and structure of dialogues will be confronted with the scene type. As a way of conclusion, I will stress the importance of nuanced linguistic analysis for studying dramaturgical aspects of Plautus' comedies.

Łukasz Berger earned his doctoral degree in 2015 after defending a thesis on pragmatic aspects of dialogue opening in Plautus. Currently, he is working as an assistant professor in the Classical Department of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań (Poland), where he continues his investigation of verbal interaction in Roman comedy. He is also a co-director of students' theatre Sfinga which every year stages its own interpretation of ancient comedies (Plautus, Terence, Aristophanes).

Since the Casina prologue refers to the play’s revival, parts of the prologue (5–22) have been traditionally interpreted as later interpolation documenting that revival performance. Yet that same part of the prologue features poetologic imagery paralleled throughout the play itself, betraying a much more organic relation than one would expect from a revival production notice that is simply patched onto the existing script. That would mean that the text of the play must have undergone considerable interventions so as to correspond to the newly-composed revival prologue. A more plausible alternative scenario, is to take the prologue not as evidence of revival but as a genuinely Plautine joke about his own revival. Internal clues (humorous references to the SC de Bacchanalibus, dated 186 BCE) indicate that the Casina might be one of Plautus’ last plays, possibly last—a ‘swansong’ occasion for joking about his afterlife. A selection of ancient sources illustrate the rationale behind calculated contribution to one’s own immediate posthumous legacy.

Goran Vidović is a Latinist with a strong interest in ancient drama, from Aeschylus to late-antiquity, and beyond. He has published on Greek tragedy, Aristophanes, Livy, Roman comedy, late antique comedy, and early Christian apocrypha; his doctoral dissertation is on metapoetry in Terence (Cornell 2016). He teaches various advanced level Latin courses (comedy, satire, prose composition), and enjoys producing select palliata scenes with students in Latin.

Fingere verba seems to be a frequent practice of Plautus who uses the language to increase the comicality of his plays. Such facetious neologisms must have been understood by the audience, otherwise the jokes would not make any sense in the comedies. However, there are few passages where the author explains his new coined lexemes through the words of the characters of the play. In my speech I wish to examine these utterances to check, why in these particular places Plautus discloses the process of word formation, how does he describe and call neologisms and does it help the spectators to perceive and appreciate his verbal innovations. My preliminary research shows that most of these passages concern legal neologisms (intestabilis — Cur. 30–32; parenticida — Epid. 349–351; rabo – Truc. 687–690) and one of them contains a comic name (Subballio — Ps. 607–609). The playwright explains the etymology of the new Latin words or shows how he adapts a Greek wordplay (arrabo–rabo) for the Roman spactators. Thus he intensifies the power of the jokes and their impact on the audience.

Joanna Picezonka was awarded with her MA degree in Classics in 2005 (thesis: Law and mos maiorum in Plautus’ comedies) and then she continued to do a PhD on Reception of Roman Legal Thought in Plautine Comedies (dissertation in 2010). Afterwards she joined the Department of Latin in the Institute of Classical, Mediterranean and Oriental Studies in Wrocław, where nowadays she continues to work as an assistant professor. Meanwhile she finished MA studies in Law (thesis defended in 2004: The Legal Character of the Franchising Agreement). In her work she constantly tries to combine her two main research areas: Roman law and Latin literature.

In 2018 Péter Závada (born 1982), a known and popular Hungarian poet, ex-slammer published Je suis Amphitryon, a verse drama. Strong polyphony characterises this post-dramatic work: the voice of six mythological characters tell a non-linear story, with no connection to a concrete space or time. From this polyphonic canon secedes the seemingly coherent portrayal of people familiar to us from both mythology and everyday life. With this contemporary tragedy of identity Závada joins a diverse literally tradition, going beyond the myth adaptations of Plautus, Molière or Kleist. Závada boldly continues the drama of Amphitryon, Jupiter and Alcmene, on the one hand giving voice to them, all post-traumatic in his reading, on the other hand approximating the story to our present. (He finds this language through poets reflecting on mythology, like Anne Carson or Carol Ann Duffy.) The meta-theatrical allusions of the Amphitryon trope referring to theatre, impersonation, role-play, masks, already present in the case of Plautus, are given a solid context of theatre theory in Závada’s text. In my presentation I analyse, next to comparing and interpreting these allusions, how the dissolution of identity and the disappearance of the belief in a unified subject are thematised in the Plautine setting.

Tamás Jászay is an assistant lecturer at the Department of Comparative Literature at the Faculty of Arts of Szeged University, Hungary, where he teaches theatre history, theatre theory, world literature, myth criticism. His main research field is contemporary theatre. He is a guest lecturer at the University of Theater and Film Arts in Budapest, giving lectures about trends in contemporary theatre. Besides that, he is a theatre critic and editor of the critical portal called Revizor (www.revizoronline.com).

This paper presents a focused comparative study of two of the most influential and most metacomedically aware sitcoms in the Western world: the Roman comedy of Plautus and the 1990s NBC series Seinfeld. Three kinds of dramatic techniques are particularly rich points of comparison. Both Plautus and Seinfeld use doubling of characters, plots, and scenes to tie together episodic narratives, to bring out aspects of characterization latent in stock types, and to draw attention to underlying themes or social issues. In each, both improvisation and especially scripted "improvisation" by characters drive plots forward (or derail plots in favor of funny business). And metatheater – in its basic "play within a play" form, in fourth-wall-breaking jokes and storylines, and in comic parody of other genres – is central to the character of Plautine comedy and Seinfeld both. While there are no direct allusions to Plautus in Seinfeld, paired close readings of comic routines and techniques illuminate understandings of each. Plautus helps us better see how the humor in Seinfeld functions, and Seinfeld vividly illustrates the successful staging methods and subtle acting choices that enlivened Plautine performance but have largely evaporated in the manuscript tradition.

T. H. M. Gellar-Goad is Associate Professor of Classics and Zachary T. Smith Fellow at Wake Forest University. He specializes in Roman poetry, especially the funny stuff: Roman comedy, Roman satire, Roman erotic elegy, and — if you believe him — the allegedly philosophical poet Lucretius. He is the author of Laughing Atoms, Laughing Matter: Lucretius' De Rerum Natura and Satire, forthcoming from University of Michigan Press.

Plautus’ plays have exerted a massive influence on the development of comedy over the centuries and have become an inspiration for authors choosing a comedy genre. During my presentation, I will focus on the Renaissance work of the Italian writer Ludovico Ariosto, who developed a previously unknown type of humanistic comedy, commedia erudita. I will concentrate on his play La Cassaria, which has as a model Plautus' Cistellaria and, moreover, is considered the first commedia erudita. I will also mention the circumstances of the creation of the Ariosto’s comedy and his connection with the family d'Este and the city of Ferrara. Then, I will proceed to recount historical facts that influenced the emerging interest in Sarsinate's plays during the Renaissance. Finally, I will seek to compare La Cassaria with its ancient model in order to indicate both the most distinctive Plautine features and the elements of innovation in Ariosto's reworking of the genre.

Klaudia Stachowicz is a student of master degree Mediterranean Studies at the University of Adam Mickiewicz in Poznań at the Faculty of Polish and Classical Philology. She is interested in the culture and languages of the Mediterranean countries and the ancient civilizations of these areas. In addition, she is fascinated by travel and tourism. She spent six months living and studying in Italy. In 2018 she defended her BA thesis on the carnival traditions in Europe, comparing the elements of the contemporary carnival to Roman Saturnalia and medieval fools' feasts. She is currently preparing to defend her master thesis on Plautus' influence on Italian erudite comedy.

In the comedies of Plautus, rituals represent a significant performative element and an important reference field for the recipients. In addition, in his dramatic texts one stumbles across passages that allow a reconstruction of performance structures which in their presumable materialisation on stage allude to rituals, without enabling the recipient to unambiguously interpret them as ritual acts. However, these patterns of action, elements of representation, smaller sequences of performative operations and other references to ritual actions preserve the emotional charge and affective potential of the original rituals. As a result, these particular performance structures implicitly evoke rituals and provoke specific reception effects.
In the Mostellaria, during the complexly composed house visiting scene, the clever slave Tranio transforms an ekphrasis of a non-existing picture into a metaphoric description of the concrete performance. The metaphors, performative elements and verbalisations used, I will argue, invite the recipient to imagine a ritual on stage and – by a skilful play with the conventions of theatre – to participate in it, in order to give religious legitimisation to the tricks and pranks carried out by the clever slave. This “implicit ritual” serves as a catalyst of laughter and therefore contributes to the entertainment factor of the comedy.

After graduating in Latin and Sociology of Culture at the University of Ljubljana, Blaž Ploj worked as a high school teacher and assistant at the Universities of Ljubljana and Maribor. Currently, he is a researcher and PhD candidate at the Department of Classical Philology of the University of Graz, at the University of Erfurt and at the International Graduate School “Resonant Self-World Relations in Ancient and Modern Socio-Religious Practices”.

It has been long and justly recognised that the scene of the main hero’s madness in Plautus’ Menaechmi (835–71) had been inspired by the tragic tradition. However, the way in which scholars tried to identify its intertext has never been successful, as I intend to argue, mostly because it has usually been assumed that more than one tragedy has been parodied by Plautus, and that he made his character impersonate two, three or even more mythical figures. This seems to be only partially true, as Menaechmus really seems to shift his make-believe identity, following various models of madness. However, these models, as I want to argue, are provided by various characters of a single tragedy – Naevius’ Lycurgus, the drama, which is alluded to (and perhaps even quoted verbatim) by the very first words that Menaechmus speaks in the beginning of the scene († Bromie, quo me in siluam uenatum uocas?). Thanks to a new interpretation of the Naevius’ fragments (along with the Aeschylean Lycurgeia, which had been adapted by the Roman tragic poet), a new understanding of the whole scene is possible, including its performative aspect. Within my reconstruction, of particular importance was the woman’s dress which, in the beginning of the scene, the hero carried in his hands. When he started pretending a madman, he put it on, thus assimilating a tragic cinaedus…

Bartłomiej Bednarek, MA (2009), PhD (2015) in Classics, Jagiellonian University in Kraków (Poland) 2009. His PhD thesis “Dionysian Myth in Greek Poetry from Homer to Euripides” was published in 2015. From 2014 to 2016 he worked as a research assistant in the project Animal Sacrifice in Ancient Greece in the Light of Philological Data (Jagiellonian University), in 2017 publishing a book “Animal Sacrifice in Aristophanes and Old Comedy”. From December 2016 he is a post-doc fellow at the Institute of History, University of Warsaw, with the project “Cultural Palimpsest: The History of the Greek Myth of Lycurgus, the King of Edonians”.

Students’ Classical Theatre Sfinga that works at the Department of Classical Philology at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan has been performing Plautus’ plays for over twenty years. They debuted with comedy Miles Gloriosus in 1997. Over the years they staged various plays of the playwriter in order to prove themselves and their audience that certain themes and Plautine humor are still not only alive but also deeply emerged into the temporary culture.

The main purpose of Sfinga has always been making their audience familiar with Plautus and while paying special attention to serve the ancient taste. During my lecture I will do my best to show how each spectacle can turn into the double dimension. At first we bring the story from pages to the stage and later from culture to culture. It uses double translation of text and contects.

In the discourse I will elaborate on the following plays: Miles Gloriosus, Amphitruo, Asinaria, Casina. I will present how owing to available theatrical elements (costumes, music or scenography) we have managed to make some performances acquire new, fresh meanings and some change into musicals, burlesque or operetta. The lecture will be supported by audiovisual presentation.

Katarzyna Kaniecka-Juszczak is a senior lecturer in the section of Latin language at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan since 2009. The subject of her research has been focused on issues related to Roman comedy, especially its theatrical aspect. She has worked on the matter of stagecraft in plays of ancient comedy. She has developed her interests in the ancient theatre while working as a leader of Students' Classical Theatre "Sfinga". Under her directorship, the theatre presented plays by ancient playwriters such as: Plautus, Terence, Seneca or Aristophanes.

The paper is going to present the first Czech translation of Plautus’ Curculio, a co-joint work of students and scholars from Masaryk University, Czech Republic, which arose from collaboration of specialists in Classical Theatre and Classical Philology. The aim was to create a text suitable both for theatrical staging and silent reading. The performative qualities of the translation were tested in a student production premiered in January 2018. Firstly, the Czech tradition of translating Plautus is going to be introduced together with the assessment of their potential translatorial slips and drawbacks. Then, the current project will be presented and several strategies, that the authors used while translating and staging the play, will be illustrated by examples.

Eliška Poláčková has a position of Assistant Professor at the Department of Theatre Studies, Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University, and postgraduate position at the Centre of Classical Studies at the Department of Philosophy, CAS. Her research interests comprise Classical, especially Roman Theatre and Drama, Medieval Theatre and Drama, and Theatre Translation. Poláčková received her Ph.D. Degree for the thesis Theatricality of Bohemian Literature of the Fourteenth Century. She co-translated Plautus’ play Curculio, and dramaturged its student production (in collaboration with the Department of Classical Studies, FA MU).

Tomáš Weissar is a Ph.D. student at the Department of Classical Studies, Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University. Above all, he is dealing with Bohemian medieval spiritual poems (he received his master degree for the thesis Poetics of Religious Poems by Dominican Domaslav and His School). During studies he has been a president of a student club for a long time and also a producer of the student theatre society “Titivillus”. He participated in translating Plautus’ play Curculio and directed its subsequent production.

The general idea of the workshop is to introduce the participants into the stage world of Titus Maccius Plautus and his palliate. The workshop will be divided into three parts: In the first one, extracts from Plautine plays will be discussed with regard to the way they could have been staged in Plautus' time, especially as far as the stage business (gestures, postures, movement) is concerned. In the second part, the participants will be encouraged, through the series of drama group and pair exercises, to activate their bodily perception in order to be able to take part in the third section of the workshop, exercise in staging Plautus.

Requirements: No acting skills and/or experience is needed. The workshop is supposed to help you grasp the materiality of Plautine performance. What is needed, though, is the readiness to take part in the workshop not only through your brains but also through your bodies.

Eliška Poláčková has a position of Assistant Professor at the Department of Theatre Studies, Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University, and postgraduate position at the Centre of Classical Studies at the Department of Philosophy, CAS. Her research interests comprise Classical, especially Roman Theatre and Drama, Medieval Theatre and Drama, and Theatre Translation. Poláčková received her Ph.D. Degree for the thesis Theatricality of Bohemian Literature of the Fourteenth Century. She co-translated Plautus’ play Curculio, and dramaturged its student production (in collaboration with the Department of Classical Studies, FA MU).

Łukasz Berger earned his doctoral degree in 2015 after defending a thesis on pragmatic aspects of dialogue opening in Plautus. Currently, he is working as an assistant professor in the Classical Department of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań (Poland), where he continues his investigation of verbal interaction in Roman comedy. He is also a co-director of students' theatre Sfinga which every year stages its own interpretation of ancient comedies (Plautus, Terence, Aristophanes).