Q 01/05

Which word for a two-faced person comes from the ancient Greek term for a stage actor?

A) Charlatan

B) Impostor

C) Hypocrite

D) Dissembler

Answer · why

C) Hypocrite

Hypocrite descends from the Greek hypokrites, a technical term for a stage actor that Athenians thought no fit role for a public figure. Roman disdain...

Q 02/05

Which Theban tragedy, Aristotle's model in the Poetics, won only second prize when first staged?

A) Oedipus Rex

B) Medea

C) The Bacchae

D) Prometheus Bound

Answer · why

A) Oedipus Rex

Oedipus Rex won only second place at its first performance, yet Aristotle's Poetics cites it repeatedly as the tragedy that best fits his rules for th...

Q 03/05

Which comedy was on at Ford's Theatre when Lincoln was shot, the gunshot timed to a laugh line?

A) Uncle Tom's Cabin

B) Our American Cousin

C) The Octoroon

D) Rip Van Winkle

Answer · why

B) Our American Cousin

Our American Cousin was the comedy John Wilkes Booth, a Confederate sympathiser and stage actor, chose so that his gunshot would be masked by the audi...

Q 04/05

Which stage wish replaces 'good luck', traced by one theory to German pilots' Hals- und Beinbruch?

A) In bocca al lupo

B) Chookas

C) Toi toi toi

D) Break a leg

Answer · why

D) Break a leg

Break a leg is the English stage idiom for wishing a performer good luck, since saying the words outright is thought to invite the opposite. German ha...

Q 05/05

Which orange-seller turned comic actress, praised by Pepys, became a mistress of Charles II?

A) Moll Davis

B) Elizabeth Barry

C) Anne Bracegirdle

D) Nell Gwyn

Answer · why

D) Nell Gwyn

Nell Gwyn began as a teenage orange-girl hawking sixpenny 'china' oranges inside the theatre before joining its actresses at about 14. Pepys praised h...