This paper seeks to gather, organise and assess the evidencefor the use of theatre space in Euripides’ fragmentarily preserved tragedies,with the purpose of supplementing the data provided by the extant corpus forthe staging practice in the theatre of Dionysus during the second half of thefifth century BC . It is pointed out that the available evidence tells in favourof the use of a second door (presumably one of the entrances in paraskenia)in several fragmentary plays (Danae, Philoctetes, Cresphontes, Phaethon, Palamedes, Antiope, Theseus, Polyidos, conceivably Dictys and Alexandros) and ofscene-painting, often in conjunction with staging innovations, in a number oftragedies located before a cave (Philoctetes, Antiope, Andromeda) or in the countryside (Bellerophon). The altar is employed by Euripides as early as 438 BC(Telephos) and in several lost plays (Alcmene, Alexandros, Phrixos I), whilstthe crane — a Euripidean innovation par excellence — must have been usedonly when necessary and when suggested by textual evidence (Bellerophon,Andromeda, Phrixos II, presumably Stheneboea). Overall, the testimonies offragmentary tragedies in combination with those of the extant plays suggestthat Euripides’ staging practice seems to have been part of an evolutionaryprocess conditioned by dramatic needs, his experimentation with tragic genreand the expansion of staging possibilities from the mid-fifth century onwards.
