The skênê or screen erected across the back of the acting area created a space that was private, hidden and unseen. The structural opposition of inside and outside, unseen and seen, became a distinctive feature of Greek theatrical space. There has been general acceptance of Taplin's view that the skênê was introduced shortly before or on the occasion of the Oresteia. In the Oresteia we see fully realized almost all the techniques, conventions and structural oppositions associated with the skênê over the next forty years. Taplin's argument that the tragic skênê had a single door, creating a powerful dramatic focus on the point of access between the seen and unseen worlds, seems entirely compelling.

On the skênê was some form of scene-painting, creating the illusion of architectural features. I argued in chapter 2 that the skênê would not have been in place for the day of circular dancing and sacrificial slaughter, when the audience would have wanted a view of the tribal sacrifices that were the natural culmination of the dithyrambic dancing. The purpose of scene-painting was to create out of transient materials the illusion of a stone monument, in accordance with Dionysus' nature as god of illusion and transformation. There can be no question of a representational set, picturing a background appropriate to a specific play. In simple practical terms, it would have been cumbersome to have changed sets between plays. There is no evidence in the art of the period for pictorial backgrounds. In plays set before a cave, the text refers in conventionalized form to a ‘house’ or ‘roof’.