Theatre of ancient Greece

For other uses of "Greek Theatre", see Greek theatre (disambiguation).

The Dionysos Theatre in Athens built into the Acropolis, ~3rd century BC.

The Greek theatre (AE theater) or Greek drama is a theatrical tradition that flourished in ancient Greece between c. 550 and c. 220 BC. Athens, the political and military power in Greece during this period, was the center of ancient Greek theatre. Tragedy (late 6th century BC), comedy (~486 BC), and satyr plays were some of the theatrical forms to emerge in the world. Greek theatre and plays have had a lasting impact on Western drama and culture.

It is in ancient Greece that the origin of western theatre is to be found. It developed from a state festival in Athens, honoring the god Dionysus. The Athenian city-state exported the festival to its numerous allies in order to promote a common identity.

The Early Tragedy

The origins of Greek drama are obscure. Early tradition holds that drama and comedy evolved from the dithyramb, the songs, folk tales and dances offered to Dionysus, the Greek god of fertility and wine. Our oldest source for this tradition is Aristotle's Poetics, in which Aristotle states:

"In any case, tragedy did grow out of an improvisational beginning, both it and comedy, the former from those who led off the dithyramb, the other from those who led off the phallic performances."

The word tragoidia, from which the English word tragedy is derived, is a portmanteau of two Greek words: tragos, "the goat", which is akin to "gnaw", and odia meaning song, from aeidein, to sing. This explains the very rare archaic translation as "goat-men sacrifice song". At the least, it indicates a link with the practices of the ancient Dionysian cults. It is impossible, however, to know with certainty how these fertility rituals became the basis for tragedy and comedy. Also, until the Hellenistic period, all tragedies were unique pieces written in honor of Dionysus, so that today we only have the pieces that were still remembered well enough to have been repeated when repetition of old tragedies became fashion. It was considered a decline of the original, one-time-played tragedy.

Panoramic view of the Greek theatre at Epidaurus.

According to legend, Greek tragedy as we know it was created in Athens, ca. 530 BCE by a man known as Thespis. He was the exarchon, or leader, of the dithyrambs performed in and around Attica, especially at the rural Dionysia. By Thespis' time the dithyramb had evolved far away from its cult roots. Under the influence of heroic epic, Doric choral lyric and the innovations of the poet Arion, it had become a narrative, ballad-like genre. Thespis probably aided in the final transition from dithyramb to tragedy by adding characters who speak (rather than sing) with their own voice (rather than a single narrative chorus). Because of these, Thespis is often called the "Father of Tragedy"; however, his importance is disputed, and Thespis is sometimes listed as late as sixteenth in the chronological order of Greek tragedians. For example, the statesman Solon is credited with creating poems in which characters speak with their own voice, and spoken recitations, known as rhapsodes, of Homer's epics were popular in festivals prior to 534 B.C. Thus, Thespis' true contribution to drama is unclear at best, but he is forever immortalized in a common term for performer, thespian.

Tragedy was something new and important to the Athenians - this is made clear by the creation of a tragedy competition and festival in City Dionysia. This was organized possibly to foster loyalty among the tribes of Attica (recently created by Cleisthenes). The festival was created roughly around 508 B.C. While no drama texts exist from the sixth century, we do know the names of three competitors besides Thespis: Choerilus, Pratinas, and Phrynichus. Each is credited with different innovations in the theatre. Little is known of the first two: Choerilus apparently innovated with costume and mask, and Pratinas may have invented the satyr play.

More is known about Phrynichus. He won his first competition between 511 BC and 508 BC. He produced tragedies on themes and subjects later exploited in the golden age such as the Danaids, Phoenician Women and Alcestis. He was the first poet we know of to use a historical subject - his Fall of Miletus, produced in 493-2, chronicled the fate of the town of Miletus after it was conquered by the Persians. Herodotus reports that "the Athenians made clear their deep grief for the taking of Miletus in many ways, but especially in this: when Phrynichus wrote a play entitled “The Fall of Miletus” and produced it, the whole theatre fell to weeping; they fined Phrynichus a thousand drachmas for bringing to mind a calamity that affected them so personally, and forbade the performance of that play forever." He is also thought to be the first to use female characters (though not female performers).

Golden age: new inventions

After the Great Destruction by the Persians in 480 BC, the town and akropolis were rebuilt, and theatre became formalized and an even more major part of Athenian culture and civic pride. This century is normally regarded as the Golden Age of Greek drama. The centerpiece of the annual Dionysia, which took place once in winter and once in spring, was a competition between three tragic playwrights at the Theatre of Dionysus. Each submitted three tragedies, plus a satyr play (a comic, burlesque version of a mythological subject). Beginning in a first competition in 486 BC, each playwright also submitted a comedy.

Aristotle claimed that Aeschylus added the second actor, and that Sophocles added the third actor. Apparently the Greek playwrights never put more than three actors on stage, except in very small roles (such as Pylades in Electra). No women appeared on stage, female roles were played by men. Violence was also never shown on stage. When somebody was about to die, they would take that person to the back to "kill" them and bring them back "dead." The other people near the stage were the chorus which consisted of about 4-8 people who would stand in the back wearing black.

Although there were many playwrights in this era, only the work of four playwrights has survived in the form of complete plays. All are from Athens. These playwrights are the tragedians Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, and the comic writer Aristophanes. Their plays, along with some secondary sources such as Aristotle, are the basis of what is known about Greek theatre. Because of this, there is much that remains unknown about theatre.

Hellenistic period

The power of Athens declined following its defeat in the Peloponnesian War against the Spartans. From that time on, the theatre started playing old plays again. Although its theatrical traditions seem to have lost their vitality, Greek theatre continued into the Hellenistic period (the period following Alexander the Great's conquests in the fourth century BC). However, the primary Hellenistic theatrical form was not tragedy but 'New Comedy', comic farces about the lives of ordinary citizens. The only extant playwright from the period is Menander. One of New Comedy's most important contributions was its influence on Roman comedy, an influence that can be seen in the surviving works of Plautus and Terence.

Characteristics of the building

The plays had a chorus of up to 51 people, who performed the plays in verse accompanied by music. The performance space was a simple half-circular space, the orchestra, where the chorus danced and sang. The orchestra, which had an average diameter of 78 feet, was situated on a flattened terrace at the foot of a hill, the slope of which produced a natural theatron, literally "watching place". Later, the term "theatre" came to be applied to the whole area of theatron, orchestra, and skené. The choragos was the head chorus member who could enter the story as a character able to interact with the characters of a play.

A blueprint of an Ancient Theatre, terms are in Greek language and Latin letters.

The theatres were originally built on a very large scale to accommodate the large number of people on stage, as well as the large number of people in the audience, up to fourteen thousand. Mathematics played a large role in the construction of these theatres, as their designers had to able to create acoustics in them such that the actors' voices could be heard throughout the theatre, including the very top row of seats. The Greeks' understanding of acoustics compares very favorably with the current state of the art, as even with the invention of microphones, there are very few modern large theatres that have truly good acoustics. The first seats in Greek theatres (other than just sitting on the ground) were wooden, but around 499 BC the practice of inlaying stone blocks into the side of the hill to create permanent, stable seating became more common. They were called the "prohedria" and reserved for priests and a few most respected citizens.

In 465 BC, the playwrights began using a backdrop or scenic wall, which hung or stood behind the orchestra, which also served as an area where actors could change their costumes. It was known as the skené, or scene. The death of a character was always heard, “ob skene”, or behind the skene, for it was considered inappropriate to show a killing in view of the audience. The English word 'obscene' is a derivative of 'ob skene.' In 425 BC a stone scene wall, called a paraskenia, became a common supplement to skenes in the theatres. A paraskenia was a long wall with projecting sides, which may have had doorways for entrances and exits. Just behind the paraskenia was the proskenion. The proskenion ("in front of the scene") was columned, and was similar to the modern day proscenium. Today's proscenium is what separates the audience from the stage. It is the frame around the stage that makes it look like the action is taking place in a picture frame.

Greek theatres also had entrances for the actors and chorus members called parodoi. The parodoi (plural of parodos) were tall arches that opened onto the orchestra, through which the performers entered. In between the parodoi and the orchestra lay the eisodoi, through which actors entered and exited. By the end of the 5th century BC, around the time of the Peloponnesian War, the skene, the back wall, was two stories high. The upper story was called the episkenion. Some theatres also had a raised speaking place on the orchestra called the logeion.

Props

There were several prop items commonly used in Greek theatre:

• deus ex machina, a crane that gave the impression of a flying actor
• ekeclema, a wheeled wagon used to bring dead characters into view for the audience
• trap doors, or similar openings in the ground to lift people onto the stage
• Pinakes, pictures hung into the scene to show a scene's scenery
• Thyromata, more complex pictures built into the second-level scene (3rd level from ground)

Writing

Tragedy and comedy were viewed as completely separate genres, and no plays ever merged aspects of the two. Satyr plays dealt with the mythological subject matter of the tragedies, but in a purely comedic manner. However, as they were written over a century after the Athenian Golden Age, it is not known whether dramatists such as Sophocles and Euripides would have thought about their plays in the same terms.

Comedy and Tragedy masks

Tragic Comic Masks Hadrians Villa mosaic.

The comedy and tragedy masks have their origin in the theatre of ancient Greece. The masks were used to show the emotions of the characters in a play, and also to allow actors to switch between roles and play characters of a different gender. The earliest plays were called Satyrs; they were parodies of myths. Their style was much like what we know as Burlesque.

The actors in these plays that had tragic roles wore a boot called a buskin that elevated them above the other actors. The actors with comedic roles only wore a thin soled shoe called a sock.

In order to play female roles, actors wore a “prosterneda” (a wooden structure in front of the chest, to imitate female breasts) and “progastreda” in front of the belly.

Melpomene is the muse of tragedy and is often depicted holding the tragic mask and wearing buskins. Thalia is the muse of comedy and is similarly associated with the mask of comedy and comic’s socks. Some people refer to the masks as “Sock and Buskin.”

Influential authors (listed chronologically)

Tragedies

• Aeschylus (c. 525–456 BC), presumed inventor of tragedy, The Persians (472 BC), The Oresteia (458 BC)
• Phrynichus (~511 BC)
• Euripides (c. 480–406 BC), Sisyphos (415 BC), Oedipus (410 BC)
• Sophocles (c. 495-406 BC), Theban plays cycle (with Oedipus (428 BC) and Antigone (before 441 BC))

Comedies

• Aristophanes (c. 446-388 BC), presumed father of comedy, The Clouds (423 BC), The Birds (414 BC)
• Menander (c. 342-291 BC), chief inventor of the New Comedy, Dyskolos (317 BC)

References

• Buckham, Philip Wentworth
  • Theatre of the Greeks, 1827.
• Davidson, J.A.
  • Literature and Literacy in Ancient Greece, Part 1, Phoenix, 16, 1962, 141-56.
  • Peisistratus and Homer, TAPA, 86, 1955 1-21.
• Easterling, Pat and Hall, Edith (eds.), Greek and Roman Actors: Aspects of an Ancient Profession, 2002. [2]
• Else, Gerald P.
  • Aristotle's Poetics: The Argument, Cambridge, MA 1967.
  • The Origins and Early Forms of Greek Tragedy, Cambridge, MA 1965.
  • The Origins of ΤΡΑΓΩΙΔΙΑ, Hermes, 85, 1957 17-46.
• Haigh, A.E., The Attic Theatre, 1907.
• Lesky, A. Greek Tragedy, trans. H.A. Frankfort, London and New York, 1965.
• Pickard-Cambridge, Sir Arthur Wallace
  • Dithyramb, Tragedy, and Comedy , 1927.
  • The Theatre of Dionysus in Athens, 1946.
  • The Dramatic Festivals of Athens, 1953.
• Ridgeway, William, Origin of Tragedy with Special Reference to the Greek Tragedians, 1910.
• Riu, Xavier, Dionysism and Comedy, 1999. [3]
• Schlegel, Literature, 1809. [4]
• Sourvinou-Inwood, Christiane, Tragedy and Athenian Religion, Oxford University Press, 2003.
• Wiles, David, The Masked Menander: Sign and Meaning in Greek and Roman Performance, 1991.
• Wise, Jennifer, Dionysus Writes: The Invention of Theatre in Ancient Greece, Ithaca, 1998. review
• Zimmerman, B., Greek Tragedy: An Introduction, trans. T. Marier, Baltimore, 1991.

See also

• History of theatre
• Tragedy
• Tragedy#Greek tragedy
• Comedy
• Ancient Greek comedy
• Buskin
• Melpomene
• Thalia
• Theatre of ancient Rome

External links

• Ancient Greek theatre history and articles
• Drama lesson 1: The ancient Greek theatre
• Ancient Greek Theatre