Download Theater in the Roman World

THEATER TRADITIONS
OF ANCIENT ROME
ROMANS ENJOYED THE THEATER
• The Romans enjoyed many types of theater
including:
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Musical performances
Plays
Acrobatics
Pantomimes
• They liked many different kinds of plays:
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Comedies
Tragedies
Romances
Histories
• The Romans adapted many of their theater
traditions from the Greeks
ROMAN THEATER, MERIDA, SPAIN, 1615 BC
WHO WERE ROME’S GREAT
PLAYWRIGHTS?
Some of the great Roman playwrights include:
• Livius Andronicus (c. 240 BC) - a Greek slave taken to Rome
who wrote plays based on Greek originals
• Terence (wrote 170-160 BC) – a
comic playwright
• Plautus (3rd Century BC) – a comic
playwright
• Seneca (1st century AD) – his nine
surviving tragedies were all adapted
from Greek originals
A bust of Seneca
HOW WERE PLAYS STAGED?
• Musicians often accompanied plays
• Actors often wore masks with exaggerated facial
features that helped to convey the nature of their
characters
• Costumes for comedies were simple – a tunic, a
cloak (long for female characters, short for male
characters) and a mask; actors in tragedies were
often costumed in a more complex way
• A periaktos (a wooden pyramid that revolved) was
placed on the stage; each side was painted with
an image that indicated the subject of the play
MOSAIC DEPICTING MASKS OF
TRAGEDY AND COMEDY, 2ND C. AD
WHAT ABOUT THE ACTORS?
• Actors had low social standing in ancient Rome:
they were infamis, without honor
• At the same time, actors sometimes achieved both
fame and fortune; they were celebrities much like
actors and actresses today
• Women’s parts were played by men during the
Republic; during the Empire, women did appear on
stage, typically in minor roles
MOSAIC DEPICTING ACTORS AND A
MUSICIAN, POMPEII, 1ST C AD
MOSAIC DEPICTING ACTORS: TWO
WOMEN CONSULT A WITCH, POMPEII,
1ST C AD
FOR FURTHER REFERENCE:
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Beacham, R.C., The Roman Theatre and its Audience, Harvard University Press,
1991.
Dorey and Dudley, editors, Roman Drama, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1965.
Duckworth, George E., The Nature of Roman Comedy, 2nd Edition, Bristol Classical
Press, 1994.
Izenour, George, Roofed Theaters in Classical Antiquity, Yale University Press, 1992.
McLeish, Kenneth, Roman Comedy, Bristol Classical Press 1976.
Neiiendam, Klaus, The Art of Acting in Antiquity, Museum Tusculanum Press 1992.
Segal, Erich, Roman Laughter: The Comedy of Plautus, 2nd Edition, Oxford University
Press, 1987
Slater, Niall, Plautus in Performance, Princeton University Press, 1985.
Sutton, Dana Ferrin, Seneca on the Stage,Brill Academic Publishers, 1986.
Wiles, David, The Masks of Menander, Cambridge University Press, 1991.
• The website of Didaskalia, an online journal dedicated to Greek and Roman
performance, is interesting and informative: http://www.didaskalia.net