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THEATER TRADITIONS OF ANCIENT ROME ROMANS ENJOYED THE THEATER • The Romans enjoyed many types of theater including: • • • • Musical performances Plays Acrobatics Pantomimes • They liked many different kinds of plays: • • • • 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: • • • • • • • • • • 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