Download Theatre in the western world can be traced back to ancient Greece

Greek Theatre
Theatre in the western world can be traced back to ancient Greece,
especially to Athens. Even though they were the inventors of democracy they did
not consider everyone equal. They had slave labor and women were permitted no
public role. They believed that man was responsible for his action and that was
new thinking because up until then people had thought that the gods were
responsible for man’s actions and that man was just a pawn on the supernatural.
This new thinking was probably responsible for the development of Greek
drama.
Greeks believed that happiness was dependent on harmony between human and
supernatural forces and believed that this harmony could easily be broken. Greek
tragedy often dramatizes the interrelationships between the human and the
divine.
The first record of a theatrical event in Athens is the establishment in 534 B.C. of
a contest for the best tragedy. The first winner was Thespis, the earliest
playwright and actor whose name has come down to us. Thus Thespians. This
actor playwright is also credited with introducing masks into the Greek plays.
Greek drama was presented exclusively at festivals honoring Dionysus The god
of wine and drama and fertility. Supposedly he was the son of Zeus and Semele,
He was killed (allegedly by Hera, Zeus’s wife) and dismembered, resurrected and
diefied. Also known as Bacchus – baccanales.
The major Dionysian festival in Athens was the City Dionysia, extending
over several days near the end of March. By the 5th century B.C. Athens held 4
festivals in honor of Dionysus each year ; at 3 of these theatrical performances
were offered. Plays were not presented at the festivals of other gods.
Athens was the originator of the dramatic form we call tragedy. During
the fifth century 3 tragic dramatists competed at each City Dionysia, each writer
presenting a group of 4 plays: 3 tragedies and one satyr play. A satyr play was
short, comic or satiric in tone, poked fun at some Greek myth, used a chorus of
satyrs ( half goat/ half man) and was presented following the tragedies. A group
of chanters called the chorus danced around and altar upon which a goat was
sacrificed. This chorus was called the goat singers and their chant was called
tragos or goat song. From this term the word tragedy came. 9 Tragedies were
produced at each City Dionysia, a total of 900 during the fifth century. Only 32
survive. All written by 3 dramatists. Aeschylus (523-456), Sophocles (496-436)
and Euripedes (480-406)
Sophocles – Oedipus the King – Oedipus complex – love mother hate father
Euripedes – The Cyclops, Aloestis, Medea, Hippolytus, The Trojan Women,
Electra, The Bacchae and Iphegenia in aulis
Aeschylus – The Persians, Seven against Thebes, The suppiants, Prometheus
Bound, The Orestia (a trilogy, Agamemnon. The Libation Bearers, The Furies)
Plays were performed in the Theatre of Dionysus, on the slope of the hill just
beneath the Athenian Acropolis. Originally the slope (without any seating)
served as the theatron or the seeing place hence Theatre. A flat terrace below the
slope served as the orchestra (dancing place) in the middle of which was placed
an altar dedicated to Dionysus. This arrangement gradually converted into a stone
structure. The auditorium eventually became a semicircle of stadium like stone
seats extending up the hill to the retaining walls of the Acropolis.
On the side of the orchestra opposite the audience was the skene (“hut” or “tent”
the origin of the word scene). The original structure was probably used as a place
to which the actors could retire or where they could change costumes. After a
time the skene was enlarged into a stone building. A second story and wings
called parascenia were added and scenery was painted on the front. On the roof
was the god-walk, from which the gods delivered their monlogues. Also at a later
date periaktoi ( a three sided revolving pieces of scenery ) were placed on both
sides of the stage. Violence was not permitted on the Greek stage, but a movable
platform called the eccyclema could be rolled out to reveal a tableau of the
results of violent acts.
Another device used in Greek plays was the machina, a cranelike hoist that
permitted actors to appear above the stage as if flying. The machina could also
lower actors from the roof of the skene to the orchestra/ the machina was heavy
enough to carry a chariot and horses or several persons. Most frequently the
character lowered represented a god from Mount Olympus who came down to
Earth to settle the affairs of human beings and the problems of a playwright who
could not resolve the conflict satisfactorily. From the use of this contrivance
came the term deus ex machina (god from machine) which is still used today to
indicate some device an author introduces late in a play to resolve plot
difficulties.
The Greek tragic actors wore masks with a built-in megaphone, padded costumes
and boots with thick soles called cothurni, or in Latin, buskins. The mask was
enlarged and heightened by a crown, or onkus. The comic actors wore rather
grotesque masks, usually padded in a humorously deformed way and they wore a
type of sandal call a sock. You might hear some drama clubs call Sock and
Buskin after the shoes of comedy and tragedy I know you are familiar with the
comedy tragedy masks.
The actors and members of the chorus moved in stylized dances before whose
audiences up to 17,000patrons. There were 50 dancers in the early chorus but that
number was eventually decreased to 12 or 15. Gradually the responsibilities of
the chorus diminished as actors took over the key roles. The chorus was an
integral part of the Greek theatre. It served to explain the situation, to bring the
audience up to date, to make a commentary on the action from the point of view
of established ideas or the group it represented and to engage in dialogue with the
actors.