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ROMAN
THEATRE
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By 240 B.C., Greek Theatre was familiar to Romans,
translated into Latin, and brought to Rome. The
beginnings of Roman theatre recorded: the first
record of drama at the Ludi Romani (Roman Festival
or Roman Games). Rome became an empire after
Julius Caesar, 27 B.C. Republic – from 509-27
B.C.Empire – from 27 B.C.-476 A.D. By 345 A.D., there
were 175 festivals a year, 101 devoted to theatre.In
55 B.C., the first stone theatre was built in Rome (by
Julius Caesar)
• Roman Theatre Borrowed Greek ideas and improved
(?) on them. Less philosophical than Greek theatre. It
encompassed more than drama : acrobatics,
gladiators, jugglers, athletics, chariots races, sea
battles, boxing, animal fights. Entertainment tended
to be grandiose. Actors / performers were called
"histriones”
• Two major influences on Roman theatre:Greek
Drama/ Etruscan influences emphasized circus-like
elements. Drama flourished under the republic but
declined into variety entertainment under the empire.
• Roman festivals: Held in honor of the gods, but much less
religious than in
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.THREE AUTHORS OF THE TIME
PLAUTUS
SENECA
TERRANCE
• ROMAN THEATRE BEGAN TO DEVELOP STOCK
CHARACTERS FOR THEIR PLAYS. THEY ALSO
HAD 3 DOORS ON STAGE THAT WERE STOCK
SET PROPS. EACH DOOR MEANT THAT THE
ACTOR WOULD BE GOING TO A SPECIFIC
PLACE OFF STAGE IF THEY USED THE DOOR AS
AN EXIT. THEY CONTINUED TO PERFORM IN
THE ORCHESTRA AREA UNTIL THE
COLOSSEUM.
Roman Theatre Design General characteristics: Built on level ground with stadiumstyle seating (audience raised) Skene becomes scaena – joined with audience to
form one architectural unit Paradoi become vomitorium into orchestra and
audience Orchestra becomes half-circle Stage raised to five feet Stages were
large – 20-40 feet deep, 100-300 feet long, could seat 10-15,000 people 3-5
doors in rear wall and at least one in the wings scaena fronts – façade of the
stage house – had columns, niches, porticoes, statues – painted stage was
covered with a roof dressing rooms in side wings trap doors were
common awning over the audience to protect them from the sun, during the
empire around 78 B.C, .cooling system – air blowing over streams of water area
in from of the scaena called the proskene (proscenium) 125 permanent theatres
built during the empire.
• Roman Actors Referred to as histriones and
mimes. Mimes, however, were considered
inferior; perhaps they were slaves.
Roman audiences
• The aristocratic Romans didn’t like Roman
theatre. The majority of them did not attend
performances.
• Consequently the audiences consisted of the
lower class of Italians.
• This group wanted entertainment and they
laughed at the intellectuals and their idea of
theatre. This caused this art form to descend into
spectacles and hollow comedies. Tragedies
gradually degenerated and comedies turned into
vulgar slapstick performances.
Roman government and the stage
• The Roman senate was hostile to the theatre.
• First portable stages were simple portable
wooden platforms. These were not permanent
structures.
• In 61 B.C. Pompey ( a military and political leader)
built a HUGE auditorium. To make it comply with
Roman rules, he had to place a small statue of
Venus at the top and call it a temple of worship.
• The steps served as seats for the audience.
The theatre structure
• Caesar also built a structure which served 2 forms
of entertainment.
• Roman theatre was the first to use a front
curtain. It rolled up and down from a trough in
the downstage floor.
• The Coliseums structure was used for brutal
battles where Christians were fed to lions,
gladiators fought, chariot races were held. At
times special areas were flooded and ships were
brought in to conduct sea battles. Slaves were
used as the ships crew.
ELIZBETHAN
THEATRE HISTORY
• The next step of our journey will be the Elizabethan period.
We are talking about a time some 400 years ago when
Queen Elizabeth I was on the English throne; she reigned
for a long period from 1558 to 1603 - 45 years in all;
William Shakespeare was born in 1564 and he died in 1616,
so he was essentially an Elizabethan, though he survived
the Queen by 13 years. He grew up in the little country
town of Stratford-on-Avon where he went
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• to the local Grammar School and learned the 'small Latin
and less Greek' which Ben Jonson attributed to him. Round
about 1585/6 he went to London and his first play (the first
part of Henry VI) was produced about 1590.
• 1576, the first custom-made London theatre,
appropriately called 'The Theatre' was built in Finsbury
Fields and the next year, 1577, The Curtain was built in
the same area. Finsbury, now a bustling part of
London, was then almost a country area but within
easy reach of the City. These two theatres were so
successful that ten years later another spate of building
began, but this time across the river on Bankside,
which gradually became a theatre centre. In 1587 The
Rose was built, in 1595 The Swan, in 1599 The Globe
and in 1600 The Fortune, all in the same vicinity.
• The Globe was built by the Burbage Brothers, Richard and Cuthbert,
whose father, James, had built The Theatre back in 1576. The Globe was,
in fact, a sort of reconstruction of The Theatre, for in 1597/8, when the
lease ran out, The Theatre was demolished and its fabric taken to
Bankside and used in the building of The Globe. It was The Globe where,
after 1599, Shakespeare's company, at that time called the Chamberlain's
Men, performed his plays. ]
• The Globe has been reconstructed on the banks of the Thames in London,
opposite St Paul's Cathedral. We do not know exactly
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• what the original Globe looked like but we do have some early sketches of
the 2nd Globe - the first was burned down in 1613 during a performance
of Henry VIII. It was rebuilt in 1614. The players onstage called for
“cannons!” and cannons were indeed fired from above the stage, setting
the thatched roof on fire. The Globe Theatre.
THEATRE STRUCTURE
• What then do we know about Elizabethan
theatres? Well, first, they were, in general,
round, square, octagonal, or something of the
sort. What seems to be certain is that the
buildings were not longer in one dimension
than another; it is now, in fact, believed that
the Globe was a 24-sided polygon.
• The theatres were, in effect, open-air theatres the building,
• surrounded an open yard (like the Inn-Yards) with
the stage at one end, jutting out into the
audience to about half the depth of the theatre;
the width was considerably more. Round three
sides of the yard were three tiers of galleries
where the wealthier or superior members of the
audience sat; the rest of the audience stood in
the open yard around the stage and (for obvious
reasons) they were known as 'the Groundlings'.
COST TO ENTER
• It cost a penny to get into the theatre and
prices were accumulative, so that for a further
penny you could sit in the "two penny gallery"
on the top tier and for further pennies still you
could go into one of the lower galleries. The
Groundling paying his penny would be
spending the better part of a day's wages to
go into the theatre.
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• Ms. Dean’s web address:
• www.pauladean.weebly.com