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Greek Theater
Introduction to Greek Theater
2500 years ago, 2000 years before
Shakespeare, Western theater was born in
Athens, Greece. Between 600 and 200 BC,
the ancient Athenians created a theater
culture whose form, technique and
terminology have lasted 2 millennia. They
created plays that are still considered
among the greatest works of world drama.
The Cult of Dionysus
Ancient Greek Theater
evolved from religious
rites dating back to at
least 1200 BC
In 500 BC, in Northern
Greece (Thrace) a cult
arose that worshipped
Dionysus (god of fertility
and procreation)
An essential part of the
rites of Dionysus was the
dithyramb
Dithyramb means
“choric hymn”
This chant or hymn
was accompanied by
mimic gestures and
music
The dithyramb was
performed by a chorus
of about 50 men
Dithyramb
The performers wore costumes, danced, and
played drums, lyres and flutes,
They described the adventures of Dionysus.
The dithyramb was given a regular form and
raised to the rank of artistic poetry about 600 BC.
It became one of the competitive subjects at the
various Athens festivals.
It attracted the most famous poets of the day.
Thespis
The "inventor of tragedy"
was born in Attica, and
was the first prize winner
at the Great Dionysia in
534 BC.
Thespis was an important
innovator for the theater,
since he introduced such
things as the independent
actor (as opposed to the
chorus) as well as masks,
make up and costumes.
Athenian Drama Competitions
In 534 BC, the ruler of Athens, Pisistratus,
changed the Dionysian Festivals and instituted
drama competitions.
In the next 50 years, the competitions became
popular annual events.
During this time, major theatres were
constructed , notably the theater at Delphi, the
Attic theater and the Theater of Dionysus in
Athens.
Greek Amphitheatres
The Theater of
Dionysus, built at the
foot of the Acropolis
in Athens, could seat
17,000 people.
During their heyday,
the competitions drew
as many as 30,000
spectators.
The words theater
and amphitheater
derive from the
Greek word
theatron, which
referred to the
wooden spectator
stands erected on
the hillsides.
Amphitheatres
Artistic replica of the
Theater at Dionysus
Current day Theater at
Dionysus
Delphi Theater
reconstruction
and current day
ruins
How plays were performed
Plays were performed in
the daytime.
Since women were not
allowed to take part, male
actors had to play female
roles.
The playing of multiple
roles, both male and
female, was made
possible by the use of
masks.
The masks prevented
the audience from
identifying the face of
any actor with one
character in the play.
The masks had
exaggerated facial
expressions, different
lengths and color
hair,and helped the
audience identify the
sex, age, and social rank
of the characters.
Actors
The actors in tragedy were hired and paid by
the state and assigned to the tragic poets
probably by lot.
By the middle of the 5th century 3 actors
were required for the performance of a
tragedy. In descending order of importance of
the roles they assumed they were called the
protagonist “first actor”, (a term also applied in
modern literary criticism to the central
character of a play), deuteragonist “second
actor” and tritagonist “third actor”.
Actors
The protagonist took
the role of the most
important character in
the play while the other
2 actors played the
lesser roles. Since most
plays have more than 2
or 3 characters
(although never more
than 3 speaking actors
in the same scene), all
3 actors played multiple
roles.
The fact that the chorus
remained in the orchestra
throughout the play and
sang and danced choral
songs between the
episodes allowed the
actors to exit after an
episode in order to
change mask and
costume and assume a
new role in the next
episode without any
illusion-destroying
interruption in the play.