Transcript Greek Theatre PPT

Greek Theatre
Greek Festivals
 Festivals honored Olympian gods
 Ritual Competitions
 Olympics: Apollo
Athletics
 Lyric Poetry
 Drama: Dionysos
 Dithyrambic Choruses
 Tragedy
 Comedy
Greek Theatre
 6th - 4th century bce
 Originated in festivals honoring
Dionysos
Tragedy:
Aeschylus (524-456 bce)
Sophocles (496-406 bce)
Euripides (480-406 bce)
 Comedy:
Old Comedy: bawdy and satiric
Aristophanes (c. 485- c.385 bce)
New Comedy: social situations:
Menander (342-292 bce)
Theatre Festivals
 There were two festivals during which dramatic
productions were staged.
The Greater Dionysia took place at the end of
March or the beginning of April
Three days were given over to theatrical
competition.
Three playwrights each took part in the
contests: Each tragedian put on a trilogy in the
morning and each comic writer put on one comedy
in the afternoon.
The festival at Lenaes,staged at the end of
January or the beginning of February, placed its
emphasis on comedy
Theatre at Epidaurus
Curved seats may have aided acoustics.
ACTORS
 No tragedy used more
than 3 actors
 All actors were male
 Costumes included
character masks, and, in
later years, raised boots
 Acting must have more
expressive than realistic
Greek Theatre
Masks
THE CHORUS:
the voice of the citizens
ORIGINS of TRAGEDY
 Tragedy, derived from the Greek words tragos (goat) and
ode (song), told a story that was intended to teach religious
lessons
 Arose from dithyrambic choruses: The dithyramb was an
ode to Dionysus. It was usually performed by a chorus of
fifty men dressed as satyrs -- mythological half-human,
half-goat servants of Dionysus. They played drums, lyres
and flutes, and chanted as they danced around a statue of
Dionysus.
 In the 6th c. bce Thespis of Attica added an actor who
interacted with the chorus. This actor was called the
protagonist.
 In 534 BC, the ruler of Athens, Pisistratus, changed the
Dionysian Festivals and instituted drama competitions.
Thespis won the first competition in 534 BC.
Tragic Tetralogies
 Each tragic dramatist had to
present a trilogy of tragedies:
connected narratively or
dramatically
 The entire trilogy was performed
in one day.
 The trilogy was followed by a
satyr play - mocking and lightening
the seriousness of the tragedies
 A Tetralogy, then, is a series of 4
plays: 3 tragedies and one satyr
play
TRAGIC STRUCTURE
PROLOGOS: Introductory scene
PARADOS: Entry of chorus
EPISODEION
STASIMON
4-5 alternating scenes and
choral odes, including the
PAEAN: a hymn of praise to the gods
EXODOS: final scene
EPODE: final ode.
ARISTOTLE’S
THREE UNITIES
 Aristotle’s On Tragedy is usually
considered the first piece of
Western dramatic criticism. In
it, he proclaimed that tragedy
must follow the 3 unities:
 UNITY OF TIME: one day
 UNITY OF PLACE: one setting
 UNITY OF ACTION: one plot
AESCHYLUS 
525-456 bce
General in Persian Wars -- fought
at Marathon, Salamis, Platea
 Fierce proponent of Athenian
ideals
 The first of the great Athenian
dramatists, was also the first to
express the agony of the individual
caught in conflict.
 Credited with adding the second
actor
 Only extant trilogy: The Oresteia
Agamemnon
The Libation Bearers
The Eumenides
SOPHOCLES
496 - 406 bce
 Wrote over 100 plays,
but only seven survive
 Credited with adding the
third actor
 Known as actor as well as
dramatist
 Most interested in human
dynamics
THEBAN PLAYS:
Oedipus the King
 Oedipus at Colonnus
 Antigone
EURIPIDES
 The last of the three great
Greek tragic dramatists -- 17
c.480-406
plays survive
 Explored the theme of
personal conflict within the
polis and the depths of the
individual
 Disgust with events of
Pelopennesian War brought
about disillusionment with
Athens
 Men and women bring
disaster on themselves
because their passions
overwhelm their reason
bce
TRAGIC ACTION
ARETE, ARISTEIA: excellence
HUBRIS: arrogance
HAMARTIA: fatal mistake
PERIPETEIA: reversal of fortune
ANAGNORISIS: understanding
KATHARSIS
ORIGINS of OLD COMEDY
 Arose from komos : songs of revelry,
charms to avert evil, prayers for fertility
sung to Dionysus
 Chorus dressed ludicrously
 Audience responded to choral komos and
were gradually admitted into chorus
 Chorus became two-part group with
antiphonal song
CONVENTIONS
of OLD COMEDY
 Scene set on Athenian
street
 “Events seldom occur –
they are merely talked
about”
 Masks and fantastic
costumes
 Satiric of contemporary
events and public figures
 Bawdy
COMIC STRUCTURE
Prologos: introductory scene
Parados:
entry of 24 member chorus dressed in fantastic costume
Agon: argument
“just prior to the agon, the leader of the chorus always asks one contender to
present his argument, and it is this contender who always loses”
Parabasis: chorus’s great song
Episodeion
Stasimon
4-5 alternating scenes and choral
odes illustrating the outcome of
the agon
Komos: final choral song and exit in wild revelry
 30+ plays; 11 extant;
6 first prizes
 Plays include
Clouds
Wasps
Birds
Lysistrata
Frogs (Lenaia 405)
 Critique of Euripides &
Socrates: reactionary
conservative; social critic
 Plato's epitaph for
Aristophanes : “The Graces,
seeking a shrine that could not
fall, discovered the soul of
Aristophanes.”
ARISTOPHANES
c. 448 - 380 BCE
New Comedy
By 317 BC, a new form had evolved that resembled
modern farces: mistaken identities, ironic
situations, ordinary characters and wit.
 Basic plot: Boy meets girl, complications arise, boy
gets girl – ends with betrothal or marriage.
5 act structure: acts divided by interludes
performed by the chorus
 Stock characters: young lovers, parasite,
lecherous old men, clever servants, etc.
 Social rather than political satire
1905 a manuscript was
discovered in Cairo that
contained pieces of five
Menander plays, and in 1957
a complete play, Diskolos
(The Grouch, 317 BC), was
unearthed in Egypt.
Menander’s comedy with its
emphasis on mistaken
identity, romance and
situational humor, became
the model for subsequent
comedy, from the Romans
to Shakespeare to
Broadway.
MENANDER
342-292 bce
Parts of Menander’s
comedies found their way
into plays by
Roman playwrights:
Plautus and Terence
Shakespeare's Comedy
of Errors
Stephen Sondheim's A
Funny Thing Happened
on the Way to the
Forum.
The
End