Transcript Roman Theatre History

THEATRE HISTORY
Roman Theatre
200 BC-475 AD
Rome
invaded Greece
Took over their art
Took over their literature
Took over their theatre
Roman Theatre
1.Theatre was frowned on by the educated
Romans
2. Theatre was mainly for the lower classes
3. The lower classes wanted spectacle and
vulgarity
4. Theatre was decadent and hollow
5. Tragedies awful, Comedies vulgar slapstick
Roman Theatre
1. The Senate was hostile to theatre
2. Pompeii- 61 BC builds a theatre
put a statue of Venus in it and said it was a
temple
3. Caesar wanted a theatre too
Caesar’sTheatre
1. Two wooden semicircles
2. Turned them to create seats for chariot
races and gladiator contests
Roman Theatre- features
1. Raised stage - called a pulpitum- semicircle
2. Back wall- three story wall- ornate- scanea fronsthree doors
3. Seating area connected to the stage
4. Audience area- covered with a roof and “air
conditioned by aqua ducts from the mountains
Roman Theatre- changes to the stage
1. Added a front curtain- rolled up from the floor
along tracks
2. Used a claque- a person who clapped or
booed
Roman Theatre- Writers- Comedy
Plautus
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Copied Greek plots
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Set plays in rural setting
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Developed stock characters:
Bucco- braggart
Pappus- comic old man
Maccus- gluttonous fool
Dossenus- frightening hunchback
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Plays were a model for Shakespeare and
Moliere
Roman Theatre- Writers- Comedy
Terrence
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Borrowed plots from the Greeks
Eliminated the chorus
Lines accompanied by music (musical?)
Influenced the comedy of the Renaissance
Roman Theatre- Writers- Tragedy
Seneca
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Plays have 5-6 actors
Very gory plots
Influenced writers in Europe in the
Renaissance
Roman Theatre-costumes and masks
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Masks covered the head
Made of linen
Had hair attached
Wore togas/tunics
Stock characters had their own basic
costumes
Mimes wore no masks
Roman Theatre-Decline
Plays overshadowed by spectaculars:
Gladiator contests
Christians fed to lions
Special coliseums held water and had sea
battles
Slaves on the ships fought- killed each other
Helped get rid of excess slaves and prisoners
Everyone was killed by the time they ended
Roman Theatre-Decline
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The fall of Rome- 475 AD
Christian Church takes over
Theatre banned
Theatre in Europe, Greece, Italy became
dormant
The only place theatre continued was in Asiathe Orient