Transcript Roman History of Theater

Roman History of
Theater
FROM 365 BCE UNTIL 568 BCE
The Romans have a history rich in
culture but one thing to remember
is that for the most part the Romans
were not inventors but innovators.
They improved existing ideas, they
didn’t create new ones. This was
across the board but is also seen in
the theatre. The theatre looks
almost the same but they made
some improvements.
The stage area is
larger the orchestra is
smaller and back
stage area is bigger.
They also added
painted backdrops.
During the Roman
times entertainment
had competition:
gladiators!
The society was based on
conquest. They took over
most of Europe. This showed
in the Theatre. Stories were
based on violence, bad
habits, drug use. Actors
started getting a bad
reputation. During the Greek
times the profession was
respectable but now it is
considered a lower profession.
Sometimes even performed
by servants.
Roman theater developed gradually
from the Greek theater and although
the acting profession was becoming
worse off, the theaters were much
better. In the early days, there were
only temporary stages with no place for
spectators to sit. Little by little,
temporary bleachers were added and
dismantled when the play was
concluded. By the time of Caesar,
temporary
theaters,
often
quite
elaborate, were constructed for the
several days of any given festival.
No longer restricted to the hill side the first wooden theater
was built in Rome in 179 BCE. The first permanent stone
theater in Rome, the Theater of Pompey, was built in 55 BC
and took 7 years to build. The building was part of a multi-use
complex.
It was used for political events, speeches, and
also for performance art like plays, dances
and musical concerts. It was the largest
theater the Romans had ever built. It was in
use for about 600 years. Long arcades
exhibiting collections of paintings and
sculpture as well as a large space suitable for
holding public gatherings and meetings made
the facility an attraction to Romans for many
reasons.
Other permanent theaters were
constructed, that of Balbus which
could seat 7,000 and Marcellus sitting
10,000. Pompey's theater had a
capacity of 12,000. Together the three
theaters held less than half of those
who could sit in the Flavian
Amphitheatre. Emperor Vespasian
began construction of the Flavian
Amphitheater in 75 AD. We now know
it as the Colosseum. Everyone entered
for free although seating on the four
different levels was segregated by
social class and gender. Gladiator
battles were held in the Colosseum
from 80 until 404 AD.
The upper classes promoted the
idea that frequent attendance at
spectacles would produce moral
decay but the more generally
acceptance for their resistance to
building more theaters was the
fear of civil disturbances and the
loss of their power should the
common folk be allowed to gather
often. The lower classes loved
spectacles of all sorts, not having
many other forms of
entertainment. Of course, they also
voiced their displeasure at the
political scene rather loudly at
these events as well.
Romans went to various theaters
to see plays both in Greek and
Latin, watch pantomime, hear
music and enjoy ballet. The
Mimus was a clown vaudeville
filled with songs, slapstick, jokes
about the gods and upper class.
Scenery seemed to have more
importance than acting skill.
Writers of comedies and
tragedies, knowing the limits of
the skills of actors, wrote more
for recitation.
Besides larger performance places
there were other improvements made
to theater as a whole. Heron was the
first stage man. He designed and built
amazing props such as a mechanism
that dropped a bolt of lightning onto
the stage. When it bounced back up, a
new backdrop descended. Heron also
invented a thunder machine that
released a stream of bronze balls like
an avalanche down a tin chute that
had randomly raised areas.