Transcript Intro. To Greek Theater

Intro. To Greek Theater
Greek Theater
• European theater was started by the Greeks.
• Plays = Tragedies and comedies
• Tradition first came from choral songs that dealt with the
death & return of Dionysus, god of wine & patron of
theater.
• Women could not perform in Greek theaters.
• Only scenery in plays were sets of rocks & tombs.
• Thesbis, 1st playwright & first actor given credit for
introducing masks to theater & with giving actors
speaking parts; 6th century BCE hence term thesbian for
actors
• Greek plays = outdoors
Greek Theater
• Early Greek theaters = open areas in city centers or next
to hillsides
• 1st Greek theater in Athens was a large simple circle
called the “orchestra” (the dancing place).
• Greek comedy & tragedy flourished in 5th and 4th
centuries BCE & performances were done before 12,000
or more people.
• Unless revised later, plays were performed only once & in
competition with other plays.
• Tragedies dealt almost exclusively with stories from the
mythic past.
• Comedies dealt almost exclusively with contemporary
figures and problems.
Great Greek Playwrights
• “Golden Age” of Greek theaters rests on 3 tragedians:
• Aeschylus (525-456 BCE)—impact on art form of plays;
increased # of actors from 1 to 2; involved the chorus
more in action; and emphasized dialogue; brought serious
& dignified dramatic form (tragedy) into being; wrote
over 90 plays, but only 7 survive—Prometheus Bound,
Seven Against Thebes, and the Oresteia trilogy—
Agamemnon, Libation Bearers, & Eumenides
• Sophocles (c. 496-406 BCE)—well-educated &
accomplished actor; great innovator of Greek drama; 1st
play he defeated Aeschylus in dramatic competition;
contributions—added the 3rd actor; abolished trilogic
form & concentrated action into one, more dramatically
powerful, play; invented painted scenery; wrote over 120
plays, only 7 survive in their entirety—Antigone, Electra,
Oedipus the King (masterpiece), & Oedipus at Colonus
Great Greek Playwrights
• Euripides (485-406 BCE)—generally ignored by
judges of Greek festivals because his free thinking &
pacifist views were not popular; compared to
Aeschlyus & Sophocles; life not happy & plays
reflected grim outlook; he incorporated elements of
humor in his plays breaking rigid rules of & making it
easier for new forms of drama to develop; other
contributions include probing a man’s psyche and
introduced the common man to the stage; plays
include Medea, The Trojan Women, and Bacchae
Greek Comedies
• 5th century BCE great age of comedy
• Only surviving comedies are written by
Aristophones (c. 450-380 BCE)
• He lived through the deterioration of Athens,
the Peloponnesian War, and the fall of Athens
to Sparta; plays are marked by wit, invention,
& skillful use of the language as well as a
satiric view of the politics of the time; 11 of 40
plays survive including The Clouds, The Frogs,
The Wasps, and Lysistrata
Greek Contributions: The Stage
• A stage—performance area—central to theater
• Greeks stage productions in natural settings—rocky, irregular
hillsides
• Comedies & tragedies performed in open-air amphitheaters with
a bank of spectators.
• Greeks would sit on stone benches and would often watch 4
productions in a row
• Greek theater had 3 parts—orchestra—chorus sang and danced
in a circular area; theatron—horseshoe shaped area for
audience; and skene—backdrop
• Music & dance were part of drama—chorus comes from Greek
work meaning to dance; a musician played the aulos or pipe
• Actor’s use of masks took away need for makeup—they used
whole head masks made of stiffened linen, sometimes with
megaphones inside
Contrasts: The Theater Then & Now
• Ancient Greek dramas have influenced
Western drama & are still performed today
• Walden Theatre based in Louisville, KY has
produced several Greek plays, including
Medea and The Trojan Women.
Aristotle (384-322 BCE)
• Born at Stagira, in Macedonia, the son of a physician to the royal
court
• At 17, he went to Athens to study at Plato’s Academy; remained
there 20 yrs. as student then teacher
• Undertook 1st theoretical discussion of acting in the West in his
Politics
• Actors in Greek theater communicated temperament & feeling
through speech & stylized gestures whose meaning was clear to
spectators
• Professional performers underwent a regimen of speech training &
vocal exercise
• According to Aristotle, the human voice alone could register passion
& delight; he wrote that the most convincing portrayals of distress
& anger were produced by performers who truthfully felt those
emotions at the moment they expressed them
• Finding true feeling in the proper place & time on stage was a
problem Aristotle addressed less well—he concluded acting was an
occupation for the gifted or insane.
Aristotle’s Poetics—Guidelines for Drama
A. Tragedy is an imitation of action, both serious & complete.
B. There must be a catharsis—instilling fear & pity.
C. 6 elements of tragedy:
1. Plot—action of play
2. Thought—the emotions & feelings of the characters
3. Characters—inhabitants of the play
4. Diction—speech & dialogue of the characters
5. Song—rhythm of the play
6. Spectacle—technical aspects of the play such as
lighting, sound, & props
D. The Unities
1. Time—sunup to sundown
2. Place—one location
3. Action
Vocabulary for Greek Theater
• Character—person portrayed in a drama, novel,
or other artistic piece
• Comedy—play that treats characters & situations
in a humorous way; low comedy—physical; high
comedy—verbal wit
• Isolations—control of isolated body parts; ability
to control or move one part of the body
independently of the rest
• Literary elements—include story line (plot);
character; story organization (beginning, middle,
end); plot structures (rising action, turning point,
falling action); conflict; suspense; theme;
language; style; dialogue; monologue
Vocabulary for Greek Theater
• Performance elements—acting (character
motivation/analysis, empathy); speaking (breath
control, vocal expression/inflection, projection,
speaking style, diction); and nonverbal expression
(gestures, body alignment, facial expression, character
blocking, movement)
• Purposes– the reasons people make art—drama &
include: to share the human experience (social change,
universal themes, interpretation of ideas & emotions);
to pass on tradition & culture (storytelling, folktales,
religious ritual, ceremony); for recreation,
entertainment, diversion; and as artistic expression (to
communicate emotions, ideas, & information through
a performance in a theatrical setting for an audience
Vocabulary for Greek Theater
• Reader’s theater—dramatic presentation in which 2 or more oral
readers interpret a characterized script with the aim of
stimulating the audience to imaginatively experience the
literature
• Storytelling—the act of telling a story in the oral tradition
• Technical elements—scenery (set); costumes; props; lights;
sound; music; makeup
• Tragedy—in Greek theater, a play depicting man as a victim of
destiny; characteristics of tragedy evolved over time to include
any serious play in which man is a victim of fate, character flaw,
moral weakness, or social pressure; Aristotle says tragedy is to
arouse pity & fear in audience & purge them at the play’s
conclusion (catharsis)
• Tragic hero—central figure in a tragedy; a tragic hero is a person
of basically good character who passes from happiness to misery
because of a character flaw or error in judgment