Chapter 12
Context
• Roman theatre appeared in 240 BCE
• We don’t know much about the theatres
because they were made of wood, but during
this era, we know more about the plays (BCE)
• But when we know more about the theatres,
we don’t know much about the plays (CE)
• Steeped in Hellenistic traditions
Drama
• Tragic plays that were performed didn’t
survive, the ones that did were never
intended for performance
• Rome was not interested in tragedy
• Comedy was more popular
– Written about Greeks
– Written about Romans
– Middle or lower class portrayed in costume
Playwrights
• Plautus and Terence
– Wrote during second century BCE about Athenian
MC
– Didn’t have chorus
– Used Greek New Comedy
Plautus
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Older
Actor and playwright
100 attributed works, 27 have survived
Qualities of his plays
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Linked episodes
Visual gags and wordplay
Ludicrous appearance and behavior of characters
Direct audience address
• Sometimes performed today
Terence
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Wrote more refined comedies
More thoughtful; less fun
Combination of Gk plots in dramatic action
Unusual prologues
Carefully contrived actions
Normal appearance of characters and actions
Almost never performed today
Important Texts
• Virtruvius-Achitectura-how to lay out a city;
included how to build a theatre and scenery
• Horace- Ars Poetica (similar to Poetics’
influence); how to write a play
– Keep comedy and tragedy separate
– Need for unity of time and place and unity of
action
– Need for drama to teach and please
– Influenced Renaissance theory more than
Hellenistic
• Seneca-set of texts; tragedies
• Characteristics
– Chorus not integrated into action as choral odes to
divide the play into 5 parts
– Protagonists driven by single passion leads to
downfall
– Minor characters: messengers, confidants, ghosts
– Language- rhetorical and stylistic
– Spectacular scenes of violence and gore
• Influenced Renaissance writers
Theatre Buildings
• Stone theatres might be like what the wooden
theatres looked like
• Aisles were for audiences, not the chorus
• Place for orchestra
• One unit for theatre rather than two separate
as with Gk theatre
• Façade stage was elaborate with protective
roof
Theatrics
• Atellan farce
• Pantomime
• Miming
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Included women performers
Mimes didn’t wear masks
Beauty and grotesque were appealing
Dealt with contemporary life issues
Christians opposed the rawness of this type of
theatrical expression which was seen in the
amphitheatres and circuses of Rome
Rise of the Byzantine Empire and Theatre
• Rome became to large to govern and so it split into two.
• Constantinople became a new capital and Constantine
took most of the Roman population with him
• Christianity (Orthodox) became the official state
religion; used Greek influence
• Little is known of theatre during this time
– Uneducated in the language
– Iron curtain
• What we know:
– Miming continued
– Gk tragedy
– Performances in Ukraine