 By
265 BCE, Athens had fallen out of
power and the Roman Empire was
expanding.
 The
Romans absorbed much of Greek
culture, including its theatre
 6th
Century BCE Ludi Romani festival
• Similar to the City Dionysia festival but with
variety entertainment - circus, boxing, chariot
racing, beast hunts, gladiatorial contests, etc.
• Dramatic performances added in 364 BCE
• Latin adaptations of Greek Tragedy and Comedy
added in 240 BCE
 Audiences
were lively, if not very
sophisticated
 For
centuries, Romans used old theaters
that the Greeks had built – their own
theaters were built and torn down for
each festival
 In 55 BCE, the Romans built their first
stone theater
 Built on flat surfaces instead of into the
hillsides
 Superior architecture allowed massive
theaters to be built
 Lower
in status than Greek actors, often
slaves
 Wore linen masks and used stock
costumes and props
 Because of increased role of music,
especially in comedies, actors had to be
good singers
 Stock
characters
• Grumpy old man
• Young lovers
• Tricky servant
• Braggart soldier
 Chorus
was eliminated
 Ironic or satirical songs opened most
scenes
 Similar
to Greek tragedy but much more
violent
 Also eliminated chorus
 By
the first century, formal theatre had lost
its popularity
 Replaced by:
• Atellan Farce: Improvised comedies, built around
stock characters
• Mime: troupes of men, woman and children,
unmasked, performing short, satirical pieces of
theatre. Focused on contemporary subjects and
scandals. A favorite subject was to ridicule the new
religious sect – Christianity.
• Pantomime: Masked narrative ballets based on
mythology.
 Began
around 190 CE ended 476 CE
• Vain, ineffective Emperors
• Empire was so large that central leadership
became impossible. Attacked from Turks, ect.
 After
the fall of Rome, no stable
government besides Church
 Church closed down all Roman theaters
in 6th Century – theatre was associated
with paganism and vice
 Yet, revival of theatre in the late10th
century was supported by church.
935 – 1002 CE
 First known female playwright
 Nun
 Wrote about strong women
resisting temptation
 Liturgical
Drama: enacted as part of the
liturgy during Mass
 Cycle plays – illustrating the history of
the scriptures
• Enacted in different areas of the church, called
Mansions
 When
taken out of the church, called
Mystery Cycles
• Performed by craft guilds
 Miracle
Plays: Based on the Saints lives
 Somewhat
secular, but
with Christian message
 Used allegory
 EveryMan – most
famous example
 Always anonymous
 Acted on Pageant
Wagons which traveled
through town
The expression by means
of symbolic fictional figures and actions of
truths or generalizations about human
existence.
 Merriam- Webster Dictionary
 Existed
from roughly 1000 CE to 1600 CE
 Grew from simple liturgical plays to great
cycles and court pageants
 Professional actors begin to appear in
late 15th century
 Church weakened by internal conflict
 Rise of Universities
 When Elizabeth I came to the throne she
forbade all religious plays
• Religion was too controversial
 When
religion was outlawed as a subject
in theatre, dramatists needed other
subjects to write about
 They
looked back to the Greek and
Roman playwrights!
 Renaissance
theatre is a blend of
classical and medieval styles
 The church had never officially lifted
their condemnation of professional
actors, so they now enforced again
 Theatre used to be for religious and civic
functions now, for the first time, actors
had to hustle for recognition based
purely on their entertainment and artistic
value