Roman Theatre
Remember Greek Theatres
Delphi
Roman Theatres
When Rome
conquered Greece it
borrowed a lot from
Greek culture,
including Theater.
This Roman theater is in Libya.
Roman Theater
thrived from the 3rd
century BCE to the
first century CE.
Roman Theatre Structure
Roman Theatre took
place at the Ludi –
games or festivals, which
were religious & political
Permanent Roman Theatres
Other Roman Entertainments
•Chariot Races
•Gladatorial Combat
•Bloodsports
This is why Roman
Theatre was FREE
Naumachia
Roman Actors
•
•
•
•
•
More than three
Cloth masks
No chorus
Prologues and Epilogues
Black wigs for young characters, white
wigs for older characters, red wigs for
slaves and servants
Three Roman Playwrights
• Plautus – based his plays on Greek New
Comedy – situational comedy
• Terence – Wrote more literary comedy
• Seneca – Wrote very literary tragedies,
intended for reading rather than
performing
Popular Entertainment
• Street entertainment existed since Greek
times
• Mimes
– No Masks
– Women actors
– Improvisation
And then Rome became Christian,
and then Rome Collapsed
• Christians oppose theater on moral grounds
(Antitheatrical prejudice)
• 410 CE – Visigoths sack Rome – end of Eastern
Roman Empire and Beginning of the “Dark
ages”
• Popular entertainments continue – Commedia
del Arte – but not much else
• … and then, 500 years later, Theater reemerges from…
The Christian Church
• Liturgical Drama – Began with tropes
inserted into the Easter service in early
900s.
•
Many biblical episodes are dramatized, but the
nativity and crucifixion almost never
•
Staged inside the church with small mansions and
platea
•
Costuming was not elaborate, usually modified
church vestments
•
Special effects included flying machinery
•
Dialogue was chanted in Latin
Cycle Plays
• Pope Urban IV creates the Feast
of Corpus Christi in 1264 –
Procession and plays that take
place on the Thursday following
Trinity Sunday (in late May or
June) – Cycle Plays are born
• Liturgical Drama moves outdoors
• Latin is replaced with vernacular drama –
beginnings of national differences in drama
• Medieval Cycle Plays – glorified God, educated
people, brought wealth & prestige to town
• Exclusively religious subject matter (Christian)
•
Produced by the city government working
with Guilds – not the church
•
Organized by a “pageant master” who was
director, line producer, and promoter
•
Most actors are townsfolk – amateurs,
usually but not exclusively male
15th to 16th Centuries
• Cycle plays expand to Morality Plays –
didactic dramas, religious in theme but not
biblical.
• Then plays began to emphasize
entertainment over morality
• Professionals were suddenly possible
• Inns of court lead to dedicated theater
buildings and…
The
• Secular Drama
Exploded
Man