Dramatic Introduction (2)
Greek and Roman Theatre
Greek Festivals
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Festivals honored Olympian gods
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Ritual (仪式)Competitions

Olympics: Apollo
 Athletics
 Lyric Poetry

Drama: Dionysus
Dithyrambic (酒神的赞美歌)Choruses
Tragedy
Comedy
Greek Theatre
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6th - 4th century bce
Originated in festivals honoring Dionysos
Tragedy:
– Aeschylus (524-456 bce)
– Sophocles (496-406 bce)
– Euripides (480-406 bce)
Comedy:
– Old Comedy: bawdy(好色的,妓女的 ) and satiric
• Aristophanes (c. 485- c.385 bce)
– New Comedy: social situations:
• Menander (342-292 bce)
Theatre Festivals
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There were two festivals during which dramatic productions were staged.
The Greater Dionysia took place at the end of March or the beginning of April
–
Three days were given over to theatrical competition.
–
Three playwrights each took part in the contests: Each tragedian put on a trilogy 三
联曲/三部曲in the morning and each comic writer put on one comedy in the
afternoon.
ACTORS
No play used more than 3 actors
All actors were male
Costumes included character masks, and, in later years, raised boots
Acting must have more expressive than realistic
ORIGINS of TRAGEDY
 Tragedy, derived from the Greek words tragos (goat) and ode (song), told a story that was
intended to teach religious lessons
 Arose from dithyrambic choruses: The dithyramb was an ode to Dionysus. It was usually
performed by a chorus of fifty men dressed as satyrs 半人半兽的森林之神-- mythological
half-human, half-goat servants of Dionysus.
 In 600 BC, formal lyrics were written for the dithyramb.
 In the 6th c. bce Thespis 悲剧of Attica added an actor who interacted with the chorus. This
actor was called the protagonist.
 In 534 BC, the ruler of Athens, Psistratus, changed the Dionysian Festivals and instituted
drama competitions. Thespis won the first competition in 534 BC.
Tragic Tetralogies
Each tragic dramatist had to present a trilogy of tragedies: connected narratively or
dramatically
The entire trilogy was performed in one day.
The trilogy was followed by a satyr play - mocking and lightening the seriousness of the
tragedies
TRAGIC STRUCTURE
ARISTOTLE’S
THREE UNITIES
Aristotle’s On Tragedy is usually considered the first piece of Western dramatic criticism.
it, he proclaimed that tragedy must follow the 3 unities:
UNITY OF TIME: one day
UNITY OF PLACE: one setting
UNITY OF ACTION: one plot
AESCHYLUS
525-456 bce
General in Persian Wars -- fought at Marathon, Salamis, Plateau
Fierce proponent 支持者of Athenian ideals
The first of the great Athenian dramatists, was also the first to express the agony of the
individual caught in conflict.
Credited with adding the second actor
Only extant trilogy:
The Oresteia 俄瑞斯提亚
Agamemnon 阿伽门农
The Libation Bearers 奠酒人
The Eumenides报仇神
In
SOPHOCLES
496 - 406 bce
Wrote over 100 plays, but only seven survive
Credited with adding the third actor
Known as actor as well as dramatist
Most interested in human dynamics
THEBAN PLAYS:
Oedipus the King 俄狄浦斯王
Oedipus at Colonnus俄狄浦斯在科洛诺斯
Antigone 安提戈涅
EURIPIDES
c.480-406 bce
The last of the three great Greek tragic dramatists –more than 90 tragedies, 17 plays survive.
Medea is his famous drama.
Explored the theme of personal conflict within the polis
城帮and the depths of the individual
Disgust with events of Peloponnesian War brought about disillusionment with Athens
Men and women bring disaster on themselves because their passions overwhelm their reason
ORIGINS of OLD COMEDY
Arose from komos : songs of revelry 狂欢, charms to avert 转移evil, prayers for fertility sung
to Dionysus
Chorus dressed ludicrously滑稽可笑的
Audience responded to choral komos and were gradually admitted into chorus
Chorus became two-part group with antiphonal发出语音的 song
Invention of comic chorus is attributed to Susarion
Dorian and Sicilian farces闹剧 were precursors 先行者of Old Comedy
CONVENTIONS of OLD COMEDY
Scene set on Athenian street
“Events seldom occur – they are merely talked about”
Masks and fantastic costumes
Satiric of contemporary events and public figures
Bawdy
ARISTOPHANES
c. 448 - 380 BCE
30+ plays; 11 extant; 6 first prizes
Plays include Clouds, Wasps,Birds, Frogs, Lysistrata
Critique of Euripides & Socrates: reactionary conservative; social critic
Plato‘s epitaph 墓志铭for Aristophanes : “The Graces, seeking a shrine that could not fall,
discovered the soul of Aristophanes.”
New Comedy
By 317 BC, a new form had evolved that resembled modern farces 笑剧: mistaken identities,
ironic situations, ordinary characters and wit.
Basic plot: Boy meets girl, complications arise, boy gets girl – ends with betrothal订婚
or
marriage.
5 act structure: acts divided by interludes performed by the chorus
Stock characters: young lovers, parasite, lecherous old men, clever servants, etc.
Social rather than political satire
MENANDER
342-292 bce
 1905 a manuscript was discovered in Cairo with pieces of five of Menander’s plays, and in
1957 a complete play, Diskolos (The Grouch, 317 BC), was unearthed in Egypt.
 The style of comedy that Menander created, with its emphasis on mistaken identity, romance
and situational humor, became the model for subsequent comedy, from the Romans to
Shakespeare to Broadway.
 Parts of his comedies found their way into plays by the Roman playwrights Plautus and
Terence, Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors, Stephen Sondheim's A Funny Thing Happened on
the Way to the Forum.
ROMAN THEATRE
Drama flourished under the Republic but declined into variety entertainment under the Empire
Roman festivals: Held in honor of the gods, but much less religious than in Greece
Ludi Romani Became theatrical in 364 B.C.
Held in September (the autumn)and honored Jupiter.
By 240 B.C., both comedy and tragedy were performed.
Five others: Ludi Florales (April), Plebeii (November), Apollinares (July), Megalenses
(April), Cereales
(no particular season).
Under the Empire, these festivals afforded "bread and circuses" to the masses – many
performances.
—including a series of plays or events. Acting troupes (perhaps several a day) put on
theatre events.
ROMAN THEATRE
Encompassed more than drama : acrobatics杂技, gladiators角斗士, jugglers变戏法者,
athletics体育, chariots races, naumachia (sea battles), boxing, venationes (animal fights)
Entertainment tended to be grandiose宏伟的, sentimental, diversionary娱乐的
Actors / performers were
called "histriones"
STOCK CHARACTERS
Senex: old man in authority
Pappas: foolish old man
Bucco: braggart吹牛的, boisterous
Miles gloriosus: braggart soldier
Dossenus: swindler骗子, drunk,
hunchback驼背
Shrew: sharp-tongued woman
Courtesan
Clever servant
Young Lovers
PLAUTUS
(c. 254-184 B.C.E.)
21 extant plays including Pot of Gold, The Menaechmi, Braggart Warrior -- probably between
205-184 B.C.
All based on Greek New Comedies
Added Roman allusions, Latin dialog, varied poetic meters, witty jokes
Some techniques:
Stychomythia – dialog with short lines, like a tennis match
Slapstick 闹剧
Songs
TERENCE
(195 or 185-159 B.C.E.)
 Born in Carthage, came to Rome as a boy slave, educated and freed
 The Afer in his name may indicate that he was an African, and therefore he may have been
the first major black playwright in western theater.
 Six plays, all of which survive
including The Brothers, Mother-in-Law, etc.
 More complex plots – combined stories from Greek originals.
 Character and double-plots were his forte – contrasts in human behavior
 Less boisterous 活跃的,喧闹的than Plautus, less episodic, more elegant language.
 Less popular than Plautus.
Roman Tragedy
None survive from the early period, and only one playwright from the later period: Lucius
Annaeus Seneca
5 act structure – later adopted by Elizabethans
Elaborate speeches -- rhetorical influence
Interest in morality – expressed in sententiae (short pithy generalizations about the human
condition)
SENECA
(5 or 4 B.C.E.– 65 C.E.)
Nine extant tragedies, five adapted from Euripides:The Trojan Women, Media, Oedipus,
Agamemnon
His popularity declined,
Suicide in 65 A.D.– at the orders of Nero
Seneca had a strong effect on later dramatists.
Probably closet dramas—meant to be read to an audience rather than performed
Senecan Conventions
• Violence and horror onstage (Jocasta rips open her womb子宫, for example)
• Characters dominated by a single passion – such as revenge – drives them to doom: known as
Senecan Revenge tragedies during Renaissance.
• Technical devices:
– Soliloquies and asides
– Confidants take the place of the chorus
– Ghosts: interest in supernatural and human connections
Roman Spectacle
Gladiatorial combats角斗士格斗
Chariot races 战车比赛
Naumachia: Naval battles in a flooded Coliseum
“Real-life” theatricals
 Decadent颓废的, violent and immoral
 All theatrical events banned by Church when Rome became Christianized