Festival Theatre: Greek, Roman, and Medieval Theatre
Experiences.
 Since the very earliest times, some from of theatrical
activity has existed, although surviving records permit
us to trace it back with any certainty for only about 25
hundred years.
 In the theatre, awareness of the past is important for
other reasons as well.
 In a book of this length, it is impossible to treat every
from the theatre has taken in the past and present.
 During the first two thousand years of its existence,
Western theatre was markedly different from the
professional and commercial theatre that we know today
and that has flourished only during the past 4 hundred
years.
 This type of theatre flourished in ancient Greece, Rome,
and medieval Europe, although in each the difference
were as important as the similarities.
 Theatre in the Western world can be traced back the
ancient Greece, and especially to Athens, usually
considered the cradle of Western civilization.
 The belief in the ability of human beings to make
significant decisions contrasted sharply with the
beliefs of earlier societies that people are pawns of
supernatural forces or all-powerful tyrants.
 Dionysus, the god in whose honor plays were
presented, was the god of wine (one of the principal
products of Greece) and fertility.
 By the 15th century B.C Athens held 4 festivals in
honor of Dionysus each year, at 3 of which theatrical
performances were offered.
 Our 1st record of a theatrical event in Athens is the
establishment in 534 B.C of a contest for the best
tragedy, a form that also originated in Athens.
 From Thespis’ name we derive the term thespian, still
used reference to actors.
 A satyr play was short, comic or satiric in tone, poked
fun at some Greek myth using a chorus of satyr, and
was presented following the tragedies.
 Of the surviving tragedies, Oedipus the King by
Sophocles is often considered the finest.
 Plays were performed in the Theatre of Dionysus, on
the slope of the hill just beneath the Athenian
Acropolis (a fortified area including the Parthenon,
the city treasury, and other buildings considered
essential to the city’s survival).
 Originally, the slope (without any seating) served as
the theatron (“seeing place”, the origin of our word
theatre).
 A flat terrance below the slope served as the
orchestra (dancing place), in the middle of which was
placed as altar (thymele) dedicated to Dionysus.
 This arrangement was gradually converted into a
permanent structure.
 On the side of the orchestra opposite the audience was
the skene (“hurt” or “tent”, the origin of our word scene).
 Once its possibilities as a background for the action
were recognized, the skene was elaborated into a
structure 25 to a hundred feet long and probably 2
stories high.
 The space (called paradoi) at either side between
the skene and the auditorium were used as
entrances and exits for performers and perhaps by
spectators before and after performances.
 The scene house (as, later, Shapkespeare’s theatre)
probably served as a formalized architectural
background for all players, even those set in woods,
on seashores, or outside caves.
 A wheeled platform, the eccyclema.
 A cranelike device, the machina. (The overuse of gods
to resolve difficult dramatic situations led to any
contrived ending being labeled a deus ex machina -god
from the machine - ending)
 Form our standpoint, one of the most remarkable
things about the Theatre of Dionysus is its size.
 One May Divide performers in the Greek theatre into
four categories: actors, chorus, supernumeraries, and
musicians. All were male.
 By the time Oedipus the King was produced, around
430 B.C, the rules of the contests restricted the
number of speaking actors to there for each author.
 Same actor might have to play several roles and that
the same three actors appeared in all three of the
tragedies presented by a competing dramatist.
 Supernumeraries(extras) could be used, but they were
not permitted to speak lines.
 The tragic chorus was composed of fifteen men
 This official also paired the dramatist with a choregus,
a wealthy citizen who bore the expense of training and
costuming that dramatist’s choruses and of the
musicians who accompanied the choruses during their
training and during performances
 A great deal of emphasis was placed on singing and
dancing
 The chorus served several functions in Greek drama.
First, it was treated as a group character who expressed
opinions, gave advice, and occasionally threatened to
interfere in the action. Second, it often seemed to
express the author’s point of view and to establish a
standard against which the actions of the characters
could be judged. Third, it frequently served as the
ideal spectator, reacting to events and characters as the
author would like the audience to react. Fourth, it
helped to establish mood and heighten dramatic
effects.
 The principal musical accompaniment in Greek
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tragedy was provided by a flute player.
The flute player wore sandals, one with clapper on its
sole for beating time. Both percussionist and flutist,
he also seems to have composed the music he played.
All of the performers, except the musician, wore masks
of lightweight wood, cork, or linen.
A variety of clothing was used for stage purposes
These conventions suggest that performance in the
Greek theatre was highly formlized.
 The City Dionysia included five days of perfromances
 The performances were open to everyone, but the
audience was composed primarily of men and boys.
 The atmosphere probably resembled a mixture of
religious festival and athletic event.
 Performances seem to have begun at dawn.
 The division of the play into a prologue and five
episodes separated by choral passages is typical of
Greek tragedy.
 The first episode begins with Oedipus’ proclamation
demanding that anyone with knowledge of the crime
come forward and placing a cures on the murderer.
 It is interesting to note that while the first four
episodes move forward in the present, they go
successively further back in time.
 The second episode builds logically upon the first.
 Though Jocasta has called oracles into question, she
obviously does not disbelieve in the gods.
 The scene not only reveals the truth to Jocasta, but also
it diverts attention from the murder of Laius to the
birth of Oedipus.
 A choral song is followed by the entry of the
Herdsman.
 The final episode is divided into two parts. A
Messenger enters and describes what has happened
offstage. The ”messenger scene” is a standard part of
Geek drama, because Greek sensibilities dictated that
scenes of extreme violence take place offstage.
 Oedipus the King is structurally unusual, for the
resolution scene is the longest in the play.
 Oedipus’ act of blinding himself grows believably out
of his character, for his very uprightness and deep
sense of moral outrage cause him to punish himself by
thrusting pins into his eyes.
 In drawing his characters, Sophocles pays little
attention to the physical level.
 Sophocles does give brief indications of age for other
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roles.
On the sociological level of characterization,
Sophocles again indicated little
Sophocles is principally concerned with psychological
and ethical characteristics.
Creon is given even fewer characteristics.
Unlike a modern play, then, in which characterization
is usually built from numerous realistic details, here
the characterization is drawn with a few bold strokes;
the most important traits are psychological and moral.
 In addition to the three speaking actors, a great many
supernumeraries are required, many of whom no
doubt appeared in more than one scene.
 We have already looked at its skillful construction and
its concern with the moral taboos of incest and
patricide.
 In addition, it develops themes of universal relevance.
 The contrast between human being seeking to control
their destiny and external forces shaping destiny is
clearly depicted.
 It is significant that no attempt is made in the play to
explain why destruction comes to Oedipus.
 Another motif – blindness versus sight – is
emphasized in poetic images and in various
comparisons.
 In addition to tragedy and satyr plays, Athens
developed a distinctive comic drama.
 Five comic dramatists competed each year at the
Lenaia, buteach presented only one play.
 Numerous authors wrote Old Comedy, as the plays
written prior to 400B.C are called, but only eleven
comedies have survived and all of these are by
Aristophances(448-380B.C). His play mingle slapstick,
fantasy, lyrical poetry, personal abuse, literary and
musical parody, and serious commentary on
contemporary affairs
 Old Comedy has several typical features: a prologue,
during which the happy idea is introduced; a parodos,
or entry of the chorus; an agon, or debate over the
merits of the happy idea, ending in its adoption; a
parabasis, or choral passage addressed to the
audience, most frequency filled with advice on civic or
other contemporary problems; a series of episodes
showing the happy idea in practice; and a komos , or
exit to feasting and revelry.
 After the fifth century B.C., Greek drama declined in
quality, although not in quantity.
 A round two hundred years after the first performance
of Oedipus the King, Rome became a major power,
eventually gaining control of Greece, the entire eastern
Mediterranean, and most of western Europe and
northern Africa.
 As in Greece, theatrical performances were part of
religious festival, although in Rome they might be for
any of several gods.
 The Romans were great assimilators, accepting,
borrowing, or changing those things that seemed
useful or desirable.
 Although the taste for full-length scripted drama
sharply declined after the mid-second century B.C.,
the demand for theatrical entertainment actually
increased steadily.
 Because playscripts survive and artifacts relating to
other kinds of theatrical entertainment often do not,
accounts of theatrical activities usually emphasize
performances based on full-length written scripts.
 The Roman theatre resembled that of Greece in many
ways. The Romans were ambivalent about anything
derived from Greece, which they considered to be
decadent.
 As in Greece, the expenses of theatrical production
were assumed by the state.
 In addition to underwriting production expenses, the
Roman state also supplied the theatre in which the
plays were presented.
 The scale of the Roman theatre was comparable to that
of the Greek.
 Admission to this theatre was free, seats were not
reserved, and audiences were often unruly.
 By the time of Plautus and Terence, there seems to
have been a number of theatre companies.
 The actors wore Greek costumes similar to those of
daily life, although there may have been some
exaggeration for comic purposes.
 Roman comedy does not deal with political or social
issues but rather with everyday domestic affairs.
 Of all Roman Comedies, Plautus’ The Menaechmi has
perhaps been the most popular. It served as the basis
for Shakespeare’s Comedy of Error as well as for a
number of others, including the American musical
The Boys from Syracuse by Richard Rodgers.
 The Menaechmi begins with a prologue that carefully
lays out the background of the action and goes over
important points more than once.
 Plautus has little interest in social satire. Instead, he
concentrates on the ridiculous situation growing out of
mistaken identity.
 As in most Roman comedy, the characters in The
Menaechmi are types rather than individuals.
 A company of six actors could easily perform the ten
speaking roles in The Menaechmi.
 By the beginning of the Christian era, Rome seemed to
have forgotten its earlier emphasis on gravity.
 In addition to comedy, the Romans also wrote tragedy.
 The Roman preference for variety entertainment and
short plays drove regular comedy and tragedy from the
stage.
 In addition to the mimes, late Roman festivals
increasingly emphasized blood sports, which, along
with mimes and variety entertainment, remained
integral parts of religious festival until around
A.D.400.
 The Roman Empire rapidly disintegrated after being
overrun by invaders in A.D.476. One
 It is ironic, therefore, that the revival of the theatre
owed most to the church’s discovery(during the last
half of the tenth century) that the dramatization of
biblical episodes was an effective means of teaching.
 Historians usually divide the Middle Ages(or medieval
period) into phases: early(approximately A.D. 900 to
A.D. 1050), high(approximately A.D. 1050 to A.D. 1300),
and late(approximately A.D. 1300 to A.D. 1500).
 This type is usually referred to as vernacular drama.
 The earliest known example of a liturgical play (one
incorporated into the church service, or liturgy) dates
from about A.D.970. It dramatized the arrival of three
women at the tomb of Christ, the announcement by an
angel that Christ has risen, and the subsequent
rejoicing.
 Around A.D.1200, some religious plays began to be
performed outside the church, and by around 1375 a
religious drama had developed independent of the
liturgy.
 This medieval religious theatre in some ways
resembled that of Greece and Rome.
 The production of the outdoor religious drama in
England is usually associated with trade guilds that
flourished beginning in the thirteenth century.
 The increased prominence of secular groups seems
also to have been at least partially responsible also to
have been at least partially responsible for the church’s
desire to incorporate ordinary people more fully into
its activities.
 The central feature of the Corpus Christi festival was
procession through the town with the consecrated
bread and wine.
 In the British Isles, about one hundred twenty-five
different towns produced plays at some time during
the Middle Ages.
 A major convention of medieval drama involves the
way time is handled. Throughout the Middle Ages,
humanity was thought to participate in two kinds of
time: eternal and earthly.
 The fluidity of time is also reflected in the structure of
the cycles.
 Staging also involved a number of conventions. There
were no permanent theatre, so theatrical spaces were
improvised.
 Regardless of the type of stage or location, the staging
conventions were the same everywhere. There were
two parts to the stage space: mansions and platea.
 Costumes were used to distinguish among the
inhabitants of Earth, Heaven, and Hell.
 There were frequently a number of spectacular special
effects.
 Let us look at the English cycle staged at Wakefield, a
town in central England. The surviving manuscript of
this cycle contains thirty-two plays, beginning with the
Creation and extending through the Last Judgment.
 The production of the Wakefield cycle was a
community effort involving the town council, the
church, and the guilds.
 The decision to perform the plays apparently was
made several months prior to Corpus Christi.
 At Wakefield, processional staging appears to have
been used.
 In addition to providing the pageant wagon and its
equipment, each guild had to supply performers and
someone to oversee the production.
 Costumes, for the most part, consisted of clothing in
common use in medieval England and were usually
supplied by the actors or borrowed.
 Each guild rehearsed and prepared its play separately
from the others
 The council specified the places at which the plays
would be performed
 Before the spectators saw Noah and His Sons they had
already viewed two others, The Creation and The
Killing of Abel Noah.
 The play begins with Noah praying to God and
comparing God’s goodness toward all creatures with
the ungrateful responses of those he has created, not
only human beings but also Lucifer, whose
rebelliousness has caused him to be cast out of
Heaven.
 The solemn tone of this opening expository scene,
which takes up approximately one-third of the play, is
abruptly broken when Noah returns home to his wife
 Noah then turns to carrying out God’s orders and,
without any assistance and within a space of twentyfive lines, builds the ship.
 The action of the play is almost equally divided among
three parts: One third is devoted to the opening
expository scene; one third to the two scenes of
bickering between Noah and his wife; and one third to
the ship-building and onboard scenes.
 There are nine roles, of which six are very minor-those
of Noah’s sons and their wives.
 All of the roles would have been played by men; having
Noah’s wife played by a man probably contributed to
making the quarreling and fighting more acceptably
comic.
 The script seems to demand stylized speech. It is
written in sixty-two nine-line stanzas, each using the
same structure.
 Only one mansion is required – the ship
 Because the spectators crowded around the
performance space, many spectators saw the actors at
close range, and the total configuration of the playing
places meant that the performance was viewed from a
 In addition to religious plays, several other dramatic
types were popular during the Middle Ages, among
them moralities, farces, and interludes.
 During the sixteenth century, the morality play was
gradually secularized as its original moral concerns
were replaced by new ones such as the ideal training of
rulers and the content of a proper education.
 A comic secular drama, farce , began to emerge around
the thirteenth century, but because the form was not
officially encouraged, it remained a minor though
highly entertaining type, emphasizing the ridiculous
and comically depraved aspects of human behavior.
 The interlude was a nonreligious serious or comic play
so called because it was performed between the parts of
a celebration
 There were many differences. In Greek theatre, the
chorus played a large role, as did dance. In Roman
theatre, the musical element was more equally
distributed throughout the play and was associated
with actors more than with the chorus. In medieval
theatre, music was plentiful but followed no fixed
plan. The theatre structures also differed.
 The Greeks seem to have placed great emphasis on
moral values and significant issues, whereas the
Romans were more concerned with popular
entertainment, and medieval theatre was tied to
Christian teaching.