Rome
• 750 BCE Rome
founded
• Etruria – 650 – 450
BCE
• Included modern Pisa
and Siena =Tuscany
• 391 - Romans
subjugate the
Etruscans
RomeRepublic – 509 – 27 BCE
• Roman theatre was associated with festivals
– Tragedy&Comedy w/o philosophy or
questioning Roman values, borrowed from
Greeks without being too “Greek” about it.
• Punic Wars = Rome vs. Carthage (North
Africa)
– Rome’s victory resulted in control of the
central and western Mediterranean region
Empire – 27 BCE – 476 CE
– Move toward “dictatorship” led by the
emperior
– Theatre and Entertainment
• Variety shows filled with spectacle and thrills
• Bread and Circus
• Collapse of Western Empire – 476 CE
• End of Byzantium (Eastern) Empire - 1453
Theatre and Roman Religion
• Originally Roman religion embraced
theatre
• Ludi Romani
Emperor Constantine converts
to Christianity
• 4th century C.E.
• Theatre is considered pagan
• Penalties for attending
theatre/entertainment instead of church
The Decline of Roman Theatre
• Coincided with the downfall of the western
Roman empire and the sacking of Rome
by barbarian tribes
• Rise of Christianity also contributed
• Period of dispersal and loss of Greek and
Roman knowledge after fall of Rome:
the dark ages
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1-9
Dramatic Criticism in Rome
• Like Roman drama, Roman
dramatic criticism was based on
the work of others, especially
Aristotle
• The best-known writer of dramatic
theory and criticism in the Roman
world was Horace (Quintus
Horatius Flaccus)
Horace
© 2012, The McGrawHill Companies, Inc. All
1-10
(Culver Pictures)
Roman Comedy, Roman Tragedy
• Plautus (Titus
Maccius Plautus)
– The Menaechmi
• Terence (Publius
Terentuis Afer)
• Seneca (Lucius
Annaeus Seneca)
Plautus
(New York Public Library, Picture Collection)
Terence
(New York Public Library, Picture Collection)
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Companies, Inc. All Rights
1-11
Influences on Roman
Theatre/Performance
•G–A–M–E-S
• Greek Theatre
• Atellan Farces – North Italy
• Mimes – South Italy and Greece
• Etruscan Festivals- north of Rome
• Spectacle, Sport and Popular
Entertainment
Roman Comedy
• Romans liked the Greek New Comedies
• Took the form and created their own
• Changes Romans made include
– No chorus
– Additional musical accompaniment
• Plautus’ plays could have 2/3 singing making
similar to our musical comedies (Forum)
– Eavesdropping which lead to
misunderstandings and complications
Greek Theatre - Fabula Palliata
• Pallium-word to describe Greek dress
Terence (Publius Terentius Afef) 185159 BCE
• Wrote comedies
• Borrowed heavily from the Greek comedies to the
extent of copying the plays
• Liked to combine elements from two plays and put
it into one play
• Former slave
• Possibly the first major African playwright in the
western theatre (His name “Afef” means from
Africa)
• Used as literary model for Middle Ages and
Renaissance
• Humor is verbal
Plautus 254 – 184 BCE
•
Just before Terence
• Started as an actor
• Wrote his plays by combining song, dance, and
native Italian farce with the characters and plots
from Hellenistic Greek comedies (New Comedy)
• His comedies were often sung, some up to 2/3 of
the play, they were like modern musical comedies
• Though he borrowed from others, his plays went on
to inspire writers in the Renaissance including
Shakespeare and Moliere.
• No chorus, did not deal with social or political issue
• Miles Gloriosus and Pseudolus
Fabula togata
•
•
•
•
•
Roman dress; toga
Plautus borrowed from togata
No plays survived with only three known writers
Togata not as popular as Palliata
Latin comedy based on incidents of
contemporary daily life in Roman towns;
• Its alternative name was tabernaria, from
taberna, a poor man's house.
• Smaller Cast, plot simpler, less restrained by
social conventions, and more overtly sexual,
than in the imported palliata.
Huge influence on future writers
• Menaechmi used as basis for Comedy of
Errors - Shakespeare
Roman Comedy
• slapstick characters and pratfalls were welded
onto the tradition of Greek New Comedy, which
was imported into Rome after its conquest of
Greece
• New Comedy is the ancestor of sitcoms, with
plots focusing on domestic issues, usually
involving boy-meets-girl-parents-forbid-marriage
and the intervention of a clever slave to save the
day. (like Forum)
• Roman comic playwrights added lively action,
ferocious puns, rude jokes, and lots of physical
comedy.
• These plays were performed at religious
festivals sponsored by junior officials in the
Roman government.
• The audience were rowdy
• drama competed for audience attention
with tightrope walkers, jugglers, and
gladiatorial combats.
Roman Tragedy
•
•
•
•
Early Roman Tragedy – no surviving plays
Later Tragedy
Like comedy- two styles
Fabula crepidata-Greek (a Greek shoe always
worn with the pallium.)
• Fabula praetexta – Roman
• Roman tragedies that survive, all but one is by
Seneca (4 BCE – 65 CE)
• The only surviving praetexta is not believed to
have been written by Seneca, but the play
features him as a character
Seneca
•
http://www.positivityblog.com/index.php/2008/03/21/senecas-top-10-fundamentals-for-finding-happiness/
Seneca 4BCE-65CE
• Born in Cordoba, Spain but sent to Rome at
early age.
• Wrote about stoicism but his life was not stoic
• Noted orator and politician
• Exiled twice from Rome, once due to
Caligula’s jealousy and once adultery with the
Emperor’s niece and political reasons
• Chief tutor and later advisor to Nero
• Nero asked Seneca to kill himself, which he
did
Seneca’s Tragedies like the
Greeks
• May have been written as “closet dramas”
• Similar to Greek tragedies and plots are
based on Greek tales
• Used a chorus
Seneca’s plays were different from the
Greeks
• Violence was seen on stage whereas the
Greeks had violence unseen
• Characters do not have tragic flaws but are
overcome by emotions. Ex. Revenge
• Supernatural beings appear in plays; ghosts
• Long monologues (soliloquies)
• Plays come off as melodramatic
• Influenced Renaissance playwrights
– Hamlet is described as a Senecan revenge
tragedy
Seneca
• Born in Spain, educated in Rome
• Taught Nero who became Emperor
• Plays were probably never performed in
Rome’s public theatres
• Because plays survived, his work was very
influential on renaissance writers
Seneca’s influence on
Renaissance writers
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Divided play into 5 episodes, Renaissance adopted the
5 act play format
Elaborate speeches
Morality – unrestrained emotion leads to evil
Scenes of violence and horror
Magic, death and human and superhuman worlds
Characters dominated with a single obsessive passion
that drives them to doom – psychological motivations
and unified characters
Technical devices – asides, soliloquies, confidantes
Atellan Farce
• Masked performers
• Stock Characters
• Closest surviving tradition– Commedia dell'arte
Atellan Farce – fabula Atellana
• Town of Atella, near modern Naples
• Farces probably imported to Rome around 275
BCE
• Probably derived from southern Italian mimes
who probably came from Greek mimes
• Short performances, largely improvised and
based on domestic situations or myths
• Stock characters with fixed costume and mask
Atellan Farce
Influenced Commedia and later,
Punch and Judy
Greek Mimes – Southern Italian
Mimes (fabula riciniata)
Phlyakes
Roman Comedies had stock
characters
• Ex. Plautus
– Clever Servant
Etruscan influences
• Etruria – Kingdom
north of Rome
• Etruscan Culture
– Religious Festivals
– (partly religious, partly
secular)
• Included a variety of
activities
• Acting
• Flute playing
• Dancing
• Juggling
• Prize fighting
Musicians and Dancers imported
from Etruria to appease Gods
• Rituals were often performed with masks and
with music
Roman Perfectionist
• Etruscans and Romans believed religious
parts of festivals should be perfect, without
mistakes. Any mistakes meant the festival
was repeated.
– Instauratio – repetition due to mistakes
• ludi Romani repeated 11 times between 214-200
BCE
• ludi Plebii repeated seven times in one year
• Rome had up to 170 sacred days in a
year, 101 of the involved theatre
Ludi Romani
• Tarquin (616-579 BCE)establish ludi
Romani
• Oldest Roman festival
• Featured Greek Drama
• Also chariot races, boxing and other
entertainments
• The Ludi Romani took up half the month of
September (5th to 19th).
• Latin word ludus means "game," "play" (as
opposed to work), or "sport."
Ludi (games) and feriae (holiday)
• In 100 BC various ludi took up 57 days of the
year, while by the fourth century AD they
occupied 177 days.
Popular Entertainment
• Under the Empire – “Bread and Circus”
• Wealth, slave labor, grain allowances all
lead for free time for free people
• Roman’s were like our modern channel
switchers
• 354 CE Theatre staged on 100 days with
75 days for chariot races and gladiatorial
sports, all associated with a festival.
Popular Entertainments
•
•
•
•
•
Circus like entertainments
Chariot racing
Trick riding and horse races
Mock battles including sea battles
Fighting
– Prize fighting, wrestling, gladiators, animals
– Romans taken by the games involving life and
death
Circus Maximus
Flavian Amphitheater or the
Coliseum - 80 AD.
9000 animals died in inagural 100 days
Banned
•
•
•
•
Permanent Stone Theatres banned in Rome
Used wooden structures
Above based on wall paintings in Rome and Pompeii
this one, used for performances at the J. Paul Getty
Museum in Malibu, CA, October 1994.
Entertainment and Bread and Circuses
• Many slaves to do mundane labor
Roman Theatre
• Placed many out of work, left the country for city
• Firstoftheatre
was
performed
in temporary
• Much
Rome’s
populace
was
poor andvenues
many
unemployed.
• Some attempts were made to build permanent theatres
around 170 BCE – 150 BCE but stopped do to the belief
• This is a recipe for disaster if they’re not kept
that theatre would be harmful to public morality
occupied.
• Sitting at theatre events prohibited by Senate to promote
• Emperor’s,
state expense, would put on massive
manly Romanatvalues
entertainment events.
• 146 - Rome sacks Corinth and makes all of Greece a
Roman
province;
• Chariot
races at the Circus Maximus.
– 145 BC L. Mummius built a wooden theater with seats to
• celebrate
Gladiator
battles at the Colosseum.
his triumphs.
Plautus’
and Terence’s
plays were never performed in
• Parades,
theatre, etc.
permanent theaters in their lifetimes
• Everybody also got grain rations.
•
Rome eventually built theatres
Le Théâtre Antique d'Orange
Bosra, Syria
Roman Theatres
• Freestanding structures with tiered
audience section
• Seating area generally larger than Greeks
• Semicircular orchestra
Antalya, Turkey
Pompey Theatre, Rome
• 55 BC Pompey erected the first permanent
stone theater at Rome.
• Some opposition to theatre in Rome
– Too Greek
– Just for entertainment and not to please the
gods
• A temple of Venus was placed at the top
of the seating area so that the rows of
seats appeared to be steps leading up to
the temple to appease opposition
Roman Theatre Terms
• Cavea – the seating area, like the Greeks
theatron
• Orchestra – like the Greek orchestra
• Scaena – skene or scene house
• Pulpitum – raised platform stage
• Auleum – front curtain raised and lowered
on telescoping poles
• Siparium - backdrop
Roman Comic Actors
•
•
•
•
The actors of Roman comedy were all men
five actors shared out all the different roles
The costumes consisted of a tunic and a pallium,
long for female characters and short for male
characters.
• The actors also wore masks,
– wildly distorted stereotypes,
– not very realistic
– funny.
The Roman empire in AD 180 with the death of Emperor
Marcus Aurelius
The split
• The empire is eventually and officially divided into two
halves: the western and eastern Roman empires.