Classical Greek Drama
Background information
Four Reasons for Theater
• Religion (honor Dionysis, the Greek god of
wine and fertility)
• Displaying loyalty to your city-state
• Honoring local heroes
• Entertainment
Origins
• Song and dance was a way of worshipping
the gods…
Mortals, I command
you to tell me how
awesome I am!
We
love
you!
Origins
• …and celebrating the harvest.
Origins
• Over the centuries, harvest dances
developed into the dithyramb, a religious
ritual performed by a chorus of men
wearing masks.
Origins
• Eventually, dithyrambs changed into
literary compositions on heroic subjects,
and choruses began competing for prizes
(a bull or a goat).
Origins
• This is Thespis.
Hi everyone!
I made the dithyramb better
by adding a new character,
separate from the chorus.
• He created the first actor. We get the term
“thespian” from his name.
Origins
• Aeschylus added a second actor to the
stage.
• Sophocles added a third.
• The chorus remained, but the audience
became more interested in the actors and
their lives and struggles.
Origins
• The 5th Century B.C. was known as the
golden age of Greek Drama.
• A four-day festival was held in March with
competitions and prizes for the best plays.
• Four playwrights emerged as the greatest:
Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and
Aristophanes.
Origins
•
•
•
•
Aeschylus: Prometheus Bound (tragedy)
Sophocles: Oedipus Rex, Antigone
(tragedies)
Euripedes: Medea (tragedy)
Aristophanes: The Frogs, The Clouds
(comedies)
The Theaters
• The first theaters were just hillsides with a few
wooden benches for the important spectators
(theatron).
• The orchestra was paved with stones, and was
where the actors and chorus performed.
• An altar for Dionysis, called the thymele, was in
the center of the orchestra
• The skene, a rectangular building made of
wood, provided changing rooms for actors and
prop storage.
The Theaters
• Theater design continued to evolve.
• Stone seats were added for everyone, not
just the most important people.
• The wooden skene was replaced by a
permanent stone building with a façade
called a proskenion.
• The parados (plural: paradoi) was the
entrance used by the Chorus.
The Theaters
•
•
•
•
Basic elements of a theater:
Circle for the actors.
Slope for the spectators with benches.
Open air for a roof.
The Chorus
• Only men could be in the chorus or be
actors in the play.
Wait a minute…
You’d never make a
convincing woman!
But Martin Lawrence
pulled it off in “Big
Momma’s House!”
Acting
I’m a BIG fan of
Greek theater!
Acting
• Up to 15,000 spectators could watch a
performance.
• Upper seats were more than 55 yards
from the action below.
YOU
THE PLAY
Acting
• The actors’ gestures had to be
exaggerated and dramatic so people in the
back row could see.
Acting
• At first, masks were fairly realistic
representations of human faces and expressed
emotions such as joy and sorrow.
• Later, they grew in size and became less
realistic.
The Chorus
•
•
•
•
Entered at the beginning of the play.
Remained during the performance.
Announced entrances and exits of characters.
Commented on the action of the play.
Kinda like these guys.
The Chorus
• The chorus embodied the moral ideas of
society and admonished characters
against breaking these moral laws.
• The choragos was the leader of the
chorus.
• Sometimes he participated in the dialogue
and represented the responses of a typical
citizen.
The Stage
• The violence - murder, suicide, and battles
- almost always occurred offstage.
CRASH! BLAM! KAPOW!
A messenger would appear
after the event and describe
in gory detail what had
just happened.
Aaargh! I am
stabbed! The pain
is horrible!!!
The Plays
• Greek drama was staged without
spectacle
• Scripts were written in a simple, direct
manner
• The Unities according to Aristotle:
 Unity of Action
 Unity of Time
 Unity of Place
The Plays
• Unity of Action: should have one
overpowering action that moves the play
forward (no subplots)
• Unity of Time: only actions that could
logically have taken place in 24 hours
• Unity of Place: Action or events being
described were limited to one locale.
The Stage
• Differences between Greek and modern
theater:
• Continuous presence of the chorus
• No intermissions
• No scenery or special effects: the skene
served as whatever building the play
needed (palace, temple, cave)
• Lighting was natural
• Very few props
The Stage
• “Deus Ex Machina”
• Literally means “God from the machine”
• The play ends with the gods intervening
and/or resolving the plot.
@#$
%&!
The Plays
• Plays retold myths, rewrote history, and
ridiculed politicians.
• Aristophanes wrote comic plays and got
into trouble for satirizing politicians and
even the gods.
The Plays
• The other three masters were tragic
poets.
• Tragic plays captured humankind’s
timeless struggle to find the purpose of life
and to achieve self-understanding.
The Plays
• Central to the tragedy is the fall of the
great man (or woman, but her part was
played by a man).
• This person is called the tragic hero.
• His/her fate is brought about by a flaw
within his or her own character.
The Plays
•
•
•
•
The tragic hero inspired audiences to:
examine their own lives,
define their beliefs,
and cleanse their emotions of pity and
terror through compassion for the
character.
The Plays
• Nearly 2,500 years have passed since the
golden age of Greek drama, but the stage,
television, or movie production we enjoy
today owes its existence to that open
theater, those pioneering actors, the
dedicated poets, and the passionate
audiences of ancient Greece.
The End!