Greek Drama

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Greek Drama

• Mrs. Brooks
• October 4, 2007

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Drama built on religion

• Roman theater, Shakespearean theater, and modern
  theater were heavily influenced by the Greek
  theater of the 4th, 5th, and 6th centuries B.C.
  Yet, how did this Greek theater itself begin?

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Drama built on religion

• By the sixth century B.C., the cult of Dionysus
  had spread across all of Greece with its
  celebrations of wine, women, and song.

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Drama built on religion
DITHYRAMBS
This cult contained groups of nearly naked men
with horses ears and tails chanting rhythmically
with songs celebrating Dionysus for his gifts of
wine, happiness, life after death (according to
some believers), and a host of other extravagant
gifts.
These songs were called
dithyrambs.
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Drama built on religion
TRAGWIDIA (Tragedy)
Originally, songs sung for Dionysus festivals
were usually laments and paeans (serious and
often doleful songs to the gods), with the best
singers winning a he-goat for a prize (a tragoV).

This leads down to our word tragedy for any sad
or wretched story.
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Drama built on religion
THESPIS (543 B.C.)

• Eventually one brave soul felt possessed by the
  god himself and stood up to chant as the
  hypokrites, or answerer to the chorus. This
  created the first character role to play opposite
  the chorus, and thus drama was born.

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Drama built on religion
THEATER CONTESTS

• After this great innovation, playwrights began to
  compete at the yearly festivals in Athens,
  creating tetralogies of three tragedies and one
  satyr play (a farce or crude comedy).

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Drama built on religion
The hypokrites was also known as the
protagonistes (a word which means first
competitor).
Playwrights, producers, and hypokrites were
awarded a crown of ivy (a plant sacred to
Dionysus) and had their names inscribed in marble
slabs called didaskaliai.
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Who were these playwrights?
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Aeschylus

• Aeschylean tragedy is, above all, grand, massive,
  and dignified. The language is heavy and, even in
  the Greek, often difficult to understand, full of
  compound forms and complex metaphors.
• Added a second actor to his drama
• Wrote on unified themes through trilogy
• He is still considered by many (as Aristophanes
  writes about in The Frogs) to be the greatest
  Greek playwright.

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Sophocles

• The Sophoclean heroes dominate six of the plays
  of Sophocles that we possess. They are stubborn
  and self-willed, and they pursue their own
  purposes and fashion their own identities.
  Athenians had traditionally identified themselves
  through family. Democratic society changed their
  point of view.
• Added a third actor
• Fixed number of the Chorus to 15
• Introduced painted scenery
• Made each play of a trilogy separate in nature

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Euripides

• Euripides appears to cast tragedy's religious
  foundations into question. Others call him a
  misogynist, an under miner of received morality,
  and unorthodox in his religious views.
• No other playwright from antiquity challenged the
  status quo in such a controversial manner. He
  brought about issues for the people and for the
  philosophers, and not just for the literary
  figures.
• Reduced participation of Chorus
• Relied on heavy prologues and deus ex machina

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Timeline of Ancient Greek Drama

• c. 625 Arion at Corinth produces first
  dithyrambic choruses.
• 540-527 Pisistratus, tyrant of Athens, founds
  the festival of the Greater Dionysia
• 536-533 Thespis puts on tragedy at festival of
  the Greater Dionysia in Athens
• Aeschylus born
• 499-496 Aeschylus' first dramatic competitions
• c. 496 Sophocles born
• Euripides born
• Aeschylus' first dramatic victory
• Aeschylus defeated by Sophocles in dramatic
  competition
• Aeschylus' Oresteia (Agamemnon, Libation
  Bearers, Eumenides)
• 456 Aeschylus dies

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Timeline of Ancient Greek Drama
c. 450 Aristophanes born 441
Sophocles' Antigone 431-404 Peloponnesian War
(Athens and allies vs. Sparta and allies) c. 429
Sophocles' Oedipus the King 406 Euripides
dies Sophocles dies 404 Athens loses
Peloponnesian War to Sparta 399 Trial and
death of Socrates c. 380's Plato's Republic
includes critique of Greek tragedy and
comedy 380 Aristophanes dies 342 Menander
born 291 Menander dies
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Extant Works of Greek Tragedy

• Euripides
• Alcestis (438)
• Medea (431)
• Children of Heracles (ca. 430)
• Hippolytus (428)
• Andromache (ca. 425)
• Hecuba (ca. 424),
• Suppliant Women (ca. 423)
• Electra (ca. 420)
• Heracles (ca. 416)
• Trojan Women (415)
• Iphigenia among the Taurians (ca. 414)
• Ion (ca. 413)
• Helen (412)
• Phoenician Women (ca. 410)
• Orestes (408)
• Bacchae (after 406)
• Iphigenia in Aulis (after 406)
• Cyclops (possibly ca. 410)

• Aeschylus
• Persians (472)
• Seven Against Thebes (468)
• Suppliant Women (463?)
• Oresteia Trilogy (458)
• Agamemnon
• Libation Bearers
• Eumenides
• Prometheus Bound (450-425?)
• Sophocles
• Ajax (450-430)
• Antigone (c. 442?)
• Trachiniai (450-430?)
• Oedipus Tyrannos (429-425?)
• Electra (420-410)
• Philoctetes (409)
• Oedipus at Colonus (401)

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Actors and Masks in Greek Theater

• Roles in the play

• The main actors (playing multiple characters
  each)
• protagonistes
• deuteragonistes
• tritagonistes

• Chorus
• 12 or 15 choreutes (dancers)
• trained to sing and dance from their youth

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Actors and Masks in Greek Theater

• Who could be an actor?
• Males
• Young males
• Young citizen males
• Young citizen males with some money or authority
  in society
• Young citizen males with some money or authority
  in society, and the approval of the Honorable
  Archon

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Actors and Masks in Greek Theater

• Who could be in the chorus?
• males
• trained by a poet to sing and dance
• twelve or fifteen, depending on when the play was
  written
• the leader was called the coryphaeus (head man
  or leader)

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Actors and Masks in Greek Theater

• Masks were used in Greek drama to portray
  character types or character emotions to the
  entire audience, which could be up to 20,000
  people crowded onto a hillside.
• These masks fit over the head, with a wig
  attached, and had large mouth openings so that
  speech would not be muffled.

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Masks in Greek Theater

• prevented the audience from identifying the face
  of any actor with one specific character
• allowed men to impersonate women without
  confusion
• helped the audience identify the sex, age, and
  social rank of the characters
• were often changed by the actors when they would
  exit after an episode to assume a new role

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Structure of the Play

• Prologos Episode III
• Parodos Ode III
• Episode I Episode IV
• Ode I Ode IV
• Episode II Exodus
• Ode II

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Structure of the Play

• Prologos
• The first speech of an actor (hypokrites) or
  actors, usually to set up the plot and explain
  what has happened prior to the plays beginning.

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Structure of the Play

• Parodos
• The first speech of the chorus, usually to
  explain their purpose in being there, or to
  explain the overall purpose and meaning of the
  play.

Be careful! The message can be well hidden!
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Structure of the Play

• Episodes
• Actions between actors or between an actor and
  the chorus
• Their purpose is to present the action or
  dialogue within the play.

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Structure of the Play

• Odes
• Songs of the chorus addressing an abstract theme
  of the play, or focusing upon the central theme
  of the play. The odes are not necessarily
  focused on the action of the episodes, but may
  contain similar themes.

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Structure of the Play

• Exodus
• The final resolution of the play, and an
  explanation of the final actions in the play by
  one or more of the hypokriteis.

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Features of Classical Theaters
Theaters (like this one at Ephesus) were in
Outdoor, open spaces
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Features of Classical Theaters
earlier theaters had wooden benches
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Features of Classical Theaters
in later theaters Romans replaced these wooden
benches with marble seating
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Features of Classical Theaters
The skene (from which we get the English word
scene) was originally a wooden-framed tent behind
the staging area used for costume and mask
changing, or for housing actors while off-stage.
Eventually, when theaters became more permanent,
stone skene buildings were constructed and used
as part of the permanent scenery.
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The Theater of Dionysus TodaySituated on the
southern side of the Acropolis in Athens, the
Theater of Dionysus was the major theater used in
Athens and the surrounding country for festivals
and celebrations to Dionysus.
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The Theater of Dionysus in Athens,
Greece Restored by the emperor Nero in 68
A.D. (Computer recreation)
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Theater of Epidauros (built 330 B.C., near
modern day Nauplion, Greece)
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Epidauros
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Epidauros
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Features of Classical Theaters

• Theatron the theater itself, where the audience
  sat

• Orchestra circular dancing place where actors
  and Chorus performed

• Thymele the focal spot acoustically of the
  orchestra (also called the sweet spot), altar
  where the sacrifices to Dionysus would be made

• Skene building used as dressing room

• Proskenion façade of skene building which served
  as backdrop

• Parodos entrance to the theater used by Chrous

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Features of Classical Theaters
The fifth-century skene was a single-story
building with one central door, which could be
used to give the skene the identity of a palace,
a temple, a hut, or a cave if necessary.
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Theatrical Machines (mechanai)
The ekkyklema (a wheeled-out thing) was a cart
on wheels which carried a dead body onto the
stage. It was sacrilegious to show a character
actually dying on the stage.
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Theatrical Machines (mechanai)

• The Deus Ex Machina (machine) was a crane-like
  machine that could lift a character up as if
  flying and could carry an actor in the guise of a
  god to the top of the skene.

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Homework

• Vocabulary Words
• Crossword Puzzle