Theatre History

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Theatre History

• Rituals to Renaissance

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Rituals - 38,000-5000 BC

• Oldest form of expression - storytelling
• Begins with primitive man as dance and rhythmic
  movement
• These rituals explained tradition, religion, why
  thing happen in nature
• Rituals evolved into pantomime - stories shown
  not told

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Egypt - 4000 - 500 B.C.

• Pyramid plays - religious plays about the
  deceased kings soul being resurrected
• Coronation Festival plays - celebration of the
  new pharaoh
• Passion plays - murder of a king battle,
  voyages, and a scary resurrection scene
• Ra plays - Ra (sun god) fought Apophis (snake
  god) of the underworld. Ra always won.

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Greeks 1200-500 B.C.

• Performances grew out of religious festivals in
  honor of Greek God Dionysis
• Festivals (5-6 days) were held once a year in the
  THEATRON (watching space) which is where we get
  our word THEATRE
• All citizens were expected to attend
• Largest seated 1400 (1/2 population of Athens)
• Theaters were semi-circles built of stone into
  the hillside

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Greek Theatre (continued)

• Greek Theatre focused on TRAGEDY (issues of
  life, death, the gods)
• Actors all male/wore masks
• Chorus (12-50) acted out the
• story/life of the Gods together
• First producer/director/actor was
• THESPIS - invented acting when
• he steps out of the chorus to
• answer them ---
• this created stage dialogue

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Greek Theatre (continued) - Playwrights

• Aeschylus - (525?-456 B.C.) Father of Tragedy
  considered to be the first playwright
• Idea of the play is the most important thing -
  not the character
• Adds a 2nd actor
• Sophocles (496-406 B.C.)
• Writes about right vs wrong, the idea that man
  can not solve all the problems in the world
• Focuses on character -- drives the plot
• Euripides (480?-406 B.C.)
• First Modern playwright
• Writes plays of characters in relation to society
  and mocks them
• Characters are realistic
• No chorus

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Roman Theatre - 6th century B.C.

• Borrowed from the Greeks and improved on them
• Less philosophical than the Greeks
• Actors/performers were called histriones
• Encompassed more than drama acrobatics,
  gladiators, jugglers, athletics, chariots races,
  naumachia (sea battles), boxing, venationes
  (animal fights)

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Roman Theatre (continued)

• Pantomime/Mime - solo dance, with music (lutes,
  pipes, cymbals) and a chorus.
• Used masks, story-telling, mythology or
  historical stories, usually serious but sometimes
  comic
• Spoken
• Usually short
• Sometimes elaborate casts and spectacle
• Serious or comic (satiric)
• No masks
• Had women
• Violence and sex depicted literally
• Scoffed at Christianity
• Needless to say, the Church did not
  
  look kindly at Mime.

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Roman Theatre (continued)

• Theaters are free-standing buildings with stadium
  seating
• Large stages (20-40 deep and 100-300 feet long)
• Could seat 10-15,000 people
• Stage covered with a roof (often
• Audience covered with a awning to
  protect them from the
  sun
• Trap doors common
• Around 78 B.C. a cooling system
  put in place
  --- air blown over
  streams of
  water
• Sand on the stage floor

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Roman Playwrights

• Titus Maccius Plautus (254-184 B.C.)
• 130 plays total
• Wrote comedy
• Extremely popular in his own time
• Lots of slapstick and dialog with short lines
• Publius Terenius Afer (Terence) (195 or 185 to
  159 B.C.)
• Came to Rome as a boy slace, educated and freed
• 6 plays (all survived)
• More complex stories --- all from Greek originals
• Less popular than Plautus
• Lucius Annaeus seneca (4 or 5 B.C. to 65 A.D.)
• Wrote 9 plays - 5 adapted from Euripides
• Popularity declined and committed suicide in 65
  A.D.
• Characters in plays dominated by a single passion
• Violence and horror onstage (unlike Greeks)

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Medieval Theatre (950-1550)

• Theatre is dead in Europe but active in Asia
• Traveling Troupes performed on wagons which
  opened to create a fixed stage - used props and
  costumes but in Europe no women performers
• 3 Types of plays performed
• Miracle Plays - enacted the lives of saints
• Mystery Plays - Bible stories sometimes also
  called passion plays
• Morality Plays - taught moral lessons - right vs
  wrong and the struggle between good and evil for
  the soul of Man

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Italian Renaissance (1470-1550)

• Built indoor theaters
• Church no longer calling the shots
• Commedia DellArte - 1st form of improvisation
  still traveling troupes that performed for from
  the crowd that gathered plot summary learned by
  actors beforehand
• Considered to be the 1st professional theatre
• First in Europe to put Women on stage

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English Renaissance (1470-1550)

• Focused on the plays of Shakespeare, Marlowe, and
  Jonson
• Theatre saw an incredible burst of energy and
  talent -- 1 in 8 people regularly went to the
  theatre
• Purpose to entertain the rich. They got the good
  seats in the balcony and the poor stood below
• Roles were played by men (including women roles
• First time costumes fit the character

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Shakespeare April 24,1564-April 24,1616

• Noted to be the greatest playwright in history,
  although authenticity is questioned by many.
• He was an poet, actor, playwright, and producer
• Wrote 38 plays histories, comedies, tragedies,
  and fantasies
• Balanced plot and character

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The Globe Theater

• Built in 1599 - considered indoor
• Thrust Stage
• 3 Stories high
• Audience Sits
  around the stage
• Little furniture
• Burned down in
  1613 during a
  performance of
  Henry 8th

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The Globe today
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The Globe Today
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The Globe Today
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French Renaissance (1550-1700)

• Best playwright - Jean-Baptiste Moliere
  (1622-1672) wrote comedies that focued on social
  rules also called Comedy of Manners
• French Theatre had several rules
• Unities - time, place, and action had to be 24
  hours or less
• Purity of Form - no mixing of Comedy and Tragedy
• Verisimilitude - the appearance of truth with
  the following categories - Reality (could happen
  in real life), Morality (teach a lesson),
  Generality (normal attirbutes), and Decorum
  (stereotypes)

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19th Century Theatre (1800-1900)

• Naturalism (1850-1922)
• The relationship between character and enviroment
• 2 important creators - Anton Chekhov (Russian
  playwright) and Konstantin Stanislavsky
  (1963-1938). Both men demanded natural reponses
  from their actors. Psychological reactions of the
  characters could be more important than the
  situation itself.
• Stanislavsky created The System or Method
  acting - actor uses an emotional memory to
  create character/motivation.

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19th Century Theatre (1800-1900)

• Realism (1850-1950)
• A style showing life as it really is reflects
  real life
• The FOURTH WALL is established as a result - the
  idea that the actors can see through an invisible
  wall into the lives of the characters.
• Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906)
• Playwright who saw theatre as a means to
  challenge mistakes he saw in the society he
  lived in. Most famous play A Dolls House helped
  pave the way for women to be seen as equals.