The Greek Theater

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The Greek Theater
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• Closely adapted from
• Bill Worthen. The Harcourt Brace Anthology of
  Drama.
• Gassner, John. Introducing the Drama . New York
  Holt, Reinhart and Winston, Inc. 1963.
• Pickering, Kenneth. Studying Modern Drama. 2nd
  edition. London Palgrave MacMillan, 2002.

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Ancient Drama

• Great drama arises where the theater occupies an
  important place in the life of the community.
  Theater as we know it has its origins in the
  early days of Greece in many respects, Western
  understanding of drama originated in
  fifth-century classical Athens, where the theater
  played a central role in politics, religion, and
  society.

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City Dionysia

• The city of Dionysia, the most prominent of the
  four religious festivals honoring Dionysus, was
  held between December and April in Athens and the
  surrounding province of Attica. Although its
  purpose was primarily religious, the City
  Dionysia was structured around a series of
  contests between individual citizens and between
  major Athenian social groupsthe ten (later
  twelve to fifteen) tribes that formed the
  citys basic political and military units.

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Dionysus

• Dionysus (or Bacchus, as the Romans called him)
  was the god of wine and fertility. Every year the
  Greeks held a number of festivals in his honor.
  On these occasions, the worship of Dionysus took
  the form of a combination of dance and song,
  accompanied by music and wine.

itsa.ucsf.edu/.../greece/ hetairai/dionysus.jpg
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Aeschylus

• These festivals, at first improvised in a spirit
  of lively religious fervor, became formalized in
  the seventh century BCE. The first great writer
  for this theater was Aeschylus, who lived from
  525-426 BCE he is considered the father of Greek
  Tragic Drama.

itsa.ucsf.edu/.../greece/ hetairai/dionysus.jpg

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Sophocles

• The first great rival of Aeschylus was Sophocles,
  who appeared in annual theatrical competitions
  beginning in 471 BCE.

ball.tcnj.edu/pols270/plato/ tour/gallery.htm

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Oedipus Rex

• Oedipus Rex was first staged in 429 BCE as one of
  a group of plays presented at the City Dionysia.

www.alumni.utah.edu/cont
inuum/ fall00/crazy.htm
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Dramatic Contests

• Three days were set aside for these dramatic
  contests each competitor wrote three plays
  (hence the name trilogy), which usually dealt
  with tragic events befalling one family. The
  dramatist was also expected to write a fourth
  playa humorous, satiric drama dealing with the
  same or loosely related material. The four plays
  together made up a tetralogy.

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Greek Chorus

• The Greek tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and
  Euripidesand the comedies of Aristophanesinclude
  d a CHORUS. The chorus of tragedies was composed
  of fifteen men who were all highly trained in
  declamation, music, and dancing. In the
  comedies, the chorus numbered about twenty four.

www.greeklandscapes.com/ greece/delphi.html
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Audience

• All citizens, however poor, were entitled to see
  the plays. The audience was composed of all
  classes of society except slaves, and totaled
  between fifteen and twenty thousand spectators.

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A Public Spectacle

• Greek theater was a public spectaclea kind of
  cross between Inauguration Day, the Super Bowl,
  the Academy Awards, Memorial Day, and a major
  religious holiday.

www.videotek.com/HiRes/ photos.html

www.toto.net/kcfilms/ focus15.html
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Agora

• Plays were first produced in the AGORA
  (marketplace), which often served as a
  performance place for festivals in Athens and
  elsewhere.

www.3dgrafix.net/gal
lery.htm
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The Acropolis

• The size and importance of the City Dionysia,
  however, required a separate site, and a theater
  was built on the slope of the Acropolis, near the
  precinct of Dionysus.

www.csbsju.edu/.../grecoromn/ pics/acropolis.jpg
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The Original Theater

• The original theater, a ring of wooden seats
  facing a circular floor, was later refined,
  enlarged, and constructed of stone.

www.thecolefamily.com/italy/
pompeii/slide70.htm
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The Amphitheater

• By the time of Aeschylus, Euripides, Sophocles,
  and Aristophanes, the Athenian theater had
  achieved its basic design a circular floor for
  dancing and acting, ringed by a hillside
  AMPHITHEATER and backed by a low, rectangular
  building.

www.rootsweb.com/.../ca/alameda/
postcards/ppcs-alameda.html
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Theater and Civic Life

• The experience of theater in classical Athens was
  in some ways akin to participation in other
  institutions of civic life attendance at City
  Dionysia was like other aspects of public life in
  Athensa privilege and an obligation mainly
  reserved for citizens.

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Athenian Tribes

• At the theater, citizens sat together with
  members of their tribe. In a way, the theater
  mirrored the organization of Athenian society
  because the tribes formed the basis for political
  participation outside the theater.

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Fifth-Century Athens

• The fifth century BCE was the era of Athens
  greatest political power and cultural vitality
  and an era of intense reciprocity between
  Athenian theater and society.

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Influence of Greek Theater

• Theater became one of Greeces most widely
  disseminated cultural products. When Alexander
  the Great conquered Greece, the Near East, and
  northern Africa, he took Greek cultureincluding
  theater and dramawith him throughout his empire.

www.e-grammes.gr/flags_en.htm
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