Greek
Theater
History
Dionysus (700 B.C.)
 Honored
with a festival called “City of Dionysia”
 Men would perform songs to welcome Dionysus
 Tribes would compete against one another in
performances
Early Greek Festivals
 The
actors, directors, and writer were all the same
person.
 Eventually, only three actors were used in each
play.


Chorus evolved into an active part due to the
limited number of people allowed on stage.
The chorus was given as many as half of the lines in
the play.
Aristotle
 Says


tragedy evolved from dithyramb
Songs sung in praise of Dionysus at Dionysia each
year
Dithyrambs may have begun as frenzied
improvisations
Tragedy Plays (About 6th
Century B.C.)
 “tragedy”

literally means “goat song”
Festival participants’ goat-like dancing
around sacrificial goats for prizes
 Thespis,
a priest of Dionysus, is the
originator of tragedy.


He became the first actor by engaging
in dialogue with the chorus.
It’s because of him that actors are
known as Thespians.
 The
three well-known Greek
playwrights of the fifth century are
Sophocles, Euripides, and Aeschylus.
Aeschylus
 Was
the first person to add a second actor
 Wrote three plays with one main theme making a
trilogy
Sophocles
 Was
the first person to add a
third actor
 Used the tragic dilemmas on a
more personal level in the
themes of his plays



Complex plots
Characterization was more
subtle
The personal interaction
between characters became
more central to the drama
Euripides
 Introduces
myth

a more unconventional view of Greek
Sees it from new angles or views mythological
characters in terms of their human frailties
Greek Theatre
 Theatre


buildings were called theatron
Large open-aired structures on the slopes of hills
Consists of three main elements
 Orchestra,
skene (stored costumes and was part of the
scenery), and the audience
Orchestra
A
large circular or rectangular area at the
center part of the theatre, where the
play, dance, religious rites, and acting
used to take place
Skene
A
large rectangular building situated behind the
orchestra, used as a backstage

Actors could change their costumes and masks
 Earlier
the skene was a tent or hut, later it
became a permanent stone structure

These structures were sometimes painted to serve
as backdrops.
Audience
 Rising
from the circle of the orchestra was the
audience
 The theatres were originally built on a very large
scale to accommodate the large number of
people on stage, as well as the large number of
people in the audience

Up to fourteen thousand people
Acting
 The
cast of a Greek play in the Dionysia was
comprised of amateurs, not professionals (all
male)
 Ancient Greek actors had to gesture grandly so
that the entire audience could see and hear the
story

Most Greek theatres were cleverly constructed to
transmit even the smallest sound to any seat
Costumes and Masks
 The
actors were so far away from the audience
that without the aid of exaggerated costumes
and masks the audience would struggle to
understand what was going on in the show
 Costumes helped to distinguish the character’s
gender and social status

Used animal skins and feathers
 The

masks were made of linen or cork
Tragic masks carried mournful or pained expressions,
while comic masks were smiling or leering
 The
shape of the mask amplified the actor's
voice, making his words easier for the audience
to hear