The Origins of Drama

Twenty-five hundred years ago, two thousand years before Shakespeare, Western theatre
was born in Athens, Greece. Between 600 and 200 BC, the ancient Athenians created a
theatre culture whose form, technique and terminology have lasted two millennia, and
they created plays that are still considered among the greatest works of world drama.
Their achievement is truly remarkable when one considers that there have been only two
other periods in the history of theatre that could be said to approach the greatness of
ancient Athens - Elizabethan England and, perhaps the Twentieth Century. The greatest
playwright of Elizabethan England was Shakespeare, but Athens produced at least five
equally great playwrights. The Twentieth Century produced thousands of fine plays and
films, but their form and often their content are based on the innovations of the ancient
Athenians.

The Cult of Dionysus

The theatre of Ancient Greece evolved from religious rites which date back to at least
1200 BC. At that time, Greece was peopled by tribes that we in our arrogance might label
'primitive'. In northern Greece, in an area called Thrace, a cult arose that worshipped
Dionysus, the god of fertility and procreation. This Cult of Dionysus, which probably
originated in Asia Minor, practised ritual celebrations which may have included alcoholic
intoxication, orgies, human and animal sacrifices, and perhaps even hysterical rampages by
women called maenads.

The cult's most controversial practice involved, it is believed, uninhibited dancing and
emotional displays that created an altered mental state. This altered state was known as
'ecstasis', from which the word ecstasy is derived. Dionysiac, hysteria and 'catharsis' also
derive from Greek words for emotional release or purification. Ecstasy was an important
religious concept to the Greeks, who would come to see theatre as a way of releasing
powerful emotions through its ritual power. Though it met with resistance, the cult spread
south through the tribes of Greece over the ensuing six centuries. During this time, the
rites of Dionysus became mainstream and more formalised and symbolic. The death of a
tragic hero was offered up to god and man rather than the sacrifice of say, a goat. By 600
BC these ceremonies were practised in spring throughout much of Greece.

The Dithyramb

An essential part of the rites of Dionysus was the dithyramb. The word means 'choric
hymn'. This chant or hymn was probably introduced into Greece early accompanied by
mimic gestures and, probably, music. It began as a part of a purely religious ceremony,
like a hymn in the middle of a mass describing the adventures of Dionysus. In its earliest
form it was lead off by the leader of a band of revelers, a group of dancers, probably
dressed as satyrs dancing around an altar. It was probably performed by a chorus of about
fifty men dressed as satyrs -- mythological half-human, half- goat servants of Dionysus.
They may have played drums, lyres and flutes, and chanted as they danced around an
effigy of Dionysus. Some accounts say they also wore phallus-like headgear. It was given a
regular form and raised to the rank of artistic poetry in about 600 BC. Introduced into
Athens shortly before 500 BC, dithyramb was soon recognised as one of the competitive
subjects at the various Athenian festivals. For more than a generation after its introduction
the dithyramb attracted the most famous poets of the day. By this time, however, it had
ceased to concern itself exclusively with the adventures of Dionysus and begun to choose
its subjects from all periods of Greek mythology. In this way, over time the dithyramb
would evolve into stories in 'play' form: drama.

THE GOLDEN AGE OF GREEK THEATRE

By 600 BC Greece was divided into city-states, separate nations centred in major cities and
regions. The most prominent city-state was Athens, where at least 150,000 people lived. It
was here that the Rites of Dionysus evolved into what we know today as theatre. Since
Athens was located in a region called Attica. Greek and Athenian theatre are sometimes
referred to as Attic Theatre.

Thespis

In about 600 BC, Arion of Mehtymna (Corinth) wrote down formal lyrics for the dithyramb.
Some time during the next 75 years, Thespis of Attica added an actor who interacted with
the chorus. This actor was called the protagonist, from which the modern word protagonist
is derived, meaning the main character of a drama. Introduce a second speaker and one
moves from one art, that of choric chant, to another, theatre. Tradition ascribes this
innovation to one Thespis, and even gives him a date; he is said to have performed Athens
about 534 BC. Whether this is true of not, his name has achieved immortality in theatrical
jargon - 'actors' and 'Thespians' are synonymous.

Athenian Drama Competitions

In 534 BC, the ruler of Athens, Pisistratus, changed the Dionysian Festivals and instituted
drama competitions. Thespis is said to have won the first competition in 534 BC. In the
ensuing 50 years, the competitions became popular annual events. A government authority
called the archon would choose the competitors and the choregos, wealthy patrons who
financed the productions. Even in ancient Greece, the funding of the arts was a way of tax
avoidance. In return for funding a production, the choregos would pay no taxes that year.

Amphitheatres

During this time, major theatres were constructed, notably the theatre at Delphi, the Attic
Theatre and the Theatre of Dionysus in Athens. The Theatre of Dionysus, built at the foot
of the Acropolis in Athens, could seat 17,000 people. During their heyday, the competitions
drew as many as 30,000 spectators. The words theatre and amphitheatre derive from the
Greek word theatron, which referred to the wooden spectator stands erected on those
hillsides. Similarly, the word orchestra is derived from the Greek word for a platform
between the raised stage and the audience on which the chorus was situated.

How Plays Were Performed

Plays were performed in the daytime. The annual drama competitions in Athens were
spread over several, entire days. Actors probably wore little or no makeup. Instead, they
carried masks with exaggerated facial expressions. They also wore cothornos, or buskins,
which were leather boots laced up to the knees. There was little or no scenery. Initially,
most of the action took place in the orchestra. Later, as the importance shifted from the
chorus to the characters, the action moved to the stage.

TRAGEDY

Between 600 and 500 BC, the dithyramb had evolved into new forms, most notably the
tragedy and the ‘satyr’ play. Tragedy, derived from the Greek words tragos (goat) and ode
(song), told a story that was intended to teach religious lessons. Much like Biblical
parables, tragedies were designed to show the right and wrong paths in life. Tragedies
were not simply plays with bad endings, nor were they simply spectacles devised to ‘make
'em laugh and make 'em cry.’ Tragedy was viewed as a form of ritual purification,
Aristotle's catharsis, which gives rise to pathos, another Greek word, meaning 'instructive
suffering'. They depicted the life voyages of people who steered themselves or who were
steered by fate on collision courses with society, life's rules, orsimply fate. The tragic
protagonist is one who refuses out of either weakness or strength to acquiesce to fate:
what for us nowmight better be described as the objective realities of life. Most often, the
protagonist's main fault is hubris, a Greek, and English word meaning false or overweening
arrogance. It could be the arrogance of not accepting ones destiny (i.e. as in Oedipus Rex),
the arrogance of assuming the right to kill (Agamemnon), or the arrogance of assuming the
right to seek vengeance (Orestes). Whatever the root cause, the protagonist's ultimate
collision with fate, reality, or society is inevitable and irrevocable.

The Culture That Created Tragedy

Tragedy did not develop in a vacuum. It was an outgrowth of what was happening at the
time in Athens. One hand, Greek religion (see Bullfinch's Mythology. It is in library) had
dictated how people should behave and think for centuries. On the other, there was a
birth of free thought and intellectual inquiry. Athens in the fourth and fifth centuries BC
was bustling with radical ideas like democracy, philosophy, mathematics, science and art.
It boasted philosophers like Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Epicurus, and Democritus. There
were the first known historians Thucydides and Herodotus. The scientists and
mathematicians like Thales, Hippocrates, Archimedes, and later Euclid (euclidean
geometry), Pythagoras (the Pythagorean theorem), Eratosthenes, Hero (the steam
engine!), Hipparchus and Ptolemy. In these respects -- a blossoming of free thought after
years of religious dicta -- ancient Athens resembled Renaissance England, which not
coincidentally spawned the next great era in theatre. In essence, the ancient Athenians
had begun to question how nature worked, how society should work, and what man's role
was in the scheme of things. Tragedy was the poets' answer to some of these questions --
How should one behave? How can one accept the injustices of life? What is the price of
hubris? Read a soliloquy from a Greek tragedy, or from Hamlet or Macbeth, and what you
will hear is these questions being asked.

The Form of Tragedy

The traditional tragedy in Aeschylus' time (circa 475 BC) consisted of the following parts:

1. Prologue, which described the situation and set the scene

2. Parados, an ode sung by the chorus as it made its entrance

3. Five dramatic scenes, each followed by a Komos, an exchange of laments

by the chorus and the protagonist

4. Exodus, the climax and conclusion

Aristotle - arousing of fear and emotion, purging (catharsis) - the unities: unity of time
place and character - Pathos (Greek for instructive suffering) which has come to mean the
quality in something that arouses sympathy. Often used today to describe something sad
but not necessarily tragic. Satyrs, trilogies of tragedies were interrupted by satyr plays
(which made fun of characters in the tragedies around them). Hence the word tragedy.
Comedy from Komodos which means 'merrymaking,' and 'singer.'

Aeschylus, the First Playwright

Until 484 BC the Athenian drama competitions consisted of a trilogy of dithyrambs and a
satyr play. Their style of presentation was choral rather than dramatic. However, around
484 BC there appeared on the Athenian theatre scene a playwright named Aeschylus.
Aeschylus turned the dithyramb into drama. He added a second actor (the antagonist) to
interact with the first. Heintroduced props and scenery and reduced the chorus from 50 to
12. Aeschylus' Persians, written in 472 BC, is the earliest play in existence. Aeschylus'
crowning work was The Oresteia, a trilogy of tragedies first performed in 458 BC. They tell
the legend of Agamemnon, the Greek war hero who was murdered by his wife
Clytemnestra, and the pursuit of justice by his children, Orestes and Electra. Thematically,
the trilogy is about the tragedy of excessive human pride, arrogance or hubris. This hubris
is required to murder a person for personal gain, as Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus
do, as well as the hubris to in turn hunt down and kill them, as Orestes and Electra do. In
the end, the Furies, vengeful emissaries of the gods, themselves bring Orestes and Electra
to trial. Aeschylus makes a point that has been echoed by historians and dramatists,
psychologists and crime writers for centuries since: that the root of evil and suffering is
usually human arrogance. On a dramatic level, the plays convey the suffering of a family
torn apart by patricide and matricide.

The Periclean Age

Aeschylus' death in 456 BC coincided with the beginning of the Periclean Age, a period
during which Athens' population grew to 150,000, its government embraced democracy
(although two-thirds of its population were slaves), and the arts flourished. In a span of 60
years, Thucydides and Herodotus wrote their histories, the sophists, Socrates and Plato
expounded their philosophies, and Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes wrote some of
the world's best plays.

Sophocles

In 468 BC, Aeschylus was defeated in the tragedy competition by Sophocles. Sophocles'
contribution to drama was the addition of a third actor and an emphasis on drama between
humans rather than between humans and gods. Sophocles was a fine craftsman. Aristotle
used Sophocles' play, Oedipus Rex for his classic analysis of drama, The Poetics. Sophocles'
plays are suffused with irony. In The Oedipus Trilogy, Oedipus seeks the truth about his
father's murder. The truth that awaits him, however, is that he is the murderer. Click here
for a summary of the 'Oedipus Trilogy'. In Electra, the hunted murderer Aegisthus finds the
identity of a body under a blanket is Orestes, the man who has relentlessly hunted him and
his lover, Clytemnestra. He is relieved that he has escaped justice. However, when he lifts
the blanket he discovers the body is that of his lover Clytemnestra. Orestes has indeed
caught up with him. Sophocles' plays are about the folly of arrogance and the wisdom of
accepting fate. Sophocles believed in the Greek gods, but his plays are suffused with
existential insights that have been voiced many times since. For instance, compare this
observation by Antigone: What joy is there in day repeating day, some short, some long,
with death the only end? I think them fools who warm their hearts with the glow of empty
hopes.

With that of Macbeth's famous speech:

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

(Click here for a summary of 'Macbeth')

Euripides

In all, Sophocles won 20 competitions, making him the Carl Lewis (?) of Greek dramatic
competition. Although far behind Sophocles in the medal count with a mere five, Euripides
has since eclipsed both Sophocles and Aeschylus in popularity. The modern attraction to
him stems largely from his point of view, which finds a strong echo in modern attitudes.
His plays were not about Gods or royalty but real people. He placed peasants alongside
princes and gave their feelings equal weight. He showed the reality of war, criticised
religion, and portrayed the forgotten of society: women, slaves, and the old. Euripides is
credited with adding to the dramatic form the prologue, which "set the stage" at the
beginning of the play, and the deus ex machina, which wrapped up loose ends at the close.
Aside from those devices, there is less contrivance, fate or philosophy in Euripides than in
either Aeschylus or Sophocles. There is instead a poignant realism, such as in this scene
from the anti-war Trojan Women, in which a grandmother grieves over the daughter and
grandson she has outlived. During his life, Euripides was viewed as a heretic and was often
lampooned in Aristophanes' comedies. Extremely cynical of human nature, he became a
bookish recluse and died in 406 BC, two years before Sophocles.

COMEDY

Tragedy was not the only product of Athens' flourishing theatre culture; comedy also
thrived. Not only did the Greeks produce many lasting comedies; they also cast the moulds
for many Roman, Elizabethan and modern comedies. The historical development of
comedy was not as well recorded as that of tragedy. Aristotle notes in The Poetics that
before his own time comedy was considered trivial and common -- though when it was
finally recognised as an art form, the orphan suddenly had many fathers: Aristophanes and
Old Comedy

Greek comedy had two periods: Old Comedy, represented by Cratinus and Aristophanes;
and New Comedy, whose main exponent was Menander. Aristophanes theatrical works
were presented at the Athenian festivals. Aristophanes and Cratinus used three actors, a
chorus that sung, danced, and sometimes participated in the dialogue. The Chorus's
address to the audience reveals the author's opinion. In these speeches, he ridicules the
Gods, Athenian institutions, popular and powerful individuals, including Aeschylus,
Sophocles and Euripides. Given the cultivated and scholarly culture of its ruling elite,
Athens invited satire. Aristophanes assumed the task with zeal, aiming his lampoonery at
those who stuck their heads above the crowd:

Take, for example, the Warriors, in 'Lysistrata':

First Speaker: For through man's heart there runs in flood

A natural and noble taste for blood---
Second Speaker: To form a ring and fight--
Third Speaker: To cut off heads at sight--
All in Unison: It is our right!
Youth... Come, listen now to the good old days when
children,
strange to tell, were seen not heard, led
a simple life,
in short were brought up well.

See, too, the treatment of intellectuals, in 'The Clouds':

Father: (enrolling his son in a "school for thinking") O Socrates! O--dear--sweet--Socrates!

Socrates: (meditating in a basket overhead) Mortal! Why call you on me?

Father: Tell me, please, what are you doing up there in that basket?

Socrates: I walk on air while I contemplate the sun. One cannot ponder cosmic matters
unless one mingles with theatmosphere, one's ethereal spirit above ground. The ground
is not a place for lofty thoughts. Gravity would draw their essence down, as it does with
watercress. Father: Well, well. Thought draws the essence into watercress.

The Athenian audiences were well versed in their highbrow culture and must have enjoyed
these in-jokes immensely. Aristophanes' other targets included Aeschylus and Euripides,
whom Aristophanes portrayed variously as a windbag and corrupter of youth with his
heretical ideas.

New Comedy

Comedy developed along similar lines as tragedy did, becoming more aimed at the common
people and less concerned with its religious origins. By 317 BC, a new form had evolved
that resembled modern farces. The use of overt satire, topicality and the pointed
lampooning of celebrated characters to be found in Aristophanes' style were replaced by
mistaken identities, ironic situations, ordinary characters and wit. This period is called
New Comedy, and its two main practitioners were Menander and Phlyates. Menander is the
more significant of the two. Most of his plays are now lost, but parts found their way into
plays by the Roman playwrights Plautus and Terence (whom Julius Caesar called "a half-
Menander"). From these works they were incorporated into Shakespeare's Comedy of
Errors, Stephen Sondheim's A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, even the
writings of St. Paul: "Bad messages belie good manners". In 1905 a manuscript was
discovered in Cairo that contained pieces of five Menander plays, and in 1957 a complete
play, Diskolos (The Grouch, 317 BC), was unearthed in Egypt. Menander's main contribution
was to create a comedy model that greatly influenced later comedy. Unlike Aristophanes,
his characters were not celebrities but ordinary people. The chorus in Menander's plays
resembled a modern chorus -- singers and dancers who provided filler between acts;
Menander sometimes portrayed them as drunken audience members. His characters were
classic comedy archetypes, such as the curmudgeonly old man in The Grouch, who would
become staples of comedy. Most of all, the style of comedy that Menander created, with
its emphasis on mistaken identity, romance and situational humour, became the model for
subsequent comedy, from the Romans to Shakespeare to Broadway.

EPILOGUE

By the time of Sophocles' death in 406 BC, 128 years after Thespis' victory in the first
Athenian drama competition, the golden era of Greek drama was waning. Athens, whose
freethinking culture had spawned the birth of theatre, would be overrun in 404 BC by the
Spartans. It would later be torn apart by constant warring with other city states,
eventually falling under the dominion of Alexander the Great and his Macedonian armies.
Theatre continued, but it would not return to the same creative heights until Elizabethan
England two millennia later.

THE PHYSICAL SPACE:

Stages and Styles of Presentation:

According to tradition, the first tragedian, Thespis, performed his plays on wagons with
which he travelled, and seats were set up for performances in the agora or market
place of Athens. By the end of the sixth century BC, however, a permanent theatron of
‘watching place’, was set up in the precinct of Dionysuson the south slope of the
Athenian Acropolis. Since at first any construction above ground was made of wood,
and since the theatre was later rebuilt many times, the surviving remains of this
earliest Theatre of Dionysus are extremely scanty. It has therefore to be reconstructed
on the analogy of other Greek theatres and on the evidence of the plays performed
there. The only features which necessarily existed in the early fifth century are
wooden seats for spectators on the hillside, and a level earth-floored orchestra, or
‘dancing area’ in the centre. The orchestra is usually believed to have been circular,
like a threshing floor. The orchestra at Epidaurus, for example, has a diameter of just
over 20 metres. If the spot chosen necessitated another shape, it could be rectangular
like that at Thoricus.

Most of the surviving plays also make use of a building, the skene or scene building.
This was used as a changing-room for actors and as a sounding board, but also served to
represent the palace or house in front of which most plays are set. At first, it must
have been a temporary building re-erected each year (skene means merely ‘tent’ or
‘hut’). The number of doors in its facade is disputed; most tragedies require only one,
but it most likely that there were in fact three. Actors and chorus could enter by
paths, called parodoi or eisodoi, to the right and left of the skene. Chiefly they made
these entrances on horse-drawn chariots. The roof of the building could be used as an
acting area, for watchmen, gods and others. There is some oblique suggestion in two
texts of the period that permanent screens with architectural images were used, not
‘sets’ for specific plays, but permanent fixtures. It is conceivable, too, that there was
some rather underground passage, allowing ghosts to appear from below.

There have been many disputes as to the existence of a stage (logeion) in front of the
skene, raising the actors above the orchestra where the Chorus performed. The
evidence is sparse, but is probable that this stage existed, although it will not have
been so high as to prevent easy interaction between actors and Chorus. Other features
of the orchestra were a central altar several images of gods, which could be noticed in
the plays, when required.

The Theatre in Epidaurus

III. The Theatre in Stone.

Various items of stage machinery are mentioned by late authors, but the only devices for
which there is 5th century evidence are the ekkylema and the mechane. The former was a
low platform on wheels, which could be pushed into view to reveal, in the form of a
tableau, the consequences of events (normally killings) within the palace. It is a quite
artificial device, but it seems to be an accepted convention as early as the Oresteia. This
play contains striking tableaux of Clytemnestra with the bodies of Agamemnon and
Cassandra and of Orestes with the bodies of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. Thereafter it is
used in many tragedies and in comic parodies of tragedies.

The mechane was a kind of crane that could transport an actor through the air to give an
effect of flying. It seems to be little used in surviving tragedy, though there are a few
examples. Fifth century tragedians probably did not use it for epiphanies of gods, though
the ‘god from the machine,’ the deus ex machina became proverbial at an early date.
Though some simple effects like those mentioned here were occasionally used, it is very
important to remember that all the real power of the drama lay in the author’s verse lines.
The poetic effects were left to work upon the imagination.

The character’s words alone established the time of day, just as they did the settings.
Therefore, it was with natural phenomena. In two of Euripides’ plays, the Bacchanntes and
Madness of Heracles, the plot demands an earthquake which destroys the house, and the
Prometheus Unbound ends with Prometheus and the chorus swept down to Hades in a
storm. To present such a spectacle realistically would have been a technical miracle,
though not beyond Greek ingenuity. Yet, more important, it would have been alien to
every tradition of Greek theatre. As it was based so firmly upon the power of the word
upon the imagination and emotion. In the ‘earthquake’ plays, the effect is conveyed by
the speeches of characters and choral songs. The chorus of the Bacchantes describe vividly
what is happening to the palace -- the noise of the earthquake, the stonework crumbling,
and fire blazing from a nearby tomb.

Dionysus (inside the palace) Spirit of Earthquake, rock, rock the floor of the Earth!

Chorus I: Soon the palace of Pentheus

Will be shaken to its fall.
Dionysus is over the house:
Bow down before him!
Chorus II. We bow before him.
See the stone lintels
Crowning the pillars
Reeling and shaking
Bromios’ war cry rings from within.
Dionysus: Kindle the flaming torch of the light;
Burn, burn down the palace of
Pentheus.

This is enough. Once the earthquake has achieved its dramatic purpose, it can be ignored.
Characters entering subsequently do not comment on the fact that the house lies in ruins.
This lack of observation would be incongruous if the effects of the earthquake had been
shown realistically. Compare also the language in which Aeschylus paints the great storm
at the end of Prometheus Bound.

"See, word is replaced by deed;

Earth shudders from the shock; the peals
Of thunder roll from the depths, and lightening
Flicker afire; the whirlwind tosses
Dust heavenwards, with the four winds dancing
A giddy reel, challenging each other
To fight; sea and sky are as one."

We should remember, too, the way which Shakespeare, without the doubtful benefit of
elaborate effects, gives the impression of storm at the beginning of The Tempest.

Master: Boatswain!
Boatswain: Here, master! What cheer!
Master. Good, speak to the mariners; fall t’it, yarely, or we run
ourselves aground: bestir, bestir.
Boatswain: Heigh, my hearts! Cheerly, my hearts! Yare, yare! Take in the
topsail. Tend to the master’s whistle.
Blow, till thou burst thy wind, if room
enough!

And at the end of the scene:

A confused noise within, ‘Mercy on us!’ ‘We split, we split!’ ’Farewell, my wife and
children!’
‘Farewell brother!’ ‘We split, we split, we split!’

The Elizabethan stage-manager could produce convincing thunder and lightening, but in
the scene the picture of a shipwreck is conveyed in words alone. I all these examples, the
language used is not that of realistic (illusionist) drama. When the doomed Prometheus or
the Master and Boatswain embark on their respective speeches, the audience knows that
mighty tempests have erupted; they need no other indication.

Lighting, Properties and Costume.

The sun provided lighting. Torches were used, more as properties in order to heighten the
power of the appearance of certain passages or characters, the furies, for example. The
actor was dwarfed by his surroundings. Tiny movements and the nuance of facial
expression used by modern actors would have been invisible to the audience. Gestures had
to be large and sweeping and costumes had to be large and flowing in order to allow free,
athletic movement, and to make a strong visual impression upon the audience. As facial
expression would have been lost beyond the first few rows, masks were used. They were
broadly and simply designed to be visible a long way off. The principal traits of the
characters portrayed could be expressed in the mask, and a simple convention arose
whereby types of character had their own types of mask. This convention of human types,
a view of human psychology in a way, continued to shape theatrical presentation well into
the seventeenth century in Europe. In the tragedies, these types were few and simple.
There was the protagonist, the noble man/woman; the messenger; the sightless seer, and
the serious or careworn man, the figure of respect and responsibility. More will be said of
these masks elsewhere.

Classical and Hellenistic Greece

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History of theatre

A master (right) and his slave (left) in aphlyax play, circa 350/340 BCE.

The city-state of Athens is where western theatre originated.[4] It was part of a broader culture of theatricality and
performance in classical Greece that included festivals, religious rituals, politics, law, athletics and
gymnastics, music,poetry, weddings, funerals, and symposia.[5] Participation in the city-state's many festivals—and
attendance at the City Dionysia as an audience member (or even as a participant in the theatrical productions) in particular—
was an important part ofcitizenship.[6] Civic participation also involved the evaluation of the rhetoric of orators evidenced in
performances in the law-court or political assembly, both of which were understood as analogous to the theatre and
increasingly came to absorb its dramatic vocabulary. [7] The Greeks also developed the concepts of dramatic criticism, acting
as a career, and theatre architecture.[8] The theatre of ancient Greececonsisted of three types of drama: tragedy, comedy,
and the satyr play.[9]

Athenian tragedy—the oldest surviving form of tragedy—is a type of dance-drama that formed an important part of the
theatrical culture of the city-state.[10] Having emerged sometime during the 6th century BCE, it flowered during the 5th
century BCE (from the end of which it began to spread throughout the Greek world), and continued to be popular until the
beginning of the Hellenistic period.[11] No tragedies from the 6th century BCE and only 32 of the more than a thousand that
were performed in during the 5th century BCE have survived.[12] We have complete texts extant by Aeschylus, Sophocles,
and Euripides.[13] The origins of tragedy remain obscure, though by the 5th century BCE it was institutionalised in
competitions (agon) held as part of festivities celebrating Dionysos (the god of wine and fertility).[14] As contestants in the
City Dionysia's competition (the most prestigious of the festivals to stage drama) playwrights were required to present
atetralogy of plays (though the individual works were not necessarily connected by story or theme), which usually consisted
of three tragedies and one satyr play.[15] The performance of tragedies at the City Dionysia may have begun as early as 534
BCE; official records (didaskaliai) begin from 501 BCE, when the satyr play was introduced. [16] Most Athenian tragedies
dramatise events from Greek mythology, though The Persians—which stages the Persian response to news of their military
defeat at the Battle of Salamis in 480 BCE—is the notable exception in the surviving drama.[17] When Aeschylus won first prize
for it at the City Dionysia in 472 BCE, he had been writing tragedies for more than 25 years, yet its tragic treatment of recent
history is the earliest example of drama to survive.[18] More than 130 years later, the philosopher Aristotle analysed 5th-
century Athenian tragedy in the oldest surviving work of dramatic theory—his Poetics (c. 335 BCE).

Athenian comedy is conventionally divided into three periods, "Old Comedy", "Middle Comedy", and "New Comedy". Old
Comedy survives today largely in the form of the eleven surviving plays of Aristophanes, while Middle Comedy is largely lost
(preserved only in relatively short fragments in authors such as Athenaeus of Naucratis). New Comedy is known primarily
from the substantial papyrus fragments of Menander. Aristotle defined comedy as a representation of laughable people that
involves some kind of blunder or ugliness that does not cause pain or disaster.[19]

[edit]Roman theatre

Main article: Theatre of ancient Rome

Mosaic depicting masked actors in a play: two women consult a "witch".

Western theatre developed and expanded considerably under the Romans. The Roman historian Livy wrote that the Romans
first experienced theatre in the 4th century BCE, with a performance by Etruscan actors.[20] Beacham argues that they had
been familiar with "pre-theatrical practices" for some time before that recorded contact. [21] The theatre of ancient Rome was
a thriving and diverse art form, ranging from festival performances of street theatre, nude dancing, and acrobatics, to the
staging of Plautus's broadly appealing situationcomedies, to the high-style, verbally elaborate tragedies of Seneca. Although
Rome had a native tradition of performance, theHellenization of Roman culture in the 3rd century BCE had a profound and
energizing effect on Roman theatre and encouraged the development of Latin literature of the highest quality for the stage.

[edit]Post-classical theatre in the West

Theatre took on many alternate forms in the West between the 15th and 19th centuries, including commedia
dell'arte and melodrama. The general trend was away from the poetic drama of the Greeks and the Renaissance and toward
a more naturalistic prose style of dialogue, especially following the Industrial Revolution.[22]

Through the 19th century, the popular theatrical forms of Romanticism, melodrama, Victorian burlesque and the well-made
plays of Scribe and Sardou gave way to the problem plays of Naturalism and Realism;
the farces of Feydeau; Wagner's operatic Gesamtkunstwerk; musical theatre (including Gilbert and Sullivan's operas); F. C.
Burnand's, W. S. Gilbert's and Wilde's drawing-room comedies; Symbolism; proto-Expressionism in the late works of August
Strindberg and Henrik Ibsen;[23] and Edwardian musical comedy.
These trends continued through the 20th century in the realism of Stanislavski and Lee Strasberg, the political theatre
of Erwin Piscator and Bertolt Brecht, the so-called Theatre of the Absurd of Samuel Beckett and Eugene Ionesco, American
and British musicals, the collective creations of companies of actors and directors such as Joan Littlewood's Theatre
Workshop, experimental and postmodern theatre of Robert Wilson and Robert Lepage, the postcolonial theatre of August
Wilson or Tomson Highway, and Augusto Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed.

[edit]Eastern theatrical traditions

Rakshasa or the demon as depicted inYakshagana, a form of musicaldance-drama from India.

The earliest form of Indian theatre was the Sanskrit theatre.[24] It began after the development of Greek and Roman
theatre and before the development of theatre in other parts of Asia. [24] It emerged sometime between the 2nd century BCE
and the 1st century CE and flourished between the 1st century CE and the 10th, which was a period of relative peace in
the history of India during which hundreds of plays were written.[25] Japanese forms of Kabuki, Nō, and Kyōgen developed in
the 17th century CE.[26] Theatre in the medieval Islamic world included puppet theatre (which included hand puppets, shadow
plays and marionette productions) and live passion plays known asta'ziya, where actors re-enact episodes from Muslim
history. In particular, Shia Islamic plays revolved around the shaheed (martyrdom) ofAli's sons Hasan ibn Ali and Husayn ibn
Ali. Secular plays were known as akhraja, recorded in medieval adab literature, though they were less common than
puppetry and ta'ziya theatre.[27]

[edit]Types

[edit]Drama

Main article: Drama

Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance.[28] The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action",

which is derived from "to do". The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience,
presupposes collaborativemodes of production and a collective form of reception. The structure of dramatic texts, unlike
other forms of literature, is directly influenced by this collaborative production and collective reception. [29] The early
modern tragedy Hamlet (1601) by Shakespeare and theclassical Athenian tragedy Oedipus the King (c. 429 BCE)
by Sophocles are among the masterpieces of the art of drama.[30] A modern example is Long Day's Journey into
Night by Eugene O’Neill (1956).[31]
Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been contrasted with the epic and the lyrical modes ever
sinceAristotle's Poetics (c. 335 BCE)—the earliest work of dramatic theory.[32] The use of "drama" in the narrow sense to
designate a specifictype of play dates from the 19th century. Drama in this sense refers to a play that is neither a comedy
nor a tragedy—for example, Zola's Thérèse Raquin (1873) or Chekhov'sIvanov (1887).

Drama is often combined with music and dance: the drama in opera is generally sung throughout; musicals generally include
both spoken dialogue and songs; and some forms of drama have incidental music or musical accompaniment underscoring the
dialogue (melodrama and Japanese Nō, for example).[33] In certain periods of history (the ancient Romanand
modern Romantic) some dramas have been written to be read rather than performed.[34] In improvisation, the drama does not
pre-exist the moment of performance; performers devise a dramatic script spontaneously before an audience. [35]

[edit]Musical theatre

Main article: Musical theatre

Music and theatre have had a close relationship since ancient times—Athenian tragedy, for example, was a form of dance-
drama that employed a chorus whose parts were sung (to the accompaniment of an aulos—an instrument comparable to the
modern clarinet), as were some of the actors' responses and their 'solo songs' (monodies).[36] Modern musical theatre is a form
of theatre that also combines music, spoken dialogue, and dance. It emerged from comic opera (especially Gilbert and
Sullivan), variety, vaudeville, and music hallgenres of the late 19th and early 20th century.[37] After the Edwardian musical
comedy that began in the 1890s, the Princess Theatre musicals of the early 20th century, and comedies in the 1920s and
1930s (such as the works of Rodgers and Hammerstein), with Oklahoma! (1943), musicals moved in a more dramatic
direction.[38] Famous musicals over the subsequent decades included My Fair Lady (1956), West Side Story (1957), The
Fantasticks (1960), Hair (1967), A Chorus Line (1975), Les Misérables (1980), and The Phantom of the Opera (1986).[39]

Musical theatre may be produced on an intimate scale Off-Broadway, in regional theatres, and elsewhere, but it often
includes spectacle. For instance, Broadway and West Endmusicals often include lavish costumes and sets supported by multi-
million dollar budgets.

[edit]Comedy

Main article: Comedy

Theatrical masks of Tragedy and Comedy. Mosaic, Roman artwork, 2nd century CE.

Theatre productions that use humour as a vehicle to tell a story qualify as comedies. This may include a modern farce such
as Boeing Boeing or a classical play such as As You Like It. Theatre expressing bleak, controversial or taboo subject matter in
a deliberately humorous way is referred to as black comedy.

[edit]Tragedy

Main article: Tragedy

Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude;

in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play;
in the form of action, not of narrative;

through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions.
—Aristotle, Poetics[40]

Tragedy refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition
of Western civilisation.[41] That tradition has been multiple and discontinuous, yet the term has often been used to invoke a
powerful effect of cultural identity and historical continuity—"the Greeks and the Elizabethans, in one cultural
form;Hellenes and Christians, in a common activity," as Raymond Williams puts it.[42] From its obscure origins in the theatres
of Athens 2,500 years ago, from which there survives only a fraction of the work of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides,
through its singular articulations in the works of Shakespeare, Lope de Vega, Racine, and Schiller, to the more
recentnaturalistic tragedy of Strindberg, Beckett's modernist meditations on death, loss and suffering,
and Müller's postmodernist reworkings of the tragic canon, tragedy has remained an important site of cultural
experimentation, negotiation, struggle, and change. [43] In the wake of Aristotle's Poetics (335 BCE), tragedy has been used to
make genre distinctions, whether at the scale of poetry in general (where the tragic divides against epic and lyric) or at the
scale of the drama (where tragedy is opposed to comedy). In the modern era, tragedy has also been defined against
drama, melodrama, the tragicomic, and epic theatre.[44]

[edit]Theories of theatre

Main article: Dramatic theory

Village feast with theatre performance circa 1600.

Having been an important part of human culture for more than 2,500 years, theatre has evolved a wide range of
different theories and practices. Some are related to political or spiritual ideologies, while others are based purely on
"artistic" concerns. Some processes focus on a story, some on theatre as event, and some on theatre as catalyst for social
change. The classical Greek philosopherAristotle's Poetics (c. 335 BCE) is the earliest-surviving example and its arguments
have influenced theories of theatre ever since.[45] In it, he offers an account of what he calls "poetry" (a term which in Greek
literally means "making" and in this context includesdrama—comedy, tragedy, and the satyr play—as well as lyric poetry, epic
poetry, and the dithyramb). He examines its "first principles" and identifies its genres and basic elements; his analysis
of tragedy constitutes the core of the discussion.[46] He argues that tragedy consists of six qualitative parts, which are (in
order of importance) mythos or "plot", ethos or "character", dianoia or "thought", lexis or "diction", melos or "song",
and opsis or "spectacle".[47] "Although Aristotle's Poetics is universally acknowledged in the Western critical tradition," Marvin
Carlson explains, "almost every detail about his seminal work has aroused divergent opinions." [48] Important theatre
practitioners of the 20th century include Konstantin Stanislavski, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Jacques Copeau, Edward Gordon
Craig, Bertolt Brecht, Antonin Artaud, Luís de Sttau Monteiro, Joan Littlewood, Peter Brook, Jerzy Grotowski, Augusto
Boal, Eugenio Barba and Dario Fo.

Stanislavski treated the theatre as an art-form that is autonomous from literature and one in which the playwright's

contribution should be respected as that of only one of an ensemble of creative artists. [49] His innovative contribution to
modern acting theory has remained at the core of mainstream western performance training for much of the last century.
[50]
 That many of the precepts of his 'system' of actor training seem to be common sense and self-evident testifies to its
hegemonic success.[51] Actors frequently employ his basic concepts without knowing they do so. [51] Thanks to its promotion
and elaboration by acting teachers who were former students and the many translations of his theoretical writings,
Stanislavski's 'system' acquired an unprecedented ability to cross cultural boundaries and developed an international reach,
dominating debates about acting in Europe and America.[52] Many actors routinely equate his 'system' with the
American Method, although the latter's exclusively psychological techniques contrast sharply with Stanislavski's multivariant,
holistic and psychophysical approach, which explores character and action both from the 'inside out' and the 'outside in' and
treats the actor's mind and body as parts of a continuum. [53]

[edit]Technical aspects of theatre

An example of stage lighting andtheatrical fog.

Main article: Stagecraft

Theatre presupposes collaborative modes of production and a collective form of reception. The structure of dramatic texts,

unlike other forms of literature, is directly influenced by this collaborative production and collective reception. [29] The
production of plays usually involves contributions from a playwright, director, a cast of actors, and a technical production
team that includes a scenic or set designer,lighting designer, costume designer, sound designer, stage manager,
and production manager. Depending on the production, this team may also include a composer, dramaturg, video
designer or fight director.

The technical aspects of theatrical production are described collectively as "stagecraft". This includes, but is not limited to,
the construction and rigging of scenery, the hanging and focusing of lighting, the design and procurement of costumes, make-
up, sourcing ofprops, stage management, and recording and mixing of sound. Stagecraft is considered a technical rather than
an artistic field, and it relates primarily to the practical implementation of a designer's artistic vision. This distinguishes it
from the more recent, wider discipline of scenography.

Stagecraft may be implemented by any number of workers, from a single person (who arranges all scenery, costumes,
lighting, sound, and organizes the cast) to hundreds of skilled carpenters, painters, electricians, stagehands, stitchers,
wigmakers, and the like. This modern form of stagecraft is highly technical and specialized: it comprises many sub-disciplines
and encompasses a vast trove of history and tradition. Regional theatres and larger community theatres will generally have a
technical director and a complement of designers, each of whom has a direct hand in their respective designs.

[edit]Theatre organization and administration

There are many modern theatre movements which go about producing theatre in a variety of ways.

Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London circa 1821

Theatrical enterprise varies enormously in sophistication and purpose. People who are involved vary from professionals to
hobbyists to spontaneous novices. Theatre can be performed with no money at all or on a grand scale with multi-million
dollar budgets. This diversity manifests in the abundance of theatre sub-categories, which include:

 Broadway theatre and West End theatre

 Community theatre
 Dinner theatre
 Fringe theatre
 Off-Broadway and Off West End
 Off-Off-Broadway
 Regional theatre
 Summer stock theatre

"West End theatre" is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre that is staged in the large theatres of London's
'Theatreland', the West End.[54] Along with New York'sBroadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent
the highest level of commercial theatre in the English-speaking world. Seeing a West End show is a common tourist activity in
London.[33] Total attendances first surpassed 12 million in 2002 and 13 million in 2007, setting a new record for the West End.
[55]
 Since the late 1990s there has been an increase in the number of famous screen actors on the London stage.

[edit]Repertory companies

While most modern theatre companies rehearse one piece of theatre at a time, perform that piece for a set "run", retire the
piece, and begin rehearsing a new show, repertorycompanies rehearse multiple shows at one time. These companies are able
to perform these various pieces upon request and often perform works for years before retiring them. Most dance companies
operate on this repertory system. The Royal National Theatre in London performs on a repertory system.

Repertory theatre generally involves a group of similarly accomplished actors, and relies more on the reputation of the group
than on an individual star actor. It also typically relies less on strict control by a director and less on adherence to theatrical
conventions, since actors who have worked together in multiple productions can respond to each other without relying as
much on convention or external direction.[56]

[edit]Producing vs. presenting

In order to put on a piece of theatre, both a theatre company and a theatre venue are needed. When a theatre company is
the sole company in residence at a theatre venue, this theatre (and its corresponding theatre company) are called a resident
theatre or a producing theatre, because the venue produces its own work. Other theatre companies, as well as dance
companies, do not have their own theatre venue. These companies perform at rental theatres or at presenting theatres. Both
rental and presenting theatres have no full time resident companies. They do, however, sometimes have one or more part
time resident companies, in addition to other independent partner companies who arrange to use the space when available.
A rental theatre allows the independent companies to seek out the space, while a presenting theatre seeks out the
independent companies to support their work by presenting them on their stage.

Some performance groups perform in non-theatrical spaces. Such performances can take place outside or inside, in a non-
traditional performance space, and include street theatre, and site specific theatre. Non-traditional venues can be used to
create more immersive or meaningful environments for audiences. They can sometimes be modified more heavily than
traditional theatre venues, or can accommodate different kinds of equipment, lighting and sets. [57]

A touring company is an independent theatre or dance company that travels, often internationally, being presented at a
different theatre in each city.

II. Theatre and Drama in Ancient Greece

The Greeks' history began around 700 B.C. with festivals honoring their many gods. One god, Dionysus, was honored with an
unusual festival called the City Dionysia. The revelry-filled festival was led by drunken men dressed up in rough goat skins
(because goats were thought sexually potent) who would sing and play in choruses to welcome Dionysus. Tribes competed
against one another in performances, and the best show would have the honor of winning the contest. Of the four festivals in
Athens (each reflecting seasonal changes), plays were only presented at one festival--City Dionysia. Historians believe that
the Greeks patterned their celebrations after the traditional Egyptian pageants honoring Osiris.

At the early Greek festivals, the actors, directors, and dramatists were all the same person. Later, only three actors could be
used in each play. After some time, non-speaking roles were allowed to perform on-stage. Because of the limited number of
actors allowed on-stage, the chorus evolved into a very active part of Greek theatre. Though the number of people in the
chorus is not clear, the chorus was given as many as one-half the total lines of the play. Music was often played during the
chorus' delivery of its lines.

Although few tragedies written from this time actually remain, the themes and accomplishments of Greek tragedy still
resonate to contemporary audiences. The term tragedy (tragos and ode) literally means "goat song," after the festival
participants' goat-like dancing around sacrificial goats for prizes. Most Greek tragedies are based on mythology or history and
deal with characters' search for the meaning of life and the nature of the gods. Most tragedies that have survived from this
period begin with a prologue that gives the audience exposition to the following action. The chorus then introduces a period
called the paradox. During this time introductions to characters are made, exposition is given, and a mood is established.
The final scene is called the exodus when all the characters as well as the chorus depart.

Three well-known Greek tragedy playwrights of the fifth century are Sophocles, and Euripedes. Aeschylus , who was a
competitor at the City Dionysia around 499 B.C., wrote some of the oldest tragedies in the world. Only a few of Aeschylus'
plays have survived but they include The Persians and the Oresteia trilogy. Aeschylus is attributed with the introducing the
second actor to the stage. Another Greek playwright was Sophocles, and only seven of his tragedies--including the still-
popular Antigone, Electra, and Oedipus Rex--have survived. Sophocles won twenty-four contests for his plays, never placing
lower than second place. His contributions to theatre history are many: He introduced the third actor to the stage, fixed the
number of chorus members to fifteen, and was the first to use scene painting. Euripedes was another prolific playwright who
is believed to have written 90 plays, 18 of which have survived, including Medea, Hercules and The Trojan Women. He was
often criticized for the way he questioned traditional values on stage. Euripedes also explored the psychological motivations
of his characters actions which had not been explored by other authors. His plays were used as pattern for other authors for
many years after his death.

Comedy was also an important part of ancient Greek theatre. No one is quite sure of the origins of comedy, but it is said that
they derived from imitation. All comedies of note during this time are by Aristophanes . Aristophanes, who competed in the
major Athenian festivals, wrote 40 plays, 11 of which survived--including the most controversial piece of literature to come
from ancient Greece, Lysistrata, a humorous tale about a strong woman who leads a female coalition to end war in Greece.
Although only 33 tragedies and 11 comedies remain from such a creative period, the Greeks were responsible for the birth of
drama in the Western world.