Ancient Greek Drama

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Ancient Greek Drama

• Erin Frymire

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Dionysus

• Dionysus was the god of the mind, fertility and
  wine.
• Plays were performed in competitions during the
  festivals honoring Dionysus. In the spring they
  celebrated Great Dionysia and in the winter
  they celebrated Lenaea.
• These festivals were religious events as well as
  state holidays, and everyone participated in
  them.
• Prisoners were even released to go to the plays.

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Contests

• An important part of the Dionysian festivals were
  the contests.
• One year prior to the festival, dramatic
  playwrights would submit four plays three
  tragedies and one satyr play.
• Comedic playwrights would submit one comic drama,
  approximately as long as a tragedy.
• The archon eponymus, an official in the Athenian
  government, chose which three poets would
  participate in the festival
• Wealthy citizens, the choregoi, were the
  producers. If the play that they paid for won,
  they would receive more glory than the
  playwright.
• Productions were funded in the same way that
  warships were. The rich were obligated to pay
  for them, but could get out of it if they proved
  someone else to be wealthier.

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Judging

• Ten citizens were picked at random to be the
  judges of the plays.
• Names of citizens from each of the ten tribes
  were sealed in an urn. On the day of the
  festival, one name was chosen from each.
• The person chosen would then write a list of
  their choice for the winners.
• Great effort was taken to ensure that these
  judges could not be bribed.
• Awards were given to the best actors and the best
  playwrights.
• First, second, and third prizes were awarded to
  the playwrights.
• First prize was a gold crown.

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Festivals

• There was only on performance of each show, and
  there were not published critics. Therefore,
  people knew little, if anything, about the plays
  they would see during the festival.
• On the day before the festival, the playwrights
  and actors would gather in a public place and
  announce the storyline of their tragedy.
• Not many people would have heard this
  announcement, and it did not matter much, since
  most of the material was taken from well-known
  myths and stories.
• The festivals were begun by a parade of important
  people, including children whose parents died in
  service to the city, honored citizens, and
  welcomed ambassadors.

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Festivals

• Each day of the festival, three tragedies by the
  same poet would be performed, beginning at dawn.
  
• After the tragedies were finished, a satyr play
  by the same playwright would be performed.
• These were lighthearted and bawdy, they were
  meant to ease the mind of the audience after
  hours of tragedy.
• The choruses in these plays were drunken goatmen
  called satyrs. This crew of crude, horny beings
  was led by a character called Silenus.
• In earlier years, one comic drama was performed
  in the afternoon. Eventually an entire day was
  devoted to performing five different comedies.
• The last two days of the festival were devoted to
  the competitions of the dithyrambs.
• These were choruses of young men and boys that
  sang choral narratives. Eventually, they began
  to focus more on the musical aspects and less on
  the stories.

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The Theatre

• The audience sat on wooden benches in the
  theatron or watching place that could hold
  14,000-17,000 people.
• The chorus performed in the orchestra or dancing
  circle.
• The parodoses on either side were the entrance
  and exit for the chorus.
• Behind the chorus, the actors were on a small
  stage. Behind them, there was the skene, a
  large, two-story set piece that usually
  represented a castle or temple.
• The skene was originally a changing tent.
• On top of the skene was the god machine, a
  large crane that characters playing divine beings
  would be attached to.
• For simplicitys sake, every scene took place in
  the same location.
• Although they were not realistic or elaborate,
  some productions used painted backgrounds.

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The Theatre

• In order to carve out all of the seats in the
  theatron, ancient theatres were carved into a
  hillside. Not only did this make them slightly
  easier to construct, it also gave the theatres a
  beautiful view, which was easily seen during the
  early morning performances.
• The theatre experience that the Greeks were used
  to was very different from what we think of
  today.
• There were neither curtains nor a proscenium to
  separate the actors from the audience.
• They audience, especially the back rows, were
  quite far from the stage area.
• It was difficult to see the action in detail,
  though the acoustics were such that the voices
  could easily be heard
• The shows started at dawn, and continued for
  hours without any intermission. Therefore,
  people were constantly shuffling around, coming
  and going, and selling food to the audience.
• The audience made their opinions of the work
  inescapably apparent.
• They would shout and boo if they disapproved, and
  point out mistakes.
• During one production, a riot almost broke out,
  and violent disturbances during productions had
  to be outlawed.

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Costumes

• Actors wore long robes, which sometimes had
  stripes.
• Since all actors were male, those playing women
  would wear fake chests underneath their robes.
• Those playing a powerful or important character
  wore platform wooden shoes to make them taller
  than the others.
• Masks were, by far, the most important part of
  the costume.
• The tradition of masks came from the Dionysian
  mystery cult.
• Because there were rarely more than three actors,
  masks were necessary when doubling roles.
• The masks were usually made of wood, linen, or
  leather, and had holes for the actors mouth and
  nose.

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Dramatists

• Aeschylus (525-456)
• He added a second actor, and dialogue independent
  of the chorus became possible.
• He wrote 90 plays, only 7 of which have survived
  in full.
• He won 13 first prizes for his works.
• Sophocles (496-406)
• He added a third actor, making more complex
  scenes possible.
• He increased the size of the chorus.
• We only have 7 of his 123 plays.
• He won 20 first prizes, and never got lower than
  second place.
• He was the first to write an independent tragedy,
  rather than the traditional trilogy form.
• Euripides (485 or 480-406)
• He wrote 92 plays, though we only have 19.
• He did not win very often (only 4 first prizes)
  due to his use of obscure and complex story
  lines.
• His characters were not as heroic. Instead,
  Euripides brought mythology to a more human
  level.
• Aristophanes (448-388)
• He was a comedic playwright, unlike these other
  great classical poets.
• His plays were satires of politics, society, and
  literature. He often poked fun at Euripides
• The protagonists in his plays always found
  themselves in absurd situations or undertook some
  impossible task.
• We have only 11 of his plays in full.

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Tragodia (Tragedy)

• -The word tragodia literally means goat song.
• -Tragedy, the original form of drama, arose out
  of the religious ritual of choral song.
• The old choruses told myths and legends through
  song.
• One poet (some think it was the Athenian,
  Thespis) was the first to add a hypokritesan
  answerer or interpreter who talked to the
  audience and to the chorus.
• This was the first time that the story teller
  became the character, speaking in first person.
• Storytelling in first person was a logical
  progression for the Greeks, as all of the
  historians studied dialogues and first person
  narratives, not third person accounts of events.

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Parts of a Tragedy

• Prologue
• Prior to the play, an introduction was given to
  explain the story.
• Parados
• The chorus entered, singing and dancing.
• Stasimon Episode
• These were the main portion of the play, and
  would alternate.
• The stasimon was when the chorus sings and
  dances.
• The episode was a scene with the actors and the
  chorus, or just the actors.
• Exode
• This was the final scene.
• It occurred after the last stasimon and usually
  gave the audience the moral of the story.
• The entire production would last about an hour
  and fifteen minutes.

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People involved in a Tragedy

• Playwright
• Produce, a wealthy choregoi.
• Actors
• The actors were always men.
• There were generally three actors per play,
  though four were used on occasion.
• The protagonist
• The main character
• The deuteragonist
• The second most important character
• The tritagonist
• The third actor
• The parachoregma
• The rarely used fourth actor
• The paratactic
• A very small part, with only a couple of lines.
• The mutes
• The same as todays extras
• Actors competed for prizes in the festivals.
• They were judged mostly on their voices.

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The Tragic
Chorus

• Choruses consisted of twelve to fifteen men who
  chanted and sang in between the actors scenes.
• The chorus was usually accompanied by a single
  flute
• Sometimes members of the chorus took turns
  singing stanzas.
• The chorus reacted to the actors, and sometimes
  the chorus leader participated in the dialogue,
  but they rarely affected the plot.
• The importance of the chorus is reflected in the
  Greek word, coros, which is the word that meant
  performance.
• While it seems strange to us to break up the
  action in a play with songs and chants not
  directly related to the plot, the chorus was
  meant to give the play broader meaning by
  connecting it to other legends and beliefs.

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Comedy

• The development of the comic genre came about
  much in the same way as the development of Greek
  Tragedy.
• Religious tradition and choral narrative
  eventually developed into characters and theatre.
• Eventually, the Athenian Assembly voted to
  include comic dramas as a separate category in
  the festivals honoring Dionysus.
• The word comic is derived from the Greek
  komikos.
• Historians are unsure as to exactly what this
  term meant. It refers to humor, drama, religion,
  and is also associated with happy endings and
  general wellbeing.

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Eras of Comic Drama

• There are three different groups that the ancient
  comedies are divided into
• Old Comedy
• These were the plays of Aristophanes.
• These were mostly satirical, poking fun at
  politics and individuals.
• Middle Comedy
• These plays realistically depicted the everyday
  life in Ancient Greece.
• New Comedy
• The plays of Menander (342-290)
• This era featured stereotypical middle class
  characters.

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Elements of Comic Dramas

• Similar to the Tragedies, comedies generally had
  three male actors.
• Comic Dramas also maintained the tradition of the
  chorus.
• These choruses, however, consisted of 24 people
  and were usually divided into two groups.
• Occasionally, these choruses were dressed as
  animals.
• The humor was often similar to the humor in the
  satyr plays obscene costumes and crude language.
• The phallus was the center of many of the jokes.
• Sometimes actors wore exaggerated fake penises.
• The origin of this humor lies in religious
  tradition.
• It was common for a phallic statue to be paraded
  in a religious procession.

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The End