ROMAN THEATRE

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ROMAN THEATRE
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Brief Roman History

• 509 B.C
• Etruscan (from Etruria) ruler was expelled, and
  Rome became a republic (just as Athens became a
  democracy).
• Roman theatre and festivals highly influenced by
  Etruscan practices

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Brief Roman History

• by 345 B.C
• There were over 175 festivals a year
• 240 B.C
• The beginnings of Roman theatre recorded
• The first record of drama at the
• ludi Romani (Roman Festival or
• Roman Games).

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Brief Roman History

• 55 B.C
• First stone theatre built in Rome by order of
  Julius Caesar.

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Roman Theatre

• Borrowed Greek ideas and improved (?) upon them
• Topics less philosophical
• Entertainment tended to be grandiose,
  sentimental, diversionary

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Roman Theatre

• Included more than drama
• acrobatics
• gladiators
• jugglers
• athletics
• chariots races
• naumachia (sea battles)
• boxing
• venationes (animal fights)

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Roman Theatre

• 3 Major Influences
• Greek Drama
• Etruscan influences, which emphasized circus-like
  elements
• Fabula Atellana which introduced FARCE (Atella
  was near Naples).

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Roman Theatre

• Farce
• Short improvised farces, with stock characters,
  similar costumes and masks
• based on domestic life or mythology
• burlesque, parody
• Most popular during the 1st century B.C., then
  frequency declined

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Roman Theatre

• Farce
• Probably was the foundation for commedia dell
  Arte
• Productions included stock characters
• Bucco braggart, boisterous
• Pappas foolish old man
• Dossenus swindler, drunk, hunchback

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Roman Theatre

• Pantomime
• solo dance, with music (lutes, pipes, cymbals)
  and a chorus.
• Used masks
• The story-telling was usually mythology or
  historical stories, usually serious but sometimes
  comic.

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Roman Theatre

• Mime
• overtook after 2nd century A.D.
• The Church did not like Mime
• Most common attributes of mime
• Spoken
• Usually short
• Sometimes elaborate casts and spectacle

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Roman Theatre

• Serious or comic (satiric)
• No masks
• Had women
• Violence and sex depicted literally
  (Heliogabalus, ruled 218-222 A.D., ordered
  realistic sex)
• Scoffed at Christianity

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Roman Festivals

• Held in honor of the gods, but much less
  religious than the Greeks
• Performances at festivals probably paid for by
  the state.
• Were often lengthy and included a series of plays
  or events, and probably had prizes awarded tp
  those who put extra money in.

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Roman Festivals

• Acting troupes (perhaps several a day) put on
  theatre events.
• Festivals were sometimes repeated, since whenever
  any irregularity in the rituals occurred, the
  entire festival, including the plays, had to be
  repeated. (known as instauratio)

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Roman Festivals

• ludi official religious festivals
• these were preceded by pompa religious
  procession

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Roman Festivals

• ludi Romani
• oldest of the official festivals
• held in September and honored Jupiter
• regular performance of comedy and tragedy began
  in 364 B.C.

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Roman Tragedy

• Characteristics of Roman Tragedy
• 5 acts/episodes divided by choral odes
• included elaborate speeches
• interested in morality
• unlike Greeks, they depicted violence on stage

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Roman Tragedy

• Characteristics of Roman Tragedy
• characters dominated by a single passion which
  drives them to doom (ex obsessiveness or
  revenge)
• developed technical devices such as
  soliloquies, asides, confidants
• interest in supernatural and human connections

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Roman Tragedy

• Seneca (5 or 4 B.C. 65 A.D.)
• only playwright of tragedy whose plays survived
• Nine extant tragedies, five adapted from
  Euripides (Gr.)
• Though considered to be inferior, Seneca had a
  strong effect on later dramatists.

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Roman Tragedy

• Seneca (5 or 4 B.C. 65 A.D.)
• WroteThe Trojan Women, Media, Oedipus, Agamemnon,
  etc., which were all based on Greek originals
• His plays were probably closet dramasnever
  presented, or even expected to be.

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Roman Comedy

• Characteristics of Roman Comedy
• Chorus was abandoned
• No act or scene divisions
• Concerned everyday, domestic affairs
• Action placed in the street

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Roman Comedy

• Material from only 2 playwrights survived
• Platus (c. 254-184 B.C.)
• Terence (195 or 185-159 B.C.)

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Roman Comedy

• Platus (c. 254-184 B.C.)
• Very popular.
• Plays include Pot of Gold, The Menaechmi,
  Braggart Warrior
• All based on Greek New Comedies, probably, none
  of which has survived

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Roman Comedy

• Platus (c. 254-184 B.C.)
• Added Roman allusions, Latin dialog, witty jokes
• varied poetic meters
• Developed Slapstick Songs

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Roman Comedy

• Terence (195 or 185-159 B.C.)
• Wrote only six plays, all of which survive,
  including The Brothers, Mother-in-Law
• More complex plots combined stories from Greek
  originals.

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Roman Comedy

• Terence (195 or 185-159 B.C.)
• Character and double-plots were his forte
• Less boisterous than Plautus, less episodic, more
  elegant language.
• Used Greek characters.
• Less popular than Plautus.

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Roman Theatre Design
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Roman Theatre Design

• First permanent Roman theatre built 54 A.D. (100
  years after the last surviving comedy)

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Roman Theatre Design

• General Characteristics
• Built on level ground with stadium-style seating
  (audience raised)

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Roman Theatre Design

• General Characteristics
• Stage raised to five feet
• Stages were
• large
• 20-40 ft deep
• 100-300 ft long

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Roman Theatre Design

• General Characteristics
• Theatre could seat 10-15,000 people
• dressing rooms
• in side wings
• stage was
• covered with
• a room

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Roman Theatre Design

• General Characteristics
• trap doors were common
• cooling system air blowing over streams of
  water
• awning over the audience to protect them from the
  sun

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Roman Theatre Design

• Scaena
• stage house
• joined with
• audience to
• form one
• architectural
• unit

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Roman Theatre Design

• Scaena frons
• front/façade of the stage house
• was painted and
• had columns,
• niches,
• porticoes,
• statues

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Roman Theatre Design

• Orchestra
• becomes half-circle
• was probably used for gladiators and for the
  display and killing of wild animals
• if entertainment permitted, people were sat here

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Roman Theatre Design

• Vomitoria
• corridors under the seats that lead onto the
  orchestra

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Roman Theatre Design

• Pulpitum
• the stage
• Cavea
• the auditorium

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Roman Theatre Design

• Other structures included
• Circus Maximus
• Ampitheatres

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Roman Theatre Design

• Circus Maximus
• Primarily for Chariot racing
• Permitted 12 chariots to race at once

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Roman Theatre Design

• Ampitheatres
• For gladiator contests, wild animal fights, and
  occasionally naumachia
• Had space with elevators below to bvring up
  animals, etc.

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Roman Actors

• Referred to as histriones, cantores (means
  declaimers), and mimes later primarily
  histriones
• Mostly male women were in mimes

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Roman Actors

• Mimes were considered inferior some believed
  they were slaves.
• In the 1st century B.C., a "star" performer seems
  to have been emphasized

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Roman Actors

• Style of Acting
• Mostly Greek traditions masks, doubling of
  roles
• Tragedy slow, stately,
• Comedymore rapid and conversational

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Roman Actors

• Style of Acting
• Movements likely enlarged
• Actors probably specialized in one type of drama,
  but did others
• Encores if favorite speeches given (no attempt at
  "realism")

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Roman Actors

• Style of Acting
• Mimes no masks
• Used Greek or Roman costumes
• Lots of music