Chapter 4

1. Chapter 4 Festival Theatre: Greek, Roman, and Medieval Theatre Experiences.

2. Varieties of Theatrical Experience • Since the very earliest times, some from of theatrical activity has existed, although surviving records permit us to trace it back with any certainty for only about 25 hundred years. • In the theatre, awareness of the past is important for other reasons as well. • In a book of this length, it is impossible to treat every from the theatre has taken in the past and present.

3. Festival Theatre: Greek, Roman, and Medieval Theatre Experiences. • During the first two thousand years of its existence, Western theatre was markedly different from the professional and commercial theatre that we know today and that has flourished only during the past 4 hundred years. • This type of theatre flourished in ancient Greece, Rome, and medieval Europe, although in each the difference were as important as the similarities.

4. The theatre of Ancient Greece • Theatre in the Western world can be traced back the ancient Greece, and especially to Athens, usually considered the cradle of Western civilization. • The belief in the ability of human beings to make significant decisions contrasted sharply with the beliefs of earlier societies that people are pawns of supernatural forces or all-powerful tyrants.

5. The theatre of Ancient Greece (cont’d) • Dionysus, the god in whose honor plays were presented, was the god of wine (one of the principal products of Greece) and fertility. • By the 15th century B.C Athens held 4 festivals in honor of Dionysus each year, at 3 of which theatrical performances were offered. • Our 1st record of a theatrical event in Athens is the establishment in 534 B.C of a contest for the best tragedy, a form that also originated in Athens.

6. The theatre of Ancient Greece (cont’d) • From Thespis’ name we derive the term thespian, still used reference to actors. • A satyr play was short, comic or satiric in tone, poked fun at some Greek myth using a chorus of satyr, and was presented following the tragedies. • Of the surviving tragedies, Oedipus the King by Sophocles is often considered the finest.

7. The Theatre of Dionysus • Plays were performed in the Theatre of Dionysus, on the slope of the hill just beneath the Athenian Acropolis (a fortified area including the Parthenon, the city treasury, and other buildings considered essential to the city’s survival). • Originally, the slope (without any seating) served as the theatron (“seeing place”, the origin of our word theatre). • A flat terrance below the slope served as the orchestra (dancing place), in the middle of which was placed as altar (thymele) dedicated to Dionysus.

8. The Theatre of Dionysus (cont’d) • This arrangement was gradually converted into a permanent structure. • On the side of the orchestra opposite the audience was the skene (“hurt” or “tent”, the origin of our word scene). • Once its possibilities as a background for the action were recognized, the skene was elaborated into a structure 25 to a hundred feet long and probably 2 stories high.

9. The Theatre of Dionysus (cont’d) • The space (called paradoi) at either side between the skene and the auditorium were used as entrances and exits for performers and perhaps by spectators before and after performances. • The scene house (as, later, Shapkespeare’s theatre) probably served as a formalized architectural background for all players, even those set in woods, on seashores, or outside caves.

10. The Theatre of Dionysus (cont’d) • A wheeled platform, the eccyclema. • A cranelike device, the machina. (The overuse of gods to resolve difficult dramatic situations led to any contrived ending being labeled a deus ex machina -god from the machine - ending) • Form our standpoint, one of the most remarkable things about the Theatre of Dionysus is its size.