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Greek, Roman, and Medieval Drama
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 Western drama began to
develop in the 6th century to
worship the god Dionysus,
the god of wine and fertility.
 The first theatre consisted
of a group of chanters
(the chorus) dancing around a
sacrificial goat.
 Their song was called the
tragos – where the word tragedy
comes from.
 Ceremonies honoring Dionysus evolved into contests.
 Legend states that Thespis won the first competition.
History remembers him as the first actor.
 The term “thespian” has been given to actors ever
since.
 Dramatic contests
became part of a festival
to honor Dionysus.
 These festivals lasted five
or six days.
 Each playwright
presented four plays: a
tragic trilogy (three plays
related by theme, myth,
or characters) and a satyr
(satirical, comic) play.
 The first theatres began
as circular or semicircular
areas called orchestras,
surrounded by a hillside
on which the audience
sat.
 Eventually, stone seats
and a stone building
called a skene were
added.
 The skene (origin of our word “scene”) was where they
built masks and costumes.
 Scenery was painted on the front.
 The roof was called the “god walk,” for actors playing
gods.
 The Greeks used the machina, a crane-
like hoist that allowed actors to “fly.”
 Usually characters lowered by the
machina represented gods come to
earth to solve the problems of man.
 From this comes the term “deus ex
machina,” meaning “god from the
machine.”
 This term is still used to refer to an
artificial plot device introduced by an
author late in a play to resolve
difficulties. (Examples: Unexpected
inheritance; long-lost letter, etc.)
 The chorus was a very
important part of Greek
plays.
 The chorus served to
explain the situation and
to comment on the
action.
 The chorus also
interacted with the
actors.
 The Greek chorus is alive and well in theatre and film
today!
 There are many modern examples, including:
 The Stage Manager in Our Town by Thorton Wilder
 El Gallo in the musical The Fantasticks
 The Muses in Disney’s animated Hercules
 An actual chanting Greek chorus in Woody Allen’s
Mighty Aphrodite
 The Greek tragedies, considered classics of Western
literature, involve conflicts that come from the clash
between the will of the gods and the ambitions and
desires of humanity.
 They show us how to fight fate.
 Aeschylus
 Noted for the majesty of his writing
 Writer of the only surviving Greek trilogy,
The Oresteia
 Sophocles
 Ranked with Shakespeare as one of the
great playwrights of all time
 His balance between the power of gods
and the importance of humans created
some of the strongest characters ever to
walk on a stage.
 Wrote Oedipus Rex; Antigone; etc.
 Euripides
 Emphasized human relationships and became a master
of pathos (mixture of sorrow and compassion)
 Wrote The Trojan Women; Medea; etc.
 Aristophanes
 Considered nothing sacred
 Skilled satirist
 “Old Comedy” style – wild comic fantasy
 Wrote The Frogs; The Clouds; Lysistrada
 Menander
 “Middle Comedy” style – every day life
 Wrote Dyskolos
 Primarily an imitation of Greek theatre
 Two notable comic writers were Plautus
and Terence
 Seneca, a writer of tragedies, created
“closet dramas”
 Theatres expanded into amphitheatres,
large circular arenas that were
surrounded by tiers of seats.
 Sung in Latin, the liturgical drama began as a
question-and-answer song performed by monks on
Easter.
 Saint Plays are based on the legends of saints
 Mystery Plays tell stories based on biblical history
 By the late fourteenth century, plays were largely
presented by craft guilds that traveled through the
country with pageant wagons, or stages on wheels.
 A drama about the last week of
Christ’s life is called the Passion
Play.
 Folk dramas were usually
performed outdoors during
planting time, harvest time, and
Christmas. (Ex: Robin Hood!)
 Morality Plays dealt with the
principles of right and wrong.
(Ex: Everyman, still performed
today.)
 Closet dramas
 plays meant to be read rather than acted
 Cycle
 An entire sequence of plays
 Miracle plays
 Plays based on the lives of Saints
 Mystery Plays
 Plays based on stories from the Bible
 Morality play
 Plays about the differences between right and wrong
 Skene
 Greek “scene shop” where scenery was painted; located behind the stage
 Machina
 Greek machine used to “fly” an actor playing a god
 Thespis
 The first actor, from whom the term “thespian” was derived