Theatre History 321
Greece
Lecture Four

Now let's look at Greece.

I. Origins of Greek Drama can be found in the myths of the Mycenaean and Minoan culture of 2500 - 1400 BC.

A. The Minoan Culture was formed on the island of Crete. We know from paintings and sculpture that they have left to us that they valued acrobatics and mime highly. Indeed the Bull dancers of Crete were world renowned to the ancients. -site-

B. Mycenaean culture flourished on the mainland of Greece from 1600 - 1100 BC. Again, little is known about them. The Dorian invasion of 1100 BC ended their civilizations. What is significant is the mythology of these cultures, their heroes, and the epics which arose from Mycenaean conquest of the Trojans 1184 - 1174 BC became the property of the Greeks who followed on.

II. Greek culture was an amalgam of the Minoans, Mycenaean's, and Dorians. The Greeks began to leave written accounts of themselves sometime after 700 BC. (Refer to the Map) The Dorian conquerors eventually migrated to southern Greece, where they founded the city states of Sparta and Corinth. The Ionian states, descendants primarily of the Mycenaean's, are the city states of Thebes, Athens, and the cities of Asia Minor. It is the Ionian states that are the primary movers of ancient Greek drama.

A. First a word about the way Greek Culture was organized. The Greeks were originally ruled by Kings. These gave way to an increasingly powerful aristocracy, approximately 800 BC. This aristocracy shared certain rights with tradesmen and landowners, those rights being the right to cast a vote in the major affairs of the city-state and the right to trial. As the aristocracy became more fragmented in their individual aims, the more shrewd among them began to manipulate the vote by pandering to the lesser citizens, the landed gentry and tradesmen. These aristocrats rose to prominence through vote manipulation, and "ruled" the city states from 650 BC to 500 BC.

1. These were the Tyrants, from the word Tyro, or powerful. The most famous of these was Peisistratus, who ruled Athens from 560 - 510 BC., and to our purposes, was the tyrant who established the City Dionysia as one of the primary festivals of the Greek calendar.

2. Tyranic rule began to come unraveled after the rule of Peisistratus, and in 508 BC the Athenian Democracy was created. This marked the emergence of the Greek Drama as a truly significant institution. Drama had been practiced in numerous forms since the 700s. Berkeley Site

III. Okay. Greek drama was performed at first in several forms.

A. Satyr Play -- Pratinas invents the form sometime between 534 and 500 BC. We only have one complete example, Cyclops by Euripides. -site-

1. Play takes its name from the chorus, who imitate the half human, half beast companions of Dionysius. The leader of the chorus is Silenus, father of the Satyrs.

a) Sometimes the theme connected it to the Tragedy being performed, but most times not. Essentially a burlesque treatment of mythology.

b) Action resembles tragedy in that it is broken up by choral odes. But the overall play is marked by slapstick, indecent language and gesture, and vigorous dancing, all in a rural setting, and making fun of the Gods and heroes.

2. Served as afterpieces to the tragedies as a kind of comic relief.

3. In satyr plays the actors wore goat skin loin clothes with horse tails attached in the rear and phallus in front. Silenus the leader wears the animal skin cloak (buskin). All other costumes are exaggerated forms of tragic costume.

a) The chorus was dominant in early tragedy. The chorus fulfills six roles in the play

(1) An agent of the author. it offers advice, asks questions, expresses opinions

(2) It may set up the moral and ethical standard against which the actions of the protagonists are measured.

(3) It acts as the ideal spectator, and in this might cue the audience.

(4) It sets the overall mood of the play, and can heighten the dramatic intensity.

(5) It adds spectacle, movement, song and dance

(6) It serves a rhythmical function internal to the play, allowing pauses in the action in which the audience may reflect upon events or to build suspense for what is to come

B. Mime in ancient Greece included the players of Buffo, -modern site- or vulgar entertainment, such as juggling, acrobatics, singing, and mimetic dance. They were the performers who traveled about in their little carts, performing wherever they could draw an audience sans the police. Greek mime is not a couple of people in white face trying to get out of an imaginary box. That's modern mime. Greek mime was much more like interpretive dance.

1. The mime was the first to include females in their acting troupes.

2. The first record of mime is in Megara around 550 B.C. Most popular in the colonies, particularly in Sicily and southern Italy. Spread throughout the civilized world by 300 BC.

3. School of literary mime in 250 BC. both at Alexandria and in Sicily. 8 playlets by Herodas survive, subtle plays dealing with everyday life. -site- The Third Mime

From The Third Mime by Herodas [A mother, Metrotimé, brings her truant son Cottalos to his schoolmaster Lampriscos to receive a flogging.] Metrotimé. "Flog him Lampriscos, across the shoulders, till his wicked soul is all but out of him. He's spent my all in playing odd and even; knuckle bones are nothing to him. Why, he hardly knows the door of the Letter School. And yet the thirtieth comes round and I must pay---tears no excuse."

4. In Sicily they are called phlyakes. The most noted writer of these mimes was Rhinthon of Terentum.

5. Costume like Comedy, their subjects like those of the Satyr play. The burlesques of tragedy were called hilarotragodai, hence the word hilarious.

6. Stages were high off the ground and connected to an orchestra, (dancing space) by wooden steps. Used pinakes, and often a "playing wagon"

7. This form had a great impact on the Romans

IV. These forms were added to an increasingly popular form which became the drama. This is the recitation of epic poetry. Think The Iliad by Homer; that's the type of epic poetry we're talking about.

The Greeks were highly competitive people. Athletics were popular, but they even gave prizes to the best public speaker or the bravest warrior - remember that Socrates won this honor?

So it shouldn't come as any surprise that the Greeks had competitions in Epic Poetry recitation. In an effort to win the prize, some poets added a chorus of people to give some drama and color to the story. Soon an actor stepped out to enact the story with the help of the chorus. This is the first actor we have a record of in Greece. His name was Thespis. Hence all actors today are called Thespians.

The plays soon became organized into festivals.

V. The City Festivals, and elements of Production

A. Five major festivals in the Ionian cities, four of which concern us: City Dionysia, Rural Dionysia, Lenaea, Thargelia. These are primarily tied in with Athens (refer to the map).

B. Prior to 442 BC City Dionysia is the only festival where plays are produced. Hearken back to the date 534 BC and the establishment by Peisistratus of the festival as the official festival of Athens.

1. They are held each year at end of March

2. Civil and religious in nature, they are open to entire Greek World

3. They were administered by the Archon Eponymous

a) The archon provided and paid for the chorus, traditionally 50 in number, then reduced to 12 during the career of Aeschylus, and finally fixed at 15 in the 450's BC

b) The archon also provided prize money, split between the playwright and the patron underwriting production costs, the Choregus, and his fellow supporters, the choregoi.

c) The archon also administered, and with the city paid for, the accompanying revels.

C. In 486 the number of actors allowed each playwright was fixed at three for Tragedy, five or more for Comedy. Supernumeries and minor characters were not counted.

1. In 449 the leading actors were chosen by lot, so that the contest should be fair.

2. The actors were originally citizens of the polis or city state. All the actors were paid by the state for the festival.

3. The principle actor could compete for a prize, even if he was not in the prize winning play

4. The plays required three kinds of delivery; speech, recitative, and song. Emphasis was placed on the voice of the actor, rather than his "acting." They were judged according to beauty of tone and ability to evoke mood and character.

D. Greek actors were always masked, so facial expression was not important. There were portrait masks which covered head, and contained a megaphone so the actor could be heard, and ridiculous masks like bald or big nosed old men, or bird and insect masks.

1. Costume. Aside from the mask, the tragic actor usually wore a sleeved, highly decorated tunic (chiton) of full length. In Euripides Alcestes Death is robed in black. The actor might also wear a short cloak (chlamys) or a long one (himation). Footwear was often a soft leather boot (cothornus). Costume could often be fantastic, as in the Eumenides, when it was said the appearance of the Furies caused several pregnant women to miscarry in fright.Two of the Furies -site-

a) Gesture was simple and broad for tragedy, prosaic for comedy. Stylization of acting became increasingly apparent as the century wore on.

E. The Choregus supplied the money for props, scenery, and costume, underwrote the training of the chorus, and paid the musicians. He could also underwrite a second chorus if the play called for that.

F. The playwright provided the plays and acted as the director, as indicated by his "title" didaskalos (teacher). Often times the playwright acted in the play as well, at least until professional actors began to appear in the 480's. By 449 the separation of playwright and actor was complete.

G. In comedy all of the elements are exaggerated, either making them too tight in order to emphasize comic nudity, or too loose to emphasize old age. Flesh colored tights were padded to add to the comic effect. Male characters, but not the chorus, wore the phallus.

H. The training of the chorus took place over 11 months, and could be arduous, including exercise, diet, and long rehearsal. They were sometimes pampered and given special civic dispensations to counter balance their regimen.

1. The dance and music of the performers was very rhythmic and probably resembled Oriental more than Western. Music was thought to possess ethical qualities, so that there developed "modes" paralleling the action and character of the play. There were also gestures (cheironomia) symbolizing certain actions or morals that were included in the dance.

2. The tragic dances were the emmeleia, the comic the kordax, the satyr the sikinnis.

3. The musical instruments were flute, percussion, lyre, and trumpet, with the flute predominating.

VI. Originally the plays were performed in the sacred precincts of the Gods. The earliest known area of performance is rectangular in nature, found in the Minoan ruins in Crete. By the fifth century theatres were primarily circular in nature.

A. Again taking the city Dionysia (site) as our model, the central playing space was the orchestra (dancing place), 66 feet in diameter. The orchestra was located in a natural bowl of a hill, upon which the spectators stood and looked down upon the action (seats were later added in tiers). The altar to Bacchus, the thymele, was place in the center of the orchestra.

B. The skene, or scene building, is of a later date but certainly in place by the 480's. By 440 a low terrace was added to the front of the skene, jutting out into the orchestra. The skene served the purposes of most, but not all plays, as they were typically set in front of a temple or city building. However, spectacle was important to the Greeks. Scene painting originated sometime around 468 BC, but before that props could be added in the forms of young saplings cut to represent a forest, or a pile of earth and stone so situation against the face of the skene that it could be tipped for the earthquake effect in the play Prometheus. (-image- Bacchus by Michelangelo - right)

C. With the appearance of scene painting we have two conventions, the pinakes (flats) and the periaktoi, triangular prisms which could be spun to reveal different aspects of the scenery on their surfaces. In addition we have several stage machines. The ekkyklema were platforms that could be rolled on-stage, and were used to reveal tableaux, such as the death of heroes which occurred off stage. (Violence in theatre Ajax). The mechane was a crane used to "fly" characters in and out of a scene. The rest, the stage properties, were never numerous but always important.

VII. Play Structure, touching on those subjects we'll discuss on Monday.

A. Tragedy

1. Most begins with prologue offering exposition. Events prior to

2. Next the parodos, the entrance of the chorus. If there is no prologue, the parodos begins the play. Introduce chorus, set mood, and can give exposition.

3. Episodes follow, 3 to 6 in number, interspersed with choral songs (stasima). These develop the action, which for the most part is continuous in time (little telescoping of time and events). Exceptions to this rule.

4. Finally Exodus, the concluding scene, which includes the exit of characters and chorus.

5. Frequent use of messengers for discovery and exposition.

6. most tragedies occur in a single place (little telescoping here)

7. Subjects mostly on myth or history (true of all extant plays) though we know that Agathon - site- in the 420's invented his own story lines independent of myth and history.

8. Events and character traits limited.

VIII. Oldest surviving plays by Aeschylus (523 - 456) 80 titles are known, but 8 survive. The Persians, Seven Against Thebes, the Oresteia made up of Agememnon libation Bearers and Eumenides, the suppliants, and Promethues Bound.

A. Primarily interested in philosophical and religious themes, he tackles subjects of cosmic relevance. The nature of justice is spanned in three plays (the Oresteia). - site - (image right - Agememnon)

B. His characters have few but powerful traits that are entirely appropriate to the subject. For instance, his Orestes seems a bit of a prig, but his draconian character in harmony with the action which dissects and develops the nature of justice.

C. He relies heavily on spectacle

IX. Sophocles (496 - 406) thought to have written 120 plays, of which 7 are extant Ajax, Antigone, Oedipus Rex, Electra, Trachiniae, Philoctetes, and Oedipus at Colonus. Most of The Trackers, a satyr play, is also extant.

A. Characters complex and psychologically motivated, Sophocles places more emphasis on the individual

B. downplays role of chorus

C. Protagonists subjected to great crisis, which lead to suffering and through suffering to a perception of eternal laws, and to self-recognition.

D. Most skillful in dramatic structure, Oedipus Rex often called the perfect Greek Play. Exposition well motivated, suspense builds through episodes to the climax, action clear and logical throughout.

X. Euripides (480-406) wrote 90 plays, 18 survived. Alcestis, Medea, Hippolytus, Children of Heracles, Andromache, Hecuba, Heracles, The Suppliants, Ion, The Trojan Women, Helen, The Phoenician Women, Orestes, the Bacchae, Cyclops, Iphigenia in Aulus, Iphigenia in Tauris.

A. Questions traditional values, and introduces characters thought not suitable to tragedy, most popular for modern audiences. Medea's murder of her children, Phaedra's incestual love for stepson, Pasiphae's love for a bull.

B. Questions Gods, represents humans as more interested in morally and justice than the Gods, Fate and chance rule the world.

C. Thought the most important element in his plays. All else takes back seat (exposition, character) though his handling of character is fascinating.

D. His techniques carried on in next century. (image - Oedipus)